Getting Started with Your Inbox
The Inbox is your central hub for managing client conversations across all your Business Manager accounts. Here's how to navigate it.
Once your Upwork API key is connected, click Inbox in the main navigation.
You will see all active Business Manager accounts and a list of chats.
Understanding Account Status
Go to Inbox → All Accounts to see a full list of your Business Manager accounts. Each Business Manager (BM) has an indicator showing whether they can send and receive messages:
🟢 Green — the Business Manager is active and working correctly
⚪ Grey / not green — the Business Manager has an issue and needs to be replaced. Please contact our support team and we'll take care of it for you.
Filtering Your Chats
You can control which conversations you see:
Select All Accounts to view every chat across all your Business Managers at once
Or select specific accounts to focus only on the chats that matter to you right now
The chat room list
Each chat room displays the client name, room title, and an unread message count. If a client doesn't have a profile picture, a colored placeholder avatar is shown instead. If you have no active chats yet, you'll see an empty state screen.
Opening a conversation
Click any chat room to open it - the selected room highlights with a colored left border so you always know where you are.
If a chat has unread messages, a badge on the right shows the count.
Inside a conversation, you'll see:
The job post name at the top
The scanner name below it (e.g. Back-end Development) - click it to open the scanner and view or edit the submitted bid
The Business Manager who sent the original bid
Quick action buttons (top-right corner of the conversation):
Chat icon → opens the conversation directly on Upwork
Arrow icon → opens the original job posting on Upwork
Updating lead status
You can update the status of a lead at any point based on where the conversation stands. Available statuses:
New · Contact Later · Interested · Booked · Happened · Qualified · Unreachable · Not Interested · Wrong Target · Already Equipped
