SBX Tools Outlook shared inbox control for HR and recruiting teams
CVs, candidate questions, employee policy threads, payroll queries, leave requests — every email in hr@, recruiting@, people@, and careers@ gets an owner, a status, and a history. The content of every email stays in Outlook, not on our servers.
Sounds familiar?
When more than one person watches hr@, the inbox itself doesn't tell anyone what's been handled. The threads are sensitive — candidate data, payroll questions, employee issues — and "I'll just reply quickly without checking" leads to crossed wires or duplicated answers.
"Did anyone reply to this candidate yet, or are they still waiting?"
"Has anyone scheduled the interview with Anna's pick?"
"Did Mark already answer this leave-request question, or should I?"
"This CV came in for a role we already filled — has someone responded politely yet?"
"This employee's payroll question — is it open or did finance handle it?"
"Outlook says Mark Complete — but did we actually send the offer letter?"
How SBX changes the day
HR teams handle sensitive email — CVs, payroll questions, employee issues, leave requests, candidate negotiations. Two or three people on hr@ or recruiting@ need to coordinate without bottlenecking through a single inbox owner. The team tried a recruiting tool, but most of the day-to-day work was still email: candidate replies, internal forwards, finance loops, hiring-manager handoffs. The tool added a step (copying email into the tool) without removing the email itself.
With SBX, the HR team works hr@ and recruiting@ directly in Outlook. Each email gets assigned to one person. Status moves from Open to Closed when the work is done — a candidate scheduled, a policy question answered, an offer sent. Internal notes (e.g., Cleared with finance, sent offer at $X) stay on the email thread. Two HR specialists work in parallel without stepping on each other, and the team lead has a Friday-afternoon view of what came in, what's open, and what aged out. The content of every candidate email, every policy thread, every payroll question stays in Outlook — SBX records who did what and when, not what the email said.
One thread, step by step
Below is one common example — a candidate replying with availability for an interview — used to make the flow concrete. The same four steps apply to any email in this inbox: a leave-request question, an offer negotiation, a policy clarification, an internal hiring-manager handoff.
The email arrives
A candidate replies to recruiting@ with their availability for an interview. SBX shows status Open.
- Visible to every HR teammate
- Threaded with the candidate's previous emails
- Default status:
Open
One HR specialist claims it
Whoever has bandwidth opens the Assignee dropdown and picks their own name. The candidate's thread has a name on it.
- Claim it for yourself, or hand it off — the same dropdown lists the whole team
- Visible to the whole team
- Internal notes available for asking the hiring manager directly (
Hiring manager available Tuesday?)
Schedule, reply, then close
The specialist coordinates with the hiring manager (Outlook calendar invite, chat ping, internal forward — whatever your team uses), books the time, replies to the candidate with the confirmed slot, and clicks Closed in SBX. The timeline records who did the work and when.
- SBX does not integrate with Calendly, Microsoft Bookings, or ATS scheduling tools — those workflows are unchanged
- The
Closedbutton is a status change; the email and its history stay searchable - Internal note (
Confirmed Tue 14:00, panel: Mark + Anna) stays on the email thread
Week-in-review
The HR lead pulls up SBX's Insights & Analytics view: how many candidate replies came in this week, how many policy questions were closed, who took the most volume, what aged past N days.
- Status filters:
Open,Closed - Per-assignee filter
- Built-in indicator for emails that haven't moved status in N days — especially important for candidate-experience-sensitive threads
What a typical week looks like in an hr@ and recruiting@ inbox with SBX
Monday morning, hr@ and recruiting@ have accumulated the weekend's mix — a couple of candidate replies, an employee's leave-extension question, a payroll thread that needs finance loop-in, an internal forward from a hiring manager. Each HR specialist claims a batch — by area, by urgency, or just first-come — and works through it. Mid-week, the team lead checks status on a high-priority candidate: SBX shows the thread is assigned, the last reply was Tuesday afternoon, and the note says Awaiting compensation sign-off from CEO. The team lead pings the CEO directly without messaging the HR specialist for a status update. Friday afternoon, anything that sat in Open more than two days gets reviewed — particularly anything candidate-facing, since slow replies cost offers.
Common questions from HR leads
Read next
See SBX in your own hr@ and recruiting@ inbox
1 month free, no credit card. Install from AppSource and try it on a single mailbox before rolling it out to the team.
Single tier. €6/user/month annual, €8/user/month monthly. See pricing →