This is a quick-start guide to help you easily begin using Dispatch. As we get further into the beta, we'll be creating a full help section, but for now this will help you to get started.

For now, if you have any questions that aren't covered by this guide, feel free to drop us a note, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

Dispatch was created to solve a problem that a lot of us have: inboxes cluttered with tons of email about the same kinds of things which all need to be answered, but only some of which require a personal response. We built Dispatch to take as much of the load as possible off of you by automating responses to requests, and giving you simple tools around those requests that make them a lot easier to handle/fulfill, such as website & Twitter trackers, an online document library, trackable & time-limited links, reminders and more!

There are several terms that you'll find useful when using Dispatch:

Requests

These are incoming messages that are responded to automatically by Dispatch, by you, or even by a combination of the two.

Stacks

Stacks are logical groupings of information that pertain to a particular subject. These could represent clients, websites, forms, contact email addresses, or anything else that you want to separate your requests by. Each stack corresponds to one form/email address, and holds all of the requests, FAQs, documents and associated info that apply to that form/email address.

Tasks

Each request has a task list, where you can put action items that you need to complete before you're done with the request. This is useful if you get a request that requires more than a simple answer and need a checklist of things to do before you close the request.

Website & Twitter Trackers

These trackers let you watch a website's RSS feed or a Twitter account for mentions of certain words, and they alert you of matches when they are found.

Public Links

Dispatch lets you generate trackable, time-limited links for any document in your stacks. They can be set to only be usable after a specific date, until a specific date, or any time in between.

Documents

When a new request comes in, Dispatch suggests documents that may be relevant to that request, so that you can easily attach them to replies that you send out. When automatically responding to a request, Dispatch can also include documents that are a good match for that request. We've even built in link tracking so that when you attach a document to a reply, Dispatch keeps track of it and lets you know when the document has been viewed by the recipient.

FAQs

Any questions (and their answers) that you want Dispatch to use when it replies to incoming requests for you, or that you'd like to easily refer to should be added to your FAQs.

Contacts

Every time you receive a new request, it's associated with a contact. This contact can contain as much information as you'd like about a particular person, and can be exported to iCal/Outlook. Also, at any time you can view all of the requests that a contact has sent to you.