The Act On It Message Inbox is a persistent, actionable notification hub that brings important Salesforce alerts together in one place. Unlike standard Salesforce notifications, Act On It enables users to manage and respond to notifications directly from their inbox.

Users can review incoming alerts, take action on Salesforce records, snooze messages for later, and close notifications once they've been dealt with, all without interrupting their current workflow.

The Message Inbox sits within the Salesforce Lightning utility bar, making it accessible throughout the app so users can stay informed and respond to important events as they happen.

Adding the Message Inbox to a Lightning App

To make the Act On It Message Inbox available to users, it must first be added to the utility bar of each Salesforce Lightning app where notifications are required.

Follow these steps:

1. In Salesforce, navigate to Setup > Apps > App Manager.
2. Find the Lightning app you want to configure and select Edit from its dropdown menu.
3. In the Lightning App Builder, select Utility Items (Desktop Only).
4. Click Add Utility Item.
5. Search for and select ActOnItMessageInbox.
6. Configure the utility item settings using the guidance below.
7. Click Save to apply your changes.

Configuring the Message Inbox

Once added, the Message Inbox can be customised to control how notifications are displayed and managed.

Settings	Description
Start automatically	Important! - Loads the Message Inbox as soon as the Salesforce app opens, enabling it to receive notifications without requiring users to open it manually. This setting must be enabled.
Open on Page Load	Automatically opens the Message Inbox when users access the app if they have new messages.
Message Limit	Controls how many messages are initially displayed before users need to select Show More.
Allow Hide All	Enables users to close all currently visible messages in a single action.
Enable Mute Messages	Allows users to activate Quiet Mode to temporarily mute inbox notifications when they don't want to be interrupted.
Recycle Bin Retention Period	Specifies how many days closed messages remain available in the Recycle Bin before they are removed.
Show Status	Allows users to set their availability to Available or Unavailable.

Important: Start Automatically Must Be Enabled

⚠️ Always enable Start Automatically when adding the Act On It Message Inbox to a Lightning app.

This setting ensures the Message Inbox initialises in the background whenever the app is opened, allowing Act On It to receive and display notifications even when the inbox is not actively open.

If Start Automatically is disabled, Salesforce will only initialise the Message Inbox when a user manually opens it from the utility bar. As a result, users may miss real-time notifications.

Note: Start Automatically and Open on Page Load serve different purposes. Start Automatically controls whether the inbox loads in the background, while Open on Page Load controls whether the inbox panel opens automatically for the user.

Prerequisites

The Salesforce Lightning app must have a utility bar configured before the Message Inbox can be added.

If your app doesn't already have one, refer to Salesforce's Add a Utility Bar to Lightning Apps documentation.

Once configured, the Act On It Message Inbox will be available from the utility bar whenever users access the Lightning app.