Setting up Hiver Omni: A step-by-step guide for teams on Gmail

Welcome to Hiver. You can connect your support email address with Hiver Omni to easily track, manage, and respond to incoming emails, ensuring better accountability and easy collaboration.

This guide covers how to set up Hiver for your Gmail account and create your first Shared Inbox.

Get started with Hiver Omni

Follow these simple steps to get started with Hiver:

Go to hiverhq.com and click Start free trial, sign up with your work email or use the Google SSO. Follow the prompts to create your account.

Note: This setup is for users who have Gmail as their email provider. Check out this article, if you have Microsoft as your email provider.

Create a Shared Inbox

Hiver’s Shared Inbox is a single email inbox (typically used by support teams, such as help@acme or info@acme.com) that multiple team members can access and work from. It allows your entire team to:

• Manage incoming messages in real-time from one place.
• Track the progress of each conversation until it is resolved.
• Collaborate on issues using internal notes.

Follow these steps to create a Shared Inbox

When you first sign in, a friendly setup wizard will guide you through the process step by step. Follow the prompts, and your Shared Inbox will be ready in under two minutes. In case you missed it, this is the process:

Enter your phone number and select your team’s role. Pick the support channel you wish to proceed with and follow the prompts.

2. If you choose Email, enter your support or any workspace email address you want to use for the Shared Inbox.

3. Select the type of Google account you want from the following:

Standard Gmail: A regular email account with an address and password
Google Group: A Google Group you’re a part of, that has an address but no password

Signing in with a standard Gmail account

Enter your email address and choose the standard Gmail option

Next, authorize Hiver to connect to your account.

Follow the step-by-step guide to sign in to Google and give Hiver the necessary permissions.

Once you’ve authorized Hiver, your Shared Inbox will be created. In the final step, you can invite your teammates to start collaborating in Hiver right away.

You can choose to finish your setup or go ahead and configure the Live Chat channel. Alternatively, you can follow these steps to set up Live Chat.

Signing in with a Google Group

In case you have a Google Group address to receive incoming emails, enter that email address and choose the Google Group option

Next, authorize Hiver by signing in with your email account to ensure your integration is seamless.

Note: Make sure you sign in using an email address that’s been added to the shared inbox and is authorized to send and receive emails on its behalf.

Once you’ve authorized Hiver, your Shared Inbox will be created. In the final step, you can invite your team members and start collaborating in Hiver right away.

You can choose to finish your setup or go ahead and configure the Live Chat channel. Alternatively, you can follow these steps to set up Live Chat.

Once your Shared Inbox is created, you will get a prompt to explore Hiver. Click Start Tour for a quick walk-through of the important details.

Create a Shared Inbox with Admin Panel

1. To create a Shared Inbox from the Admin Panel:

• Go to Settings and navigate to Shared Inboxes
• Select 'Email Inboxes'
• Click on “Create Email Inbox”
  

2. Next, sign in with your standard Gmail account or a Google Group email address and follow the prompts.

3. Next, authorize Hiver to create your Shared Inbox

In the final step, invite your teammates and click on Finish setup to start collaborating in Hiver right away.

Managing your team

We’ve made user management easy by giving you access to add, edit, and delete users.

Go to Admin Panel → Users → Shared Inbox (click on the inbox where you want to add/remove a member) → Members → Click on Add Members

Note: Switch your team member’s Role between Admin, Member, and Inbox Admin in Admin Panel → Users → ROLE.

Using email Aliases in Hiver

Email Aliases let your team send and receive messages from multiple customer-facing addresses (e.g., finance@, sales@, support@) while managing everything from a Shared Inbox. This ensures customers always see the correct “From” address in email headers, improving consistency and professionalism.
Alias support is available for User-type Shared Mailboxes (USMs) and Outlook Shared Mailboxes (OSMs) and Distribution Lists (DLs).

How Alias support works

Fetching emails:

• Hiver automatically fetches emails sent to the primary Shared Inbox address and all configured aliases.

Sending emails:

• Agents can reply or compose new emails from an alias address.
• Customers will always see the correct alias in the “From” field of the email header.

How to enable email Aliases

• Go to Admin Panel → Shared Inbox.
• Add the aliases you want to enable under the Aliases section.
  Once added, aliases will appear in the From field for all users.

Important notes:

• Aliases become usable 24 hours after being added, as Microsoft may take that long to activate them.
• Ensure the alias exists in Microsoft Admin and that the “Send from alias” permission is enabled.

Getting familiar with Hiver Omni

Once you’re in Hiver, take some time to explore the navigation bar on the left that you can use to jump between:

• Conversations: View and manage emails.
• Notifications: See activities involving you.
• Email Templates: Reuse standard replies.
• Analytics: Track and manage performance.
• Admin Panel: Manage users, workflows, and more.
• Profile menu: Access account settings, team availability, and more.

In Conversations, you’ll find default views like Unassigned, Mine, and Team to help you filter and organize emails. Hiver includes five default views, and you can create custom views to suit your workflow.

Click your profile icon (bottom left) to access:

• You’re Online: Toggle your availability status.
• Team Availability: See and manage teammate statuses.
• Admin Panel: Access admin settings.
• Knowledge Base: Browse help articles.
• My Settings: Manage personal preferences and accounts.
• Logout: Sign out of Hiver.

Users on the Elite plan will also see an option to Book a call with Hiver Support to schedule a 30-minute session with our customer support team immediately.

Next steps

Manage Emails in Hiver Shared Inbox

Customize your Hiver layout settings

FAQs for setting up Hiver Omni

How do I install Hiver Omni?

You don’t need any installation for Hiver Omni. Simply go to hiverhq.com, click Get it Free, and sign up with your work Gmail account or a Google Group. Follow the prompts, and you’ll be redirected to the Hiver web app within seconds.

What is Hiver’s Shared Inbox?

Hiver’s Shared Inbox is a team email collaboration tool that multiple users access and manage without a password. It provides unified visibility, assignment controls, collision alerts, drafts, and templates for easy collaboration.

How do roles and permissions work?

Admins can control who can manage inbox settings versus who can just work on emails. You can adjust these settings at any time in the Admin Panel → Users. Hover on the info icon (i) beside ROLES for more information.