Recipe: Shared Inbox Status
Review the health of one or more shared inboxes - open items, completed work, unassigned emails, and how assignments are distributed across team members.
Prerequisite: Read the
base skill for command reference and filter syntax.
Access level required: read-only.
Steps
Step 1: Discover shared inboxes
Note each shared inbox address and the team it belongs to.
Step 2: Check open items
For each shared inbox:
bash
spark emails shared@co.com:Inbox --filter "is:shared_inbox_open"
These are active items that still need attention.
Step 3: Check unassigned items
bash
spark emails shared@co.com:Inbox --filter "assigned_to:unassigned"
Unassigned items are falling through the cracks - no one owns them yet.
Step 4: Review per-member assignments
The assignment summary shows how work is distributed. For a deeper look at a specific member's load:
bash
spark emails shared@co.com:Inbox --filter "assigned_to:alice@co.com"
spark emails shared@co.com:Inbox --filter "assigned_to:bob@co.com"
Step 5: Check completed items
bash
spark emails shared@co.com:Inbox --filter "is:shared_inbox_done"
Review recently completed items for a sense of throughput.
Step 6: Present the status
Report per shared inbox:
- Open: N items awaiting action
- Unassigned: M items with no owner
- Per member: assignment counts (flag anyone with significantly more or fewer)
- Done: K items completed recently
If there are multiple shared inboxes, present each separately, then a combined summary.
Tips
- Run this daily for active shared inboxes, weekly for quieter ones.
- Unassigned items are the most actionable finding - they represent work that nobody is looking at.
- Combine per-member counts with for a fuller picture of who has bandwidth.
- If a shared inbox has high open count but low unassigned count, work is distributed but not being closed - look for stale assignments.
- Use to read any item that looks stale or unusual.
- For teams with multiple shared inboxes, the total unassigned count across all inboxes is the key metric.