Configuring an Inbox
An inbox is a mailbox the platform collects from, so incoming mail becomes records rather than sitting where only one person can see it.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Integration & Connections:
- E-mail Accounts — the accounts mail is sent and received through
- E-mail Inboxes — monitored mailboxes and their rules
Architect Panel → Automation:
- Tasks — E-mail Inbox Processing, which does the collecting
Architect Panel → Activity:
- E-mail Log — what has been sent
- Error Log — collection failures
What an inbox holds
- The account it collects from.
- A polling time — how often to check.
- An action — what to do with a message.
- An attachment mode.
- A maximum to process in one run.
Use a mailbox nobody works in
The most important setup decision. Point the platform at a mailbox a person also uses and you get a conflict: the platform processes messages and the person moves, reads and deletes them, and neither behaves predictably.
Give it its own address — enquiries, support, referrals — with the credentials belonging to the organisation rather than to somebody's account.
The processing limit is a safety valve
The maximum per run bounds how much a single collection attempts. It matters most on the first run against an existing mailbox holding thousands of messages, and when something has been down and a backlog has built.
Without it, the first run tries to process everything at once. Leave it at a sensible number and let a backlog clear over several runs.
Empty the mailbox first, or expect history
Connecting to a mailbox with two years of mail in it will process two years of mail. Decide deliberately: archive first, or accept the backlog and let the limit meter it in.
Polling frequency
Match it to how quickly somebody needs to see an enquiry. Every few minutes suits a support address; hourly is ample for something routine. Very frequent polling of a quiet mailbox is work for nothing.
Attachments
The attachment mode decides what happens to files arriving with a message. Think about it alongside your upload policy — mail is an uncontrolled route into your system, and attachments arriving this way should get the same scanning and type expectations as anything uploaded through a form.
The collecting task ships enabled
E-mail Inbox Processing is one of the few tasks that ships on, because an inbox that collects nothing is useless. Worth knowing it is already running before you connect a mailbox.
Watch the first day
Check the error log and the resulting records after connecting. Authentication problems, unexpected volume and messages nothing knows what to do with all appear immediately, and are much easier to deal with before a week of mail has accumulated.
Worked example
A support address is given its own mailbox with organisational credentials, archived before connection, polled every five minutes with a limit of fifty per run. The first collection processes fifty, the next fifty, and the small backlog clears within the hour without anything timing out.
Recommendations
- Use a dedicated mailbox nobody works in.
- Archive before connecting, or expect the history.
- Keep the per-run limit — it is what makes a backlog survivable.
- Check the error log on the first day.