👋 New to Desk? The guide explains everything the portal can do, in two minutes.
Client
Sender
Subject
📎
Date
Go to page
Message
New mail
Forward attachments:
Added automatically when this mail is sent:
Confirm send?
Clients you look after
Click a client for their full correspondence; click a red
count to see exactly those unattended mails. Unattended = received between 2 days and 2 weeks ago,
nobody has picked it up.
Client
Activity (30 days)
Unattended
Open
Waiting on client
Last from client
Last reply from us
How to use Desk
DRPCA Desk is the firms' own mail archive and workdesk — covering both firms:
drpca.com and ap-india.in mailboxes flow into the same desk. Every mail sent to or from these mailboxes is
stored here permanently — searchable, organised by client, with a clear record of
who is handling what. Click any topic below to explore.
🏠 Your dashboard
The cards show only things somebody deliberately created — no guessed counts: follow-ups due (reminders you set), assigned to you (work handed to you by name), plus your own queues when they have something in them: drafts to finish, deletion approvals waiting, bug reports open.
⏰ Follow up, inside any mail, is how you feed the first card: pick a date (and optionally why — "client promised data by Friday") and the mail resurfaces on your dashboard that day. Click the card to see the list; done clears a reminder, Open mail jumps to the conversation.
Every card is clickable — it opens exactly that list or queue.
If you are the manager of clients, an extra card shows how many clients you look after — click it for your monitoring table: each client's mail volume, anything unattended, and their last mail.
🔍 Finding any mail
Search box looks inside subject, sender and the full body text of every mail. Press / to jump to it.
Left panel filters narrow the list: by client, mailbox, work status, assignee, direction (received / sent by us), date period, or attachments only. Combine freely; Clear all filters resets.
Click a client's name anywhere — in the list or inside a mail — to see all of that client's correspondence. With a client selected, Open dossier shows their year-wise summary.
Find a file: type part of an attachment's name (e.g. 3CD, GSTR9, balance sheet) in the File name box in the left panel — only mails carrying such a file are shown.
Move through pages with the numbered buttons at the bottom, or type a page number in Go to page. For old periods, the date filter is usually faster.
📖 Reading a mail
Click any row to open it. The left pane shows the whole conversation — click a tile to read any mail in the thread.
Mails display in rich view (tables, links, images) exactly as sent; switch to plain text with the link above the mail. Very large originals load on click.
Click an attachment to download it. A mail with several files also offers Download all — one zip, like Gmail. Download original gives the complete raw mail file.
Files from many mails at once: tick mails in the list and press Download files (zip) in the selection bar — every attachment of the selected mails lands in one zip (duplicates included once).
Bold rows with a blue edge are unread by you; read/unread is personal to each user.
⚡ Moving fast — keyboard shortcuts
→ / j
next mail (while reading)
← / k
previous mail
n
jump to the next unread mail
Esc
back to the mail list
/
focus the search box
c
compose a new mail
?
open this guide
The same actions are available as buttons: prev / next and next unread at the top of every mail.
👤 Who is handling what
Every conversation has a work panel inside the mail: a status (Open, In progress, Waiting on client, Done) and an assignee.
Assign to me claims the conversation in one click. Replies and trail mails inherit the assignment automatically — assign once per matter.
Use the Work filters in the left panel to see Assigned to me or Unassigned mail — that is your to-do list.
Notes are internal — visible to the team only, never sent to the client.
✉ Sending mail
Compose (or c) sends a fresh mail; inside a mail use Reply / Reply all / Forward. The From list offers every mailbox you can access — drpca.com and ap-india.in alike; sending works the same from both.
Separate several recipients with commas or semicolons — both work.
Your signature is added automatically from your profile, placed right under your message (above the quoted trail); the firm's disclaimer goes once per correspondence — on new mails, forwards and your first reply in a thread. A preview under the message box shows exactly what will be appended — don't type your own signature.
Spelling & grammar: pressing Review & send automatically checks the text you typed (never the quoted trail). Every suggestion must be fixed or ignored before Send now unlocks — use ignore for names and codes the checker doesn't know. If the checker itself is unavailable, sending is never blocked.
Drafts:Save draft keeps an unfinished mail (also offered when you leave a half-typed mail); reopen it from the Drafts button in the toolbar. Drafts are private to you, are deleted after 30 days, and never store attached files — re-attach before sending.
Address suggestions: start typing a name or email in To/Cc and the portal suggests addresses from the firm's own mail history — pick with the arrow keys and Enter, no more typos.
Attach files up to 15 MB per mail (ap-india.in mailboxes: about 3 MB for now) — use the file picker, drag files onto the compose page, or simply copy & paste them (a pasted screenshot attaches itself too). Forwarding lets you re-attach the original's files straight from the archive.
Sent mail appears in the portal within about 5 minutes — the same rhythm at which new incoming mail arrives.
🏷 Tagging mail to clients Manager / Admin
Open any untagged (or wrongly tagged) mail and click Tag client: choose the address, the scope, and the client.
Only this address tags one correspondent; everyone @domain tags the whole company — use domain scope only when the entire domain belongs to one client.
Tagging also sweeps the history: all old untagged mail from that address/domain moves to the client, and future mail tags itself.
Admins can create a brand-new client on the spot; managers tag to existing clients.
Mistakes are reversible: admins delete a rule in Admin → Client management (the mails it tagged revert automatically), or use Untag by sender there to strip a sender's tags entirely.
🗑 Deleting a mail
Nobody deletes directly. Request deletion with a reason (single mail, or several via the checkboxes) — an admin or a manager (for mailboxes they can access) approves or rejects via the Approvals button — one by one, or several at once with the checkboxes there. A requested mail disappears from the list immediately; it returns automatically if the request is rejected.
On approval the mail's content and files are destroyed; a metadata record is kept for audit. The copy in Gmail is not touched.
🔑 Signing in & roles
Sign in with an emailed code (recommended — nothing to remember) or a password.
You see only the mailboxes you have been granted. All client correspondence is confidential — treat it as you would the physical files.
Staff read, search, send, assign and request deletions. Managers additionally tag mail to clients, monitor their assigned clients from the dashboard, and approve deletion requests for mailboxes they can access. Admins manage users, clients, rules, stationery, the audit trail — and can hand over a departing user's entire workload in one step. Every sign-in, assignment, access change, tag and deletion is recorded in the audit trail.
💡 Good to know
The portal updates itself every 5 minutes — no need to refresh. Expecting a mail that isn't showing? Press ↻ Sync now to check all mailboxes immediately.
Something broken or odd? Click the 🐞 button in the header to report it to the admin.
Desk is an independent archive: it keeps its own permanent copy of every mail, so nothing here depends on Gmail or Microsoft 365 retention.
A mail exchanged between the two firms is stored once and simply appears in every mailbox involved — the mailbox chips at the top of an opened mail show all of them.
Something looks wrong or missing? Note what you did and tell your admin — feedback during the pilot directly shapes the portal.
Administration
Your follow-ups
Reminders you set on mails, due-first.
done removes a reminder once you've handled it.
Your drafts
Private to you; deleted automatically after 30 days.
Attached files are not stored with drafts — re-attach them before sending.
Report a problem
Describe what went wrong, or what you expected
to see and didn't. It goes straight to the admin with your name attached.