Mahana
Settings & Configuration

Settings & Configuration

Your settings control how the AI behaves, where alerts get sent, and who on your team has access to what. Most businesses can leave these at their defaults to start - but understanding each option helps you get the most out of Mahana.

AI Confidence Threshold

This slider controls how confident the AI needs to be before it sends an automatic reply. It ranges from 0% to 100%, and defaults to 75%.

When a customer texts in, the AI checks its knowledge base and estimates how well it can answer. If its confidence is at or above your threshold, it replies automatically. If it falls short, the conversation is placed in your Needs Reply folder for you or your team to handle.

  • Higher threshold - The AI only auto-replies when it's very sure. More conversations come to you, which is safer but means more manual work.
  • Lower threshold - The AI replies more often and handles a greater share of messages automatically. Faster for customers, but the AI may occasionally get something wrong.
Start at the default 75% and check your AI Repliedfolder regularly for the first week or two. If the replies look good, you can try lowering the threshold a bit. If you're seeing too many mistakes, raise it - or add more detail to your knowledge base entries.

AI Tone Guide

The tone guide controls how the AI writes its text message replies - things like how casual or formal it sounds, whether it uses emojis, how long its messages are, and how it handles different situations.

Mahana comes with a sensible default that works for most businesses, but you can customize it to match your brand. You'll find the tone guide as a text editor on your Settings page.

For detailed tips on writing effective instructions, see the AI Tone Guide guide.

The tone guide tells the AI how to talk. The knowledge base tells it what to say. Keep them separate - facts about your business go in the knowledge base, communication style goes in the tone guide.

Notification Email

This is the email address where Mahana sends all account alerts and summaries. It receives:

  • Urgent messages - Immediate alerts when the AI flags a conversation as urgent, such as a complaint or safety concern.
  • Daily summaries - A once-a-day digest of conversations that need your attention (if you have the daily summary enabled).
  • Workflow notifications - Emails triggered by automations you've set up.
  • Usage warnings - Alerts when you're approaching your plan's monthly message limit.

Set this to an email address you check regularly. It doesn't have to be the same address you use to log in.

Business Timezone

Set this to the timezone where your business operates. Mahana uses this when the AI needs to answer time-sensitive questions - things like "Are you open right now?" or "What time do you close today?"

The dropdown includes all US timezones and defaults to Pacific Time. If your business is in Chicago, Atlanta, or New York, make sure to update this so the AI gives customers accurate time-based answers.

Daily Summary Email

Inside the Notification Email card, you'll find a checkbox to enable a daily summary. When turned on, Mahana sends a daily email at 6:00 PM UTC(adjust for your timezone - that's 2:00 PM Eastern, 11:00 AM Pacific) listing conversations that needed attention during the day but didn't receive a reply.

If you have staff actively monitoring the inbox, you may not need the daily summary. It's most useful for solo operators or anyone who prefers a single catch-up email over frequent check-ins.

Managing Your Team

Owners and admins can add team members to a Mahana account. Each person gets one of three roles:

  • Owner - Full access to everything, including billing. There is one owner per account (the person who created it). Ownership cannot be transferred from this screen.
  • Admin - Everything except billing. Admins can manage the knowledge base, set up workflows, adjust settings, and add or remove other team members. Useful for a trusted manager or business partner.
  • Staff - Inbox access only. Staff members can view conversations and send replies, but cannot access settings, the knowledge base, workflows, or billing.

The number of team members you can add depends on your plan:

  • Starter - up to 2 users
  • Standard - up to 5 users
  • Growth - up to 8 users
  • Pro - up to 10 users

If you need to add more team members than your current plan allows, you'll need to upgrade. See the Billing & Plans guide for a breakdown of each plan.