Email System Overview

ActiveManage has a comprehensive email subsystem covering both outbound and inbound messages. It handles transactional emails (confirmations, password resets, workflow notifications), marketing-style bulk emails, inbox processing of incoming messages, and full retention logging of everything sent and received.

The main pieces

Several related features work together:

• E-mail Accounts — credentials and server settings for sending and receiving. Every email account has SMTP/IMAP/Graph configuration depending on its role.
• E-mail Inboxes — incoming mailboxes the platform polls for new messages, with processing rules.
• E-mail Relay Clients — for relaying outbound mail through external services (rather than direct SMTP).
• E-mail Templates — reusable message bodies with merge tokens.
• E-mail Designs — visual wrappers (headers, footers, brand) around templates.
• E-mail Log — record of every message sent (or attempted).

How outbound email flows

The path from "something happened" to "email arrives in inbox":

1. A trigger fires (a workflow step, a user action, a scheduled task, an admin clicking Send).
2. The platform picks the relevant E-mail Template and E-mail Account.
3. Merge tokens in the template are substituted with values from the relevant row.
4. The E-mail Design wraps the template body if one is configured.
5. The message is sent via SMTP (direct) or through a Relay Client (relayed).
6. The send is logged in the E-mail Log with status, recipient, and timestamp.

How inbound email flows

The path from "email arrives" to "action taken":

1. The platform polls configured E-mail Inboxes on a schedule (typical: every few minutes).
2. New messages are detected.
3. For each message, processing rules attempt to match — by from address, subject pattern, body content, attachment type.
4. The first matching rule's action fires — typically inserting the message into a datastore or appending to an existing record.
5. The processed message is flagged or moved so it isn't processed again.

Three real-world email setups

Example 1: Transactional only

One E-mail Account configured for outbound SMTP via SendGrid. Templates for password reset, welcome, notification. No inbound processing. Suitable for most consumer apps.

Example 2: Full support workflow

Outbound account for confirmations and notifications. Inbound account at support@ that auto-creates support tickets from incoming emails. Replies threaded by reference number in subject. Branded email designs match the website.

Example 3: Marketing-heavy SaaS

Transactional account via SendGrid for system emails. Separate marketing account via Mailgun for promotional emails (to avoid contaminating transactional deliverability with marketing complaints). Inbound at hello@ for general queries.