What is Connect
Connect is two things in one app: a transactional dashboard for emails sent via the Brixus365 Dev API (delivery rate, opens, clicks, audit log) and a conversation inbox for two-way customer messaging on WhatsApp (and later SMS) backed by a CRM contact list and team SLA rules. The transactional half is always there once you’ve verified a domain. The inbox half lights up when you connect a WhatsApp Business number through Settings → Connect → WhatsApp.
The two halves
Connect’s left sidebar tells the story: Dashboard → Templates → Transactional → Analytics are always visible; Inbox and Contacts appear only when WhatsApp is connected. Same chrome, two distinct user-flows:
| Half | What it does | Who uses it | Always-on? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactional dashboard | Observe every email your code sent through POST /v1/emails. Volume, delivery, bounces, opens, clicks, per-template performance, per-message audit trail. | Devs and ops who care about deliverability of automated email | Yes — once you have a verified sending domain |
| Conversation inbox | Two-way customer conversations on WhatsApp (SMS coming). Three-pane inbox (conversations / thread / contact), assignment, labels, canned replies, SLA rules. | Customer-support agents, ops, customer-success teams | No — lights up after you connect a WhatsApp Business number |
Why one app for both? Because the contact who replies on WhatsApp is often the same contact who got your password-reset email. When you enable the inbox half, Connect’s CRM contact list shares storage with Brixus365’s recipients — so each contact carries their conversation history and their email-engagement history.
A note on scope: Connect’s transactional dashboard observes Dev API sends specifically. Spark campaign analytics live in Spark; Workflow analytics live on the workflow detail page. Each surface owns its own send observability today.
The transactional dashboard
Four pages, all reading from your Dev-API send log:
- Dashboard. The home screen. Transactional email overview for the last 30 days. Four stat cards (Total Sent, Delivery Rate, Bounce Rate, Complaint Rate) plus three charts (send volume over time, the funnel, hourly send pattern). At a glance: is everything healthy?
- Send History. The row-level log. Every email you sent, with recipient, subject, template name, status, timestamp, opens count, and clicks count. Filter by status. Click any row to open the audit-trail drawer with the full event timeline (queued → sent → delivered → opened → clicked, plus bounced or complained if applicable).
- Transact Analytics. Aggregate performance. Six stat cards (sent, delivery, open, click, bounce, complaint), the same three charts as the Dashboard, plus a per-template performance table. Click a template to drill into its 30-day daily breakdown.
- Per-template detail. 30-day daily breakdown for one template — sent, delivered, failed, opened, clicked.
All four read live data from the moment the Dev API queues a send. The 30-day window is fixed for now — custom date ranges are on the roadmap.
The conversation inbox (with WhatsApp)
Three pages, all gated by WhatsApp enablement:
- Inbox. The customer-support workhorse. Three panes: the conversation list on the left (filter by open / resolved, by assignee, by channel, search), the message thread in the centre (with the reply composer + canned-response shortcuts + typing indicators), and the contact panel on the right (contact details + their other conversations + labels). SLA badges on each conversation. Real-time updates.
- Contacts. The CRM list. Every contact who has reached out via the inbox. Click a contact to see their full conversation history.
- Templates. Connect’s templates page. Transactional email templates and WhatsApp message templates, in tabs. Same visual editor as Spark templates. WhatsApp templates carry the extra Meta-required metadata (category, language).
When the inbox half is enabled, the Analytics page in Connect grows a tab — Inbox SLA — that shows response-time targets, SLA compliance, agent performance, and at-risk conversations.
How to enable the inbox half
If you don’t see the Inbox or Contacts items in the sidebar, the inbox half is disabled. Three steps to turn it on:
- Open Settings → Connect → WhatsApp.
- Click Get started with WhatsApp — it opens a Meta sign-in popup (your Facebook Business account).
- Complete the WhatsApp Business sign-up flow: pick or add a phone number, agree to the policies, return.
Once the sign-up succeeds, the Inbox and Contacts items appear in the sidebar and the Dashboard’s Inbox stats panel turns on. (Direct-URL access to /apps/connect/inbox before this shows a Connect Not Enabled card.)
Six Settings → Connect pages tune the inbox once it’s enabled: Canned Responses (quick-reply snippets), Labels (colour-coded conversation tags), WhatsApp (Business Account config), SLA (response-time targets + business hours), Automation (auto-assign / auto-label / auto-resolve rules), Account Status (read-only inbox status).
What’s coming
- SMS inbox. WhatsApp is live; SMS as a Connect channel is on the roadmap.
- Unified send feed. Today the transactional dashboard shows only Dev API sends. Spark campaigns and Workflow sends live in their own analytics. A single feed combining all three is on the roadmap.
- Date-range pickers. The 30-day window on the Dashboard and Transact Analytics is fixed today. Custom date ranges are coming.
- More channels. WhatsApp + SMS are the start; richer messaging channels follow.
What’s next
| You want to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Send your first transactional email from code | Quickstart |
| See your sent emails and dig into delivery health | Send history |
| Manage WhatsApp conversations | (Coming — Connect Inbox basics) |
| Send a one-shot marketing campaign instead | Send your first email campaign |
| Build an event-triggered automation | What is Workflows |
Two halves of one customer story: the email you sent, and the conversation that followed.
Free tier: 9,000 emails a month. Inbox lights up when you connect WhatsApp.