How to share and collaborate on drafts

Shared drafts in Front allow teammates to easily collaborate and get feedback on a message prior to sending. Instead of writing a draft on your own or needing to forward a copy of the draft for feedback, shared drafts enable you to edit a draft together and consolidate feedback in a clean, collaborative way. You can even use comments to have a discussion about the draft as you're collaborating.

Drafts in shared inbox conversations are automatically shared with all teammates who have access to the inbox.

Step 1

Click the Reply button in an existing thread.

Step 2

Your draft will be automatically shared with everyone who has access to the inbox, but they will not be notified of the draft. You will see a gray banner above your draft explaining who can view it. 

Step 3

Once shared, you can also @mention a teammate in the conversation to direct their attention to the draft, which also makes them a participant. If you mention a teammate, the conversation will appear in their Shared with me section for review.

Any teammates with access to the inbox will be able to see the draft, even if you did not explicitly invite them or mention them to the draft.

Drafts in shared conversations in individual inboxes are automatically shared with all teammates who have access to the conversation.

Step 1

Click the Reply button in an existing shared conversation thread.

Step 2

Your draft will be automatically shared with all participants in the conversation. You will see a gray banner above your draft explaining who can view it.

The conversation will appear in your teammates’ Shared with me section, but they will not be notified of the draft unless they are @mentioned in a comment.

Step 3

When your draft is ready for review, @mention your teammates in a comment to notify them and start collaborating.

Drafts in private conversations in individual inboxes are only visible to you unless you share the conversation with teammates.

Step 1

Click the Compose button at the top left to compose a new message, or click the Reply button in an existing thread.

Step 2

Write your draft in the composer. When you’re ready to collaborate, click Share draft at the top of the composer. Select the teammates who need access, add a comment if needed, then click Add.

Step 3

Your comment will display above the draft and will notify your teammates. The conversation will appear in their Shared with me sections for review.

Step 1

When another teammate is editing a shared draft, the gray banner will show who is editing and when they last made changes to the draft.

Step 2

To take over the draft, click Take over at the top right of the gray banner. You will see a confirmation screen asking whether you want to proceed with editing the draft. Only one teammate can edit a draft at a time. 

Step 3

Make your edits to the draft, and your teammates will be able to see the edits in real-time on their screens as you're typing.

Step 4

To pass the draft back, simply @mention your teammate and let them know you're done editing. They can then click Take over on their screen and take the draft over.

Once you start a draft, it is automatically shared and visible to anyone who has access to the shared inbox or shared conversation. Additionally, whomever you explicitly invite to the draft or are already participants in the conversation will see the draft.

When working on a draft, the conversation automatically switches to the signature of the person who is currently editing the draft. This allows for another person to send an email to someone even if they did not originally compose the message.

You will find both your personal drafts and any shared drafts in your Drafts folder, differentiated in your drafts list by the labels Draft or Shared draft. The Shared drafts will be any drafts that were specifically shared with you, rather than drafts shared within a general shared inbox that all teammates with access are able to view.

No. By default, drafts will be shared in all shared inboxes and shared conversations to make collaboration easy and efficient.