Use direct messages to talk with a client contact without leaving Watson. Both your team and the client find these in the Inbox, under Direct Messages.
Send a message
- Open the Inbox and select New Message.
- Choose the person to message.
- Write your message and send it.
You can message a client contact once you already work together, such as when you share a project, share a contact, or your agency has a relationship with their company. The client replies from their own Portal Inbox.
Review Primary Contact recipients
In a client’s Overview, select Review Primary Contact recipients under Primary Contacts. To review Project pins, open that Project’s Overview and select the same action under People → Project Primary Contacts. The Primary Contact recipients dialog lists Current recipients and Excluded Contacts, with a reason for each exclusion. A contact without a linked Profile cannot receive a Watson message. Someone without current access to the client or the selected Project is also excluded.
Each review uses only the pins for that client or that Project. Several contacts linked to the same Profile appear as one recipient. Client pins do not fill an empty Project set. The review action appears when there are pins and you can manage them.
Fresh group messaging to Primary Contacts is unavailable. Reviewing recipients creates no conversation and sends no message. Use the direct-message steps above for a person you can already message. Pin changes do not change an existing conversation’s audience or subscribe contacts to notifications.
When a client cannot reply
A Member with configured relationship access can participate within their allowed scope. Member access alone does not grant work approval.
A person with legacy Read-Only Portal access can read messages but cannot send them. These restrictions remain in force, and the direct grant editor cannot convert that access. Check the legacy access controls if they should be able to reply. See Set a person’s Portal access level.
Removing a person’s access ends messaging that depends on that relationship. It does not remove independent messaging access through other shared work or a linked contact. See Remove a client user from Portal.