Chatter — discussions on emails, and emails in record chatter

MailDesk connects email to Odoo's discussion tools (the chatter) in two directions:

MailDesk connects email to Odoo's discussion tools (the chatter) in two directions:

• An internal discussion on an email — your team can leave notes, @mention colleagues, and schedule activities about a specific email, none of which the original sender ever sees. Available in: Chatter integration.
• Linked emails inside a record's chatter — emails you have linked to a lead, ticket, order, or other record appear in that record's own chatter, mixed in with the native Odoo messages. Available in: Pro.

This page covers both. They are separate features delivered by different modules, so the Available in line on each section is what matters.

Part 1 — Internal discussion on an email

What it does

Chatter Integration gives every email its own internal discussion thread. Open an email, start a discussion, and you get the full Odoo chatter experience attached to that one email: internal notes, @mentions with the usual notifications, scheduled activities (calls, meetings, to-dos), and followers. The discussion is internal — it is never sent to the person who emailed you.

Why it matters

• Coordinate internally about an email — assign a follow-up, ask a colleague for input, leave context for the next shift — without leaving MailDesk and without the customer seeing any of it.
• The discussion lives next to the email it is about, so the context is never lost.
• It is the real Odoo chatter, so @mentions, activities, and notifications work exactly the way they do everywhere else in Odoo.

Requirements

• MailDesk Pro installed and a mailbox connected.
• The Chatter Integration module installed.
• The mailbox must have Chatter switched on (see the steps below).
• MailDesk runs on Odoo 17, 18, or 19 — the steps are the same on each.

Permissions required

• Only users with access to the mailbox can see or post in a discussion. Discussions are scoped to the mailbox's users (and the discussion's own followers and assigned-activity users).

• Turning Chatter on for a mailbox and choosing what is shown is an administrator task.

Steps — enable Chatter on a mailbox (administrator)

1. Go to Settings → MailDesk → Mailbox Accounts and open the mailbox.

2. Find the Internal Collaboration & Chatter card and switch Enable on.

3. Choose what is shown:

   • Show Discussion Button — shows the discussion button on the email detail view.
   • Show Notes Badge — shows a note-count badge in the email list.
   • Log Sent Replies — logs replies you send from MailDesk into the email's discussion (only when a discussion already exists for that email).
4. Save.

Steps — use the discussion (any mailbox user)

1. Open any email in MailDesk.

2. Click the discussion button in the email's side panel. The first click on an email creates the discussion for that email; after that the same button opens and closes the discussion panel.

3. In the panel (titled Discussion), post a note, @mention a colleague, or schedule an activity — the full Odoo chatter.

4. The next person to open this email sees the discussion.

Expected result

The email shows a discussion button; once a discussion exists, the email list can show a small note-count badge, and anyone with access to the mailbox sees the same discussion when they open the email.

Troubleshooting — internal discussion

Part 2 — Linked emails inside a record's chatter

Available in: Pro.

What it does

When you link an email to an Odoo record — a lead, ticket, order, event, or any other chatter-enabled record — the linked emails appear inside that record's own chatter, blended in with the record's native Odoo messages and sorted by date. So a teammate opening the lead or ticket sees the relevant email correspondence right there, without switching to MailDesk.

Why it matters

• The full picture of a customer relationship — Odoo notes and the actual emails — lives on the record.
• No copy-paste: the email content is shown in place, and you can jump back to it in MailDesk.

Requirements

• MailDesk Pro installed.
• At least one email linked to the record (with Pro alone, via the Link to Record action — see Link an email to an Odoo record).
• Access to the record and to the mailbox the email belongs to.

Permissions required

• You only see linked emails for mailboxes you already have access to. Standard Odoo access rules on the record still apply — there is no special elevation.

Steps

1. Open the Odoo record (the lead, ticket, order, event, or other record) that has linked emails.
2. Scroll to its chatter at the bottom (or side) of the form.
3. Linked MailDesk emails appear among the chatter messages, in date order.
4. To open a linked email in MailDesk, use its Open in MailDesk action.

Expected result

The record's chatter shows the linked emails together with the record's own notes and messages, newest first.

Troubleshooting — linked emails in a record

Available in

Related

• Link an email to an Odoo record
• Composing and sending
• Permissions & data access
• Licensing & tiers