Getting started with Connect

Four things turn an empty workspace into a working one: sign in with Google, connect a mailbox, decide what Connect may do on each channel, and work the Needs You queue once. Phone, prospecting, follow-ups and the data grid are all worth adding afterwards — mail first, because mail is what proves the rest of the setup is right before anything is sent on your behalf.

Status: Available What this means
Audience: both
In the app: #/home, #/mailboxes, #/autonomy, #/needs-you
Last verified: 2026-09-10
Product version: 6.3.2

The order that works#

Sign in with Google. There is no password to choose and no password form to find — Google OAuth is the only way in.
Result Your workspace exists and #/home loads. Signing in as somebody else later ends the session it replaced on that browser, and only that browser.
Connect one mailbox on the Mailboxes screen (#/mailboxes). Gmail and Microsoft Graph both go through their own consent screen; an IMAP/SMTP server is configured with its host details instead.
Result Mail begins arriving as conversations on #/inbox. Until this step, almost every other screen is correctly empty.
Set autonomy per channel on #/autonomy before the first reply is drafted, not after.
Result Connect knows whether it may send, must ask, or should write and stop. Most workspaces start email on ask_before_send.
Open #/needs-you and clear it once, end to end.
Result You have read what Connect wrote, in your own tone of voice, before a customer did. This is the step people skip and then spend a fortnight distrusting the drafts.

What each step actually buys you#

Step	What becomes possible	What is still not possible
Sign-in	A workspace, isolated from every other workspace at three layers	Nothing yet reads or writes mail
Mailbox connected	Conversations, contacts, drafts, the timeline	Nothing is sent — autonomy has not been set
Autonomy set	Drafts held for approval, or sent within the gates	Answers are ungrounded until Knowledge exists
Needs You worked once	A calibrated view of what Connect writes unsupervised	Phone, WhatsApp and prospecting are separate setups

The sequence is not arbitrary. Autonomy resolves at four scopes — contact, endpoint, channel, workspace — and the narrowest one that applies wins. Setting it before mail flows means the workspace-level rule is already in place when the first message lands, so nothing is decided by a default you never looked at.

Where new workspaces stall#

Mail connected, nothing appears: The first sync is still running, or the mailbox's own health check is failing. The Mailboxes screen reports health rather than merely 'connected', which is the useful distinction.
Drafts appear and never send: That is ask_before_send or draft_only working. draft_only does not even queue an approval — it writes and stops, deliberately.
Replies are polite and empty: Nothing has been put in Knowledge yet, so there is nothing specific to ground an answer in. This is the fastest single improvement available in week one.
A screen 403s for a colleague but not for you: Their session is a customer session and yours is the operator's, or the reverse. Both audiences run the same implementation; the paths differ.

Where to go next#

Read in this order if you have an hour: What Connect by JBRH is, then Your first hour, then Connect your mailbox. If you already have mail flowing, skip to Decide what Connect may do.

Sceptical rather than curious? What Connect will not do is the honest list of refusals.
New to the vocabulary? The nine words you need first is nine definitions and no more.
Setting up for a team? Inviting your team covers who sees what.

Everything in this section#

19 pages, each with its own status and the date it was last checked against the running system.

Page	What it covers
A weekly review	Five checks worth half an hour every week, what each one tells you that the daily pass cannot, and the change each finding should produce.
A working day with Connect	What a person actually does each day once Connect is running: one queue pass, a look at what went out, and the three habits that keep the rest honest.
Approve your first reply	Reading your first held draft, editing it, approving it, and the honest answer to what that approval does and does not teach Connect.
Connect your mailbox	The first real step: connecting Gmail, Microsoft Graph or an IMAP server to Connect, giving the mailbox a role, and proving that it is genuinely working.
Create your first follow-up	The four parts of a follow-up — commitment, reason, due time, channel — and exactly what happens on each channel when one falls due.
Decide what Connect may do	The four autonomy modes, the four scopes they can be set at, and the combination most businesses should start with before anything is sent for them.
Find your first prospects	Writing a discovery brief that returns a short list you would actually ring, and the one guarantee that shapes everything prospecting gives you.
Inviting your team	Adding colleagues to a workspace: what an invitation really grants, what everyone shares, how work is divided, and why a colleague sometimes sees a refusal.
Keyboard and speed	Getting around Connect quickly: hash routes you can type or bookmark, asking instead of navigating, and an honest note about published shortcuts.
Make a test call	Ringing your own line for the first time: what to say, the four things to listen for, and how to read the transcript, summary and timings afterwards.
Set up the phone	Going from no number to a line that answers: the two voice engines, the settings that matter before the first call, and what is honestly not available yet.
Teach Connect about your business	What to put in Knowledge first, what belongs in Memory instead, and why the difference decides whether a correction applies to everyone or one person.
The nine words you need first	Nine words that unlock the rest of this manual, grouped by what they are for, with the three distinctions new users most often get wrong.
Using Connect on a phone	Connect on a small screen: what is identical, what folds into a menu below 600 pixels, and the work that is genuinely better left for a desk.
What Connect by JBRH is	Connect by JBRH in plain terms: one worker that reads mail, answers the phone and follows through — the category, and what it does not replace.
What Connect will not do	The refusals that are designed rather than broken: what Connect declines in the moment, what is not built yet, and what it never claims about itself.
Your first hour	The four things worth doing in your first hour with Connect, in order, with the result each one produces and the mistake each one prevents.
Your first pass through Needs You	Needs You is the one queue a person actually works: what lands in it, why it is ranked rather than chronological, and what an empty queue does and does not prove.
Your first week	What to add once mail is flowing: knowledge that earns its place, standing instructions, a second channel, follow-ups, and when to loosen autonomy.

Questions#

How long does the first setup take?

The mechanical part — sign in, connect a mailbox, choose an autonomy mode — is short. The part worth spending time on is reading the first batch of drafts in Needs You, because that is what tells you whether the mode you chose is the right one. Plan an hour, not a day.

Can I try it without letting it send anything?

Yes, and that is the usual first week. Set every channel to draft_only and Connect will write replies it never sends and never asks about, so you can read what it *would* have said without anyone having to keep saying no.

Does a customer workspace get a smaller product than the operator's?

No. There is one feature set over one implementation. The only difference is commercial: a customer's use is bounded by their plan's allowances, and two platform-operation screens — verifying payments and JBRH's own pricing — are correctly operator-only because they are about running the platform.