Shared drafts
In Jelly, a reply you've started isn't hidden away in your own drafts folder. It belongs to the whole team. A colleague can open it, check it, finish it and send it, which makes it easy for one person to write a reply and another to look it over before it goes.
Each conversation has one reply draft. If two people set out to answer the same conversation, they find themselves on the same draft rather than writing two separate answers.
How a shared draft works
Start typing a reply and Jelly saves it as you go: the toolbar says Draft saved. From then on, the conversation appears in Drafts in the left column for everyone on the team.
Once you've left the conversation, a colleague who opens it sees your draft, read-only, with Edit draft under it. Pressing Edit draft opens it in their own editor, where they can change it and send it.
A line above the draft says who started it and who edited it last, for example "Draft · Started by Jane · Last edited by you at 10:42".
Taking turns
Only one person can edit a draft at a time. While someone is editing, everyone else sees "Jane is editing this draft" above it, and there's no Edit draft button. When Jane leaves the conversation, the draft is free again.
If Jane wanders off with the draft still open, you're not stuck. Once her page has been quiet for 2 minutes, because she closed the tab or shut her laptop, anyone can take the draft over with Edit draft. The conversation's activity records that it was taken over.
You can only send a draft you're editing, so nobody can send a version you're half-way through changing. Sending assigns you to the conversation, as any reply does. See Assignment.
Who wrote it
The customer sees the email come from the team address chosen in From. In Jelly, the sent message names the person who pressed Send, and when other people worked on the draft it says so too, for example "from a draft Jane started, last edited by Sam".
Signatures
If you take over a draft that ends with a colleague's signature, a line above the editor says "This draft ends with a signature that is not yours." Press Use my signature to swap theirs for yours.
You can also press Add your signature in the toolbar at any time. It replaces whichever signature is in the draft, or adds yours if there isn't one.
Discarding a draft
Discarding deletes the draft for everyone, and it can't be undone, so Jelly always asks first.
- While you're writing, press Discard in the composer. Jelly asks "Discard? There is no undo." Press Discard again to delete the draft, or Cancel to keep it. An empty composer closes without asking.
- Without opening it, press Discard under the draft. Jelly shows who the draft is to, what it says and who started it, so you can check it's the right one. Press Discard the draft to delete it, or Keep the draft.
When Discard is missing
Jelly won't let you throw away something a colleague is in the middle of. Discard isn't offered while someone else is editing the draft, or for 30 minutes after their last change. Instead the draft tells you who it was, for example "Jane was editing this 10 minutes ago. Check with them before discarding it."
You also can't change or discard a reply that's on its way out. For a reply scheduled to send later, press Cancel sending. For one still in the undo-send window, press Undo. Either way, it becomes an ordinary draft again.
New messages and forwards
A new message or a forward works differently. It stays with the person writing it: only they can edit, send or discard it. It does still appear in Drafts for everyone who'll be able to see the conversation (that's the whole team, unless its writer chose another mailbox), and a colleague who opens it can read it, with the line "A new message stays with whoever is writing it until it is sent."
The one exception is a new message drafted by a program through an API token, which anyone can pick up until a person has worked on it.