Getting Started with Poku Dashboard: A Smarter Inbox for SMS Conversations —AI-Powered or Not

Whether you're using AI agents to manage inbound texts or just want a better way to handle SMS at scale, the Poku Dashboard gives you powerful tools to manage conversations, toggle between AI and human modes, run campaigns, and more.

In this post, we’ll walk you through what the Poku Dashboard is, what it can do, and how to get the most out of each feature.

📬 Twilio Inbox: A Unified View of All Your Twilio (SMS & WhatsApp) Conversations

The Messages tab is the heart of the Poku dashboard. Once you’ve added your Twilio credentials, the Inbox lets you:

• View the full conversation history (up to the last 1000 messages) for each chat

• Filter by unread messages (blue dot indicates unread)

• Jump between multiple Twilio numbers (SMS + WhatsApp)

• Start new conversations from any of your connected numbers using the “draft new message” icon at the top of the page

🔐 Your credentials stay secure: If you’re not signed in, they’re stored in your browser only. If you’re signed in, they’re encrypted in our database.

🔌 Getting Set Up

To use the unified Twilio inbox, first connect your Twilio account under the Integrations tab:

• Add your Twilio SID and Auth Token

• Ensure you have at least one A2P 10DLC-verified number (required in the U.S.)

• For WhatsApp support, enter those numbers manually in whatsapp:+12223334444 format

Your numbers will be auto-detected and ready to go.

📣 Campaigns: Bulk SMS with Personalization (Paid Feature)

The Campaigns feature lets you send messages to many recipients at once from multiple Twilio numbers. Key highlights:

• Import contacts via CSV

• Use dynamic variables (like {{first_name}}) for personalization

• You can choose to distribute Messages across numbers for scale

Perfect for outreach, appointment reminders, and promotional blasts.

Note: this feature is only available in the enterprise plan, please contact us for access hello@pokulabs.com

⚡ Power Up by Connecting your Poku Dashboard to an AI Agent

Poku is more than just an SMS dashboard. When you connect an AI agent, you unlock:

• Chat Toggle for human takeover

• Auto-flagging of tricky conversations based on your custom criteria

• Full visibility and control in one unified inbox

• Ability for your agent to contact a human and ask for help mid-conversation

🧠 Chat Toggle: Decide Who Should Respond—AI or Human

The Chat Toggle allows you to toggle each conversation between:

• AI Mode – Your external agent will continue responding

• Human Mode – AI goes quiet so your team can step in manually

This is helpful for high-touch conversations, sensitive topics, or temporary overrides. You’ll find the toggle right above each conversation in the Messages tab.

🛠️ Agent Tools: Add Intelligence and Guardrails to Your AI Agent

If you’ve connected an external AI agent to your SMS workflow, Poku gives you two powerful ways to supervise it:

🔍 Message Flagging

Automatically flag incoming or outgoing messages for review based on your own criteria (e.g., keywords, tone, length). Configuration is done in the Human Intervention → Flagging tab.

🙋‍♀️ Human-in-the-Loop

Let your AI agent ask for help mid-conversation. When it encounters an edge case, pricing question, or borderline decision, it can text a human for input. Configuration lives in the Human Intervention → Human-in-the-Loop tab.

💡 Our human-in-the-loop tools work with any external agent that supports Poku’s MCP or API tool calls—including voice agents and advanced workflows.

Need Help?

If you're new to building agents or setting up your SMS stack, we're here to help.

📬 Contact us at hello@pokulabs.com
📅 Schedule a 1:1 support call