Demo inbound account configurations, such as the Contract configuration for the Contracts table, are pre-configured in the system. When setting up an inbound account, you usually edit a demo configuration, add your server and account details, and save the configuration without changing the optional settings. The optional settings control behavior like email to record mapping, access and email retention policies, and spam filtering. We don't recommend that you change the optional settings because the default configuration is ideal for most use cases. If you do need to customize optional settings, you can use this topic as a guide.

To customize an existing inbound email account:

1. Go to Setup > Email and SMS > Configure Inbound Email. 
2. Open the account you want to edit.

The Table, Server, and Account tabs are already configured from the initial setup. Refer to the sections below to update the configuration. Remember that your changes won't be saved until you click Finish on the final tab.

Configure Email to Record Mapping

To define how email data maps to fields in records, including the email subject, sender's email address, email body, and any attached files, follow these steps: 

1. Click the Record Mapping tab.

2. Define how to handle the sender and recipient values, including the name and email address of the sender and the people on the To and CC lines. Email addresses can be stored separately from the name, which can be useful to prevent errors due to name-sensitive email recognition.

   If you use the email address to try to match a contact record's Email field, select the option to strip out all text other than the email address.

3. Select options for storing the message, attachments, and images. 
4. Select any fields you want to set automatically. For example, you might configure an address for urgent-outage@yourcompany.com to automatically set Priority to 1.
5. Click Next.

Continue to the next section to configure how to handle updates to existing records.

Define how to Update Existing Records

To define how records are updated by email, follow these steps:

1. Click the Email Updates tab.
2. Select where to store the body of the email. It's usually best to append the body of the email into an Append Only field. This way it is native to the table and can be sent with the other fields in an email notification. For instance, you can create the following email notification: "An email was received from $updated_by and here is its content: $additional_notes_latest."
3. Determine whether to include quoted content. If you choose to remove quoted content, the system truncates any part of the email that follows the hidden code, if a hidden code is configured in the outbound settings. This is intended to remove the email conversation quoted at the bottom, to avoid duplicating messages over and over in a long thread.
4. At the bottom, select options to determine where attached images and files are stored.
5. Click Next.

Continue to the next section to decide if you want to enable email parsing.

Enable Optional Parsing of the Email Body

The Email Parsing tab includes settings that make it possible to update specific fields based on text held in the email body. When using parsing, you must define a delimiter string the system will use to start and end parsing. For example, if "Agiloft Details" is defined as the delimiter, the following email will set the Manager, Comments, and Priority fields in the record:

For more information, see Email Parsing.

To enable or disable email parsing, follow these steps:

1. Click the Email Parsing tab.
2. Select the Enable field parsing for inbound email checkbox.
3. In the text field, enter the delimiter string the system will use to start and end parsing. In the example above, you would enter Agiloft Details.
4. Select the language.
5. Determine whether parsing replaces or adds to the field values set by your configuration on previous tabs.
6. Select options for handling errors, invalid fields, and permission issues. For each option, you can also choose to email administrators when the issue occurs.
7. If you chose to email administrators about any issues, complete the fields to set the email address for the administrators and the contents of the message.
8. Click Next.

Continue to the next section to configure options related to email access and retention.

Manage Access and Email Retention Policies

You do not have to let people create records via the inbound email account. You can limit record creation to registered users or email addresses in certain domains, or prevent anyone from creating records this way. When a new email is received that isn't processed as an update, the system looks at the sender's address and checks it against user records for a match in any email field. If it finds one, it applies the user's group permissions to the request to create a record; if it doesn't find a match, it either rejects the email or applies permissions for the user account specified on the Access tab.

For email updates, the system does not check the permissions of the sender unless email parsing is turned on, which means the updates are applied as dictated by the field mapping without checking any permissions. This is meant to enable people who were cc'd on the original email to successfully reply to the system even if they are not loaded as a user. If email parsing is turned on for a reply, then the user must have edit permissions to both the record and to the fields being updated via parsing.

To configure options such as whether or not to allow record creation by email, what to do when the sender isn't recognized, who to notify if an email is rejected, and how long emails are left on the server after they've been retrieved, follow these steps:

1. Click the Access tab.
2. In Record Creation, select or clear the Enable creation of records by email checkbox.
3. If you clear the checkbox, you can optionally select the option to send a reply when someone attempts to create a record by email. For example, you might send a message saying, "Records cannot be created by email. Please log in to the system to create a new record."
4. Next, determine what happens if the email address trying to create a record doesn't match an email in the system. You can either:

   • Create a new record using a specified existing user's account. You can also select this option with an additional limitation to process emails only from addresses with a specified domain. To use this feature, enter the allowed domains in the field, separating each domain with ;.

     If you allow emails from unknown users, choose your guest account and its group permissions carefully. Be sure the guest group has "create own" access to the table and the fields you have mapped. Email updates do not check the permissions of the sender; they are applied to the correct records without limitation. This is to enable people who were cc'd about the original ticket to be able to successfully reply to the system even if they are not users.

   • Discard the email. This way, only existing users can create records by email, and they can only do so from an email address linked to their user record.
5. Complete the same options for record updates.
6. If desired, select the option to forward discarded emails and specify an addressee, message content, and whether to include attachments.
7. Finally, determine how long to keep emails on the server. It's generally best to leave email on the server for one or two days to allow time for troubleshooting.
8. Click Next.

Continue to the next section to define filters to use for preventing email loops and spam.

Set up Filters to Prevent Loops and Spam

You can set up filters to prevent email loops and spam from automatic email replies. For example, if a user has an automatic out-of-office reply set up and the system sends the user an email, the automatic reply can trigger additional system responses endlessly. To configure filters, follow these steps:

1. Click the Filters tab.
2. Select the options for handling bounced emails. In most cases, all the options in this section should be selected to prevent loops that generate records endlessly. If you choose to clear any of the checkboxes, make sure to carefully check all inbound processing and automatic responses beforehand.
   
3. If desired, disable automatic responses to email from specific addresses or containing certain phrases. If an automatic response is disabled, the system still creates a record based on the email, but no response is sent to the sender.
4. If desired, discard email from specific addresses or containing certain phrases. This prevents a record from being created and simply discards the email.
5. Discontinue auto-responding by setting the number of messages that can be processed from a single address in a specified time frame.
6. Keep email subjects tidy by truncating Re: and Fwd: subject prefixes after a specified amount.
7. Finally, if you want to apply your Filter changes to all inbound accounts, you can select the Update all inbound email filters checkbox.
8. Click Finish to save your changes.