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Inbox Selection and Custom Channel Setup

Every channel you connect through Octopods routes to a HubSpot inbox you choose, so you control where each type of conversation lands.

Written by Tarek Khalil

Picking an inbox during channel setup

When you connect a new channel to a HubSpot workspace in Octopods, the setup flow shows a Select HubSpot Inbox panel. Octopods fetches every inbox your HubSpot user can access and lists them in a dropdown.

  1. Complete the channel-specific setup (for example, authorize Facebook for Instagram or paste a bot token for Telegram).

  2. On the Select HubSpot Inbox screen, open the HubSpot Inbox dropdown.

  3. Pick the inbox you want this channel’s conversations to land in.

  4. Click Activate.

Octopods registers the channel as a custom channel account inside the selected inbox, and the page shows a confirmation that the channel is active.

Inbox types Octopods supports

You can route an Octopods channel to either of the two HubSpot inbox types:

  • Inbox — the standard HubSpot conversations inbox used by most teams.

  • Help Desk — HubSpot’s dedicated help desk inbox.

Both appear in the dropdown during setup. Octopods detects the type automatically and surfaces the right links back into HubSpot on the channel’s settings page after activation.

If you don’t see any inboxes

If the dropdown is empty, the setup panel displays an empty-state message titled No HubSpot inboxes found, with the instruction “Please create an inbox in HubSpot first, then return here to complete the setup.” The panel also includes a Learn how to create an inbox link that opens the relevant HubSpot knowledge-base article.

Tip: The inboxes you see depend on your HubSpot user’s permissions. If you’re setting up a channel for a team that owns an inbox you don’t have access to, ask a HubSpot admin to grant access first.

Routing different channels to different inboxes

Inbox selection is per channel. You can send:

  • Instagram and Messenger to a marketing-team inbox.

  • WhatsApp and Twilio SMS to a sales inbox.

  • Support-focused channels to a help desk inbox.

Each channel’s setup flow is independent, so you can make these decisions one at a time as you add channels.

Changing the inbox for a connected channel

To change which HubSpot inbox an existing channel routes to, deactivate the channel and reconnect it:

  1. Open the channel’s settings page in Octopods.

  2. Scroll to the Danger Zone card and click the deactivate button (the exact label includes the channel name, for example Deactivate WhatsApp Account or Deactivate Telegram Channel).

  3. Return to the Add a Channel modal and start setup again.

  4. On the Select HubSpot Inbox step, pick the new inbox and click Activate.

Warning: Deactivating a channel stops message sync between that channel and HubSpot. Plan the change during a quiet period so in-flight conversations aren’t disrupted.

Reactivating a previously connected channel

If you’ve connected, deactivated, and then reactivated a channel, Octopods reuses the same HubSpot inbox registration unless you pick a different inbox during the new activation. That means past conversations on the original inbox remain intact and new messages continue to land in the same place.

Quick links into HubSpot after activation

Once a channel is active, the channel’s settings page in Octopods shows a View in HubSpot link that takes you straight to the connected inbox’s channel settings in HubSpot — helpful when you need to manage routing rules or assignees on the HubSpot side.

What’s next

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