Smart inbox triage

Requirements describe capabilities the pattern needs in your environment, not the vendors you must buy. Any system that fills a requirement satisfies it — that’s what makes the catalog portable across the long tail of SMB tooling.

1. shared_inbox_source

   REQUIREDREADevent

   The inbox or alias being triaged. The pattern reads from here and acts on each new message.

   DATA SHAPE

   Email-style messages: sender, recipient list, subject, body, attachments, timestamp.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • shared mailbox for info@, support@, hello@
   • distribution list that forwards to multiple people
   • alias inbox in a business email system
2. routing_taxonomy

   REQUIREDREADcorpus

   The categorization the pattern uses to decide where each message goes. Specific to the client, refined over time.

   DATA SHAPE

   Categories with descriptions, routing destinations per category, sample messages exemplifying each category.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • configuration file maintained by the engagement team and updated quarterly
   • small admin UI inside the pattern
   • internal wiki page listing the categories
3. routing_destinations

   REQUIREDWRITEevent

   The various places routed messages land. Different category, different destination.

   DATA SHAPE

   Messages routed with their classification, summary, suggested owner. Destination format varies by type.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • ticket queues in the helpdesk
   • channels in team chat
   • individual mailboxes with internal tags
   • tasks in the project management system
4. sender_context_lookup

   RECOMMENDEDREADrequest

   If the sender is a known customer, partner, or contact, fetch their context so routing and summary can reflect it.

   DATA SHAPE

   Sender records with relationship type, recent activity, any active flags.
   IF MISSING

   Routing accuracy drops about 20% for known senders whose context would have changed the destination (e.g. a VIP customer's inquiry routed as generic).
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • CRM lookup by email address
   • customer database with relationship data
   • vendor or partner directory
5. misroute_feedback_loop

   RECOMMENDEDWRITEevent

   How recipients flag that a message was misrouted. Without this, the pattern drifts and no one can tune it.

   DATA SHAPE

   Reports of misroutes: message ID, where it went, where it should have gone, optional reason.
   IF MISSING

   Misroutes accumulate silently. Strongly recommend even a lightweight flag mechanism.
   COMMONLY FILLED BY

   • thumbs-down button on the routed message summary
   • a designated mailbox to forward misroutes to
   • a Slack reaction the team uses to flag bad routing