Cases: Tracking Vendor Conversations to Resolution

A case is a vendor conversation with a goal: a question only the vendor can answer, a quality issue on a lot, a sourcing RFQ, an expedite request, or an artwork approval. It holds the participants, the linked records (POs, products, invoices…), every email in the conversation, and a timeline of what happened — so anyone on the team can pick it up cold. How it differs from the Inbox: the Inbox is a per-email triage queue you process toward zero (approve, file, or dismiss each email); a case is the ongoing conversation those emails belong to, tracked until it's resolved. Case mail still shows in the Inbox, badged with its CASE number.

Cases (in the sidebar, under Inbox) → New case. Pick a type, give it a title, and optionally a vendor and their contact emails. Contact emails are used only to recognize replies on the case's own threads (they matter when a reply arrives without thread information, like via the forward address) — an unrelated email from the same contact never attaches. When a participant replies on a case thread, the case flips to "Your move" so it surfaces. You can also open a case straight from your mail client: forward any email to your case address (shown on the Cases page, yourslug+case@in.ventorie.com) and Ventorie creates a vendor-inquiry case from it — title from the subject, original sender as a participant, thread attached.

Three ways emails join a case: 1. Automatically — replies on an attached email thread always follow the case. 2. Automatically — mail from an external participant whose subject matches a case thread. 3. Manually — open any Inbox email and click Add to case; from then on its whole thread follows.

Every open case shows one of: Your move (the vendor answered, or something needs doing on your side), Waiting on vendor, or Open. Filter the Cases list by "Your move" for a to-do view. Resolve a case with a short resolution note — it stays searchable, and the vendor's Communication tab keeps the full history.

Neither side of a case goes quiet unattended: • Waiting on vendor — every email you send from a case arms an auto-nudge: if the vendor stays silent, Ventorie follows up on the same thread every few business days, and after ~2 weeks of silence it stops and escalates to you ("Needs you" notification). Hand-flipping a case to Waiting on vendor arms the same chase from the case's latest email. Holding replies are recognized: a vendor's "let me follow up" / "we're looking into it" keeps the ball with them and restarts the chase clock instead of flipping the case to your move — only a reply that actually answers (or needs your decision) does that. The chase is visible on the Waiting on vendor chip — nudges sent, next nudge date (click it to edit the exact date/time and cadence) — with a Pause control for conversations you don't want chased (the vendor said "next month", say). Every nudge and the escalation are logged on the case timeline. • Waiting on you — turn on the Daily case digest under Settings → Notifications and every morning (8am your business's local time) you get one email listing the open cases waiting on your reply, most urgent first, each linking straight to the case.

Participants are grouped by side on the case: Vendor side (their reply flips the case to "Your move" and stops the auto-nudge) and Your team (their emails count as your side — the ball stays with the vendor and the chase keeps running). Anyone who writes on the case's threads is listed automatically: teammates with Ventorie logins land on Your team, everyone else on the Vendor side. The arrow on a chip moves a person to the other side, and your choice sticks — so a contractor on their own domain can be moved to Your team, and a vendor you've invited into Ventorie can be moved back to the Vendor side. Your own connected mailboxes and verified domains are always recognized as you without being listed.

Cases are visible to the whole business by default — coverage when someone's out is the point. For sensitive work (pricing negotiations, unannounced products) set a case to Private: only participants see it, plus owners and admins — always, so nothing is siloed if someone leaves. Emails linked to a private case are hidden from non-participants everywhere.

• Cases (sidebar) — everything in flight across vendors, filterable by type, status, and whose move it is. • Vendors → open a vendor → Communication tab — every case with that vendor, open and resolved. • Inbox — attached emails link straight to their case.