Messages land as custom channels in the HubSpot inbox
When you connect a messaging channel through Octopods, Octopods registers it as a custom channel account inside the HubSpot inbox you pick during setup. From then on, any message arriving on that channel appears in HubSpot exactly like an email or chat would — threaded by contact, assignable, and available for your team to respond from.
Each connected channel gets a clear name in HubSpot so agents can see at a glance where a conversation came from:
Twilio SMS appears as Twilio SMS (or
<alpha sender name>- Twilio SMS when an alpha sender name is configured).WhatsApp appears as WhatsApp.
Facebook Messenger appears as Facebook Messenger & Comments.
Instagram appears as Instagram Messages & Commnets.
Slack appears as Slack Community Support.
How HubSpot identifies each sender
HubSpot needs a delivery identifier for every conversation — the value it uses to route messages back to the sender.
Phone-based channels (SMS, WhatsApp): the identifier is the sender’s phone number in international E.164 format.
Social and chat channels (Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, Slack): the identifier is a channel-specific opaque ID issued by the platform.
The type matches the channel: phone-number channels tell HubSpot “route this to a phone,” social channels tell HubSpot “route this back through Octopods to the right handle or ID.” You don’t configure this manually — Octopods sets it when the channel is activated.
How conversations are threaded
Messages from the same person on the same channel are grouped into a single HubSpot conversation thread. That means:
A customer who sends three WhatsApp messages over an afternoon sees a single thread in HubSpot, not three separate ones.
The same customer reaching out on both WhatsApp and Instagram will have two threads — one per channel — attached to the same HubSpot contact.
Replies sent from HubSpot go back through the original channel automatically.
If a conversation has been closed and a new message comes in later, the Open Closed Conversation Thread setting controls whether Octopods reopens the existing thread or lets HubSpot create a new one. See Reopening Closed Conversations for detail.
Where conversations appear inside HubSpot
Conversations land in the inbox you selected when you set up each channel. HubSpot supports two inbox types, and Octopods works with both:
A standard Inbox, used for general shared-mailbox workflows.
A Help Desk inbox, for support teams that use HubSpot’s dedicated help desk product.
Tip: You can route different channels to different inboxes. For example, send Instagram conversations to a marketing inbox and WhatsApp conversations to a help desk — each channel is configured independently.
What HubSpot features work with Octopods conversations
Because Octopods registers each channel as a native custom channel, your existing HubSpot workflows, routing rules, assignment logic, and reporting apply to Octopods conversations the same way they apply to any HubSpot inbox message. That includes:
Routing rules that assign conversations to specific agents or teams.
Workflows that trigger when a conversation is created or closed.
HubSpot reports filtered by channel or inbox.
Notes, internal comments, and conversation properties.
What’s next