In order to avoid important portal messages getting buried and not being responded to in a timely manner, I would love to be able to prioritize the urgency of my response to a portal message with a flagging system that is integrated with the task feasture. This could be a "high priority/respond within 24 hrs" "medium/respond within 48 hrs", "low/respond within 72 hours" type of set-up with color coded flags (or stars or dots). Any message assigned one of these flags will remain at the top of the message list in ascending priority and the flag will not be disappear until the message is responded to.

Furthermore, any message that is assigned a flag should automatically trigger a task in the task list with the appropriate priority and due date based on the flag selected. And the task will automatically be marked as complete once the portal message is responded to.