The Messages tab is available to users with a Portal Publishing licence. It is where you manage communication with clients about documents you have shared through the Portal.
When you publish a document to the Portal, you can include a message for your client. Your client can reply and you will receive an email notification with a link to the document. You can respond directly from the Messages tab.
Only the publisher of the document is able to see the messages sent and received. If you wish to see a message sent on a document you have not published yourself, you would need to retract the document from the Portal.
When a document is retracted or expires, the full message history is automatically saved as a note on the document in Virtual Cabinet, so the conversation is preserved.
By default, message content is not included in email notifications for security reasons. If your organisation wants message text included in emails, an administrator can enable this via Admin tab, Portal, Company Administration, Security Options, Messages in Email.