Get started with Chatlane
Set up your inbox and receive your first message
This guide walks you through setting up your first inbox, adding a channel so customers can reach you, attaching an AI agent, and receiving your first message. By the end, you'll be ready to reply to customers from one place.
What Chatlane is for
Chatlane is one place to handle customer conversations from email, SMS, WhatsApp, phone, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct Messages, and a Website Chat Widget you can embed on your own site. All of these are first-class channels — you can run any combination of them through one shared inbox. You work in teams and inboxes. Each inbox can have multiple channels (e.g. an email address, a phone number, a connected Instagram account, an embedded chat widget) and AI agents that help with replies and internal notes. Whether you're a founder setting up support or a manager onboarding a team, this guide gets you from zero to your first conversation.
Create your first inbox
- Go to your Dashboard (the main screen after you sign in).
- Click to create a new inbox.
- Choose the inbox type:
- Standard inbox — Conversations are grouped by customer. Use this when you care about "everything from this contact."
- Entity inbox — Conversations are grouped by a business record (e.g. order, ticket, project). Use this when you care about "everything about this order or ticket." You'll link it to a custom entity type your team has defined.
- Give the inbox a name (e.g. "Support" or "Sales").
- Set default behaviour if offered (e.g. how new conversations are marked—active, pending, or closed).
Your inbox is created. Next, add at least one channel so customers can reach you.
Add a channel
A channel is one way customers can contact you—one email address, one phone number, one connected account (e.g. Gmail, Facebook Page, Instagram Business Account), or a chat widget embedded on your website.
- Open Inbox Settings for the inbox you created (e.g. from the inbox menu or your dashboard).
- Go to the Channels section.
- Click to add a channel.
- Choose the channel type: Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Phone call, Facebook, Instagram, or Website Chat Widget.
- Follow the setup steps for that type:
- Email — You can connect via a provider (e.g. SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES, or your own SMTP) or sign in with Gmail or Outlook. For Gmail/Outlook, you'll also set up email forwarding so messages land in Chatlane.
- SMS / WhatsApp — You'll add a phone number (or messaging service) through Twilio and choose SMS or WhatsApp. WhatsApp can also be connected via WhatsApp (Meta Cloud) using Embedded Signup.
- Phone call — Add a number and choose what happens when someone calls (voicemail or forward to another number). You can also make outbound calls from the conversation view in your browser.
- Facebook — Sign in with Facebook and connect a Facebook Page; Messenger messages flow in automatically via webhooks.
- Instagram — Sign in with Facebook and connect an Instagram Business Account (it must be linked to a Facebook Page); Direct Messages flow into the inbox in real time.
- Website Chat Widget — Configure the widget name, intro message, and whether visitors need to identify themselves. You'll get a one-line embed snippet to paste into your site's
<head>. Optionally attach an AI agent to handle messages from the widget.
You can add one channel of each type per inbox. After you save, Chatlane shows you the inbound address, number, or embed snippet for that channel—that's how customers (or you, for a test) reach the inbox. For more detail on each channel type, see Connect your channels: email, SMS, WhatsApp, phone, Facebook, and Instagram and Add a Website Chat Widget to your site.
Add and configure an AI agent
An AI agent can suggest draft replies, add internal notes, or send messages. You create or pick an agent, then attach it to this inbox.
- Go to Agents (from your team sidebar or dashboard) and create a new agent or choose an existing one. Give it a name and instructions (e.g. "You are a friendly support agent. Summarise the conversation in one paragraph.").
- Open Inbox Settings for your inbox and go to the Agents tab.
- Attach the agent to this inbox.
- Configure what the agent does for this inbox:
- Action — Does it suggest a draft reply, add an internal note, or send a message directly? Most teams start with "draft" so someone can review before sending.
- Auto-trigger — Should it run automatically when a new message arrives? Turn this on if you want the agent to respond to every new message (after any delay you set).
- Response delay — If the agent runs automatically, you can add a short delay (in seconds) so the agent doesn't reply before the customer has finished typing (useful for chat-style channels like WhatsApp).
You can attach more than one agent to an inbox and set different actions or triggers. For deeper options (e.g. giving the agent a knowledge base or actions like updating status or tags), see Give your AI agent a knowledge base and Let your AI agent take action.
Receive your first message
- In Inbox Settings, find the Channels section and note the inbound address or number for the channel you added (e.g. an email address or phone number).
- Send a test message to that address, number, or widget:
- Email — Send an email from your personal or work account to the inbound address.
- SMS / WhatsApp — Send a text or WhatsApp message to the number shown.
- Facebook / Instagram — Send a message to the connected Page or Instagram account from a different account.
- Website Chat Widget — Open the page where you embedded the widget and send a message through the chat bubble.
- Open your inbox (the main inbox view). You should see a new conversation with your test message.
- If you turned on auto-trigger for an agent, the agent may already have added a draft reply or internal note. You can edit the draft and send it, or add your own reply or note.
- Reply to the conversation as you normally would (type your message, choose the channel if needed, and send). The reply goes out from the channel you configured (e.g. your connected email or phone number).
Congratulations—you've received and replied to your first message in Chatlane.
What to do next
- Browse conversations — Use the inbox view to filter by status, assignee, or tags, and to search.
- Trigger the agent manually — In a conversation, use the agent trigger button (e.g. "Generate draft" or "Summarise") to run the agent on demand.
- Adjust settings — Revisit Inbox Settings to add more channels, change agent behaviour, or configure notifications and behaviour after you send (e.g. "Send & Next" to jump to the next conversation).
For more detail on specific topics:
- Connect your channels: email, SMS, WhatsApp, phone, Facebook, and Instagram — How to set up each channel type.
- Add a Website Chat Widget to your site — How to embed the chat widget and configure it for human-only or AI-handled conversations.
- Choose the right inbox type: standard or by order, ticket, or custom record — When and how to use entity inboxes.
- Let your AI agent take action — How agents can update status, tags, contacts, or send data to your CRM or other tools.
- Give your AI agent a knowledge base — How to upload files and use message attachments so the agent answers from your content.
Need a hand getting set up, or want to walk through your use case before rolling Chatlane out to a team? Book a quick call at https://calendly.com/chatlane-io/demo and we'll go through it with you.