Running a team of AI employees from one inbox

Once you have more than two or three AI employees, checking each one's runs stops scaling. The Team inbox in xMap Flows gives each employee a thread, like a colleague in a chat app. Each one writes a short note every morning about what it did and found, writes again at once if something breaks, and answers when you reply. Reading five notes over coffee replaces opening five flows, and replying "add Rotterdam" replaces editing one.

This article walks through a morning in the inbox, the kinds of notes employees write, what you can say back and what each reply does, and the habits that keep a growing team of employees manageable.

What lands in the inbox

The daily note

Each employee that works on its own writes one note a day, in its owner's morning, after its first run of that day. It covers four things: what it did (how many runs), what it found (new results and strong fits, this week against last), its best few, and anything it needs from you, such as approvals waiting. The notes are written from its runs and its report card, not by an AI, so they cost nothing.

The urgent note

Some things should not wait for tomorrow. An employee writes straight away when a run fails (with a Fix it button that asks xMap AI to explain and repair it), when its monthly budget runs out and pauses it, or when an approval is waiting for you. Urgent notes are marked, and the inbox can show only those.

Notes you asked for

An employee that sends on its own with Act and tell me leaves a note of what it sent after each such run. One that runs fully on its own does not, which keeps its thread quiet until something matters.

A morning in the inbox

Say an events company in Madrid runs five employees. The figures below are made up. At 08:15 the operations lead opens the inbox and sees:

• Opening watcher, Madrid venues: two new banquet halls this week against none last week; best one linked.
• Weather watcher, outdoor events: rain likely on Saturday at one of three booked sites. Marked urgent.
• Road watcher, venue access: roadworks near the convention centre from Thursday.
• Sales scout, corporate clients: eleven new companies hiring event staff, three strong fits.
• Market analyst, weekly brief: nothing new; it writes on Mondays.

She replies to the weather watcher "which site?", gets the answer from its latest run, and forwards it to the planner. She replies to the sales scout "only companies with more than one office in Madrid from now on". Five minutes, and nothing opened in the editor.

Replying in plain words

Replies in an employee's Team inbox thread.

Undo works only while nobody has changed the flow since, so a teammate's later edit is never lost. Changing a live employee needs the Deploy permission, as it would in the editor. Viewers can read every note but cannot reply. Every change made from the inbox is recorded in Activity.

Which employees get a thread

An employee has a thread once it works on its own (deployed, or finished a one-time job) or has written a note. To add one sooner, for example a draft you want the team to follow, press + beside the filters and pick it; it is added for the whole team, and Remove from inbox takes it out again while it is not working yet. A colleague's private employee stays private: you see threads only for employees you may see.

Taking the inbox to Slack or WhatsApp

The owner or an admin can send an employee's notes to a Slack channel as well. A reply in the message's thread, from a member whose Slack email matches their xMap account, asks or changes the employee exactly as a reply in the app would, and the answer is posted back in Slack. Notes can also go to a WhatsApp number, with a link back to the inbox.

Habits that keep it calm

1. Name employees that share a role. Seven threads called News watcher are hard to tell apart; Rename gives each its own name.
2. Choose how many notices you want in a day under Settings, Notifications, How many a day. Urgent ones always ring.
3. Read urgent notes first, then the ones with something new. A note that says nothing new for three weeks is a sign to change or let go of that employee.
4. Answer questions in the thread rather than in a side chat, so the next person sees the history. Notes are kept for a year.
5. Once a week, use the review the Monday email links to: keep, raise, change or let go of each employee in one pass.

Seeing how they fit together

The Team chart (Cards or Chart on the Flows page, or from the inbox) draws the employees in columns by who feeds whom: which one hands its finds to another, which one reads the others, which ones watch the same places. Dragging one employee onto another sets up a handoff, so that what the first finds, the second works on.

For the weekly view of each one's output, see how AI employees report their week.