A message is analogous to one person’s contribution in a discourse between two parties. A message has a direction (i.e., ‘incoming’ and ‘outgoing’, where ‘incoming’ message represents one received from a customer, and an ‘outgoing’ message represents one sent to a customer). A message’s source may be internal or external. When a message’s source is ‘internal’, a ‘direction’ is not request. If a direction is not specified, the message is interpreted as an internal note. An internal message represents a note associated with a thread; for example, one made by a user to convey information to other users who may be dealing with a ticket. A message may be posted by a user. That user may or may not be assigned to the thread associated with the message; however, they must be a member of the client.