Email channel configuration

Email is a communication channel through which the organization can interact with users and vice versa. It allows the organization to send campaigns, receive tickets, address support requests, gather feedback, respond to inquiries, or engage in general communication.

When users send an email to the designated email address, the support agents from the organisation will respond to the email accordingly. You can use email for two-way communication to chat with your users. For example, [email protected] or [email protected].

The following are the different protocols for sending emails:

1. SMTP
2. HTTP-based Email API

Email SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is a simple mechanism to send or receive emails from or to your mail server. Traditionally, the one-off emails that we send from our mailbox to another are generated by SMTP.

note

Use SMTP configuration when the purpose is to send 1:1 transactional/update email notifications through our Notifications API or Workflow campaign, and not usually recommended for bulk promotional ones.

Web-based Email API

A web-based Email API is a mechanism to exchange emails via HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). It allows you to access the functionality of the email services such as sending and receiving emails, managing contacts and mailboxes, and performing other email-related tasks, within the applications or systems.

Difference between SMTP and Email API

SMTP	Email API
SMTP is a protocol used to transfer emails between servers. The brand’s own SMTP can be used for sending transactional, support, workflow-driven, or one-off emails.	Email API is a set of tools and functions provided by an email service provider to allow you to programmatically interact with their email services.
This mechanism is not recommended for sending bulk or promotional email campaigns.	This mechanism can be chosen when the use case is to send bulk emails for promotional goals.

Add sender email account

You can add sender email acount either by configuring the SMTP of the brand’s professional sender email ID or by adding the web-based email API key to the platform. Upon successful configuration, the platform can send emails from the associated Email ID.

Set up SMTP-based email account (Basic)

This setup allows our platform to send emails on behalf of the email domain. For more information on how to setup Email channel, click here.

To set up SMTP server on the yellow.ai platform, follow these steps:

1. On the left navigation bar, click Extensions.

   

2. Click Channels > Messaging > Email.

   

3. Click Add email

   

4. In the Add Email section, select Basic to add the details of the Email sender.

Enter the following details:

• Configuration objective: Select the purpose of the current email account - Campaigns or Support ticketing. You can select both if needed.
  • Campaigns - You can choose this option to send the campaigns such as promotions, newsletters and updates, event invitations, and so on. You need to create a email template to exceute a campaign. After creating a template, you need create a email campaign. For more information, click here.
  • Support ticketing - You can choose this option to raise your queries so that agent can track inquiries effectively. Each email received from a user is considered as a ticket. This helps support teams manage and prioritize incoming requests. For more information, click here.
• Email: Enter the email address (sender ID) that you want to associate with the account. For example, [email protected].
• Server: Enter the host URL. The value will be unique for each mail server. For example, it will be smtp.gmail.com for the Gmail server and smtp.office365.com for the Outlook server. In some cases, like a private server, the value will be the IP address of the SMTP connector service.
• Username: Enter the same email address that you entered in the Email field. For shared accounts such as Microsoft, these could be different.
• Password: Enter the app password of the specified email address. To know how to generate and use an app password for each server, see Google and Microsoft.

note

• You should enter the same input for the email ID and username.
• Some email servers like Gmail offers safer alternatives to expose the password. You can generate it and provide it while configuring SMTP.
• For more details on SMTP, reach out to your IT team.

• Port: Select port 465 for Gmail and port 587 for Outlook when setting up the SMTP connection.

• Security type: Choose SSL for Outlook or TLS for Gmail when selecting the appropriate security type for the SMTP connection.

• Click Save.

  

• Once the email account details are saved, forwarding address will be displayed.

  

Similarly, you can add multiple email accounts and choose your preferred sender ID when configuring an outbound campaign.

Set forwarding address

The forwarding address generated within the platform must be added to your email server's setup, be it Gmail, Outlook, or another email server.

Prerequisite

• Copy the forwarding address from the Email channel page

To configure a forwarding address, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Gmail account.

note

You can only forward messages to a single Gmail address, not an email group or alias.

2. Click on Settings (top right) > See all settings.

   

3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

   

4. In the "Forwarding" section, click Add a forwarding address.

   

5. Paste the forwarding address that you have copied from the Email channel page and click Next.

   

6. Click Proceed > Ok.

   

7. A confirmation link will be sent to the Bot Messages section of the Inbox module. Click the below highlighted link.

   

8. Click Confirm.

   

• Once confirmed, the email ID you have added will forward emails to your designated forwarding address.

  

Add email alias account

You can add email alias account, if already main account configured in chatbot for alias.

To add an email alias account, follow these steps:

1. On the left navigation bar, click Extensions.

   

2. Click Channels > Messaging > Email.

   

3. Click Add email

   

4. In the Add Email section, enter the following details:

   

• In the email field, enter the email address of the alias account.
• In the username field, enter the email address of the main account. In the password field, enter the app password associated with the main account and click Save.

Set up SMTP-based email account (JSON)

You can also configure SMTP using the JSON code.

To configure an SMTP using JSON, follow these steps:

1. Click Channels > Messaging > Email.

   

2. Click Add email

   

3. In the Add email section, select Advanced to add the SMTP details of the email address in the JSON code for which you want to send emails.

   

4. Copy the below JSON code, paste it in the Advanced configuration section, and click Save.

{
    "serviceType": [
        "supportTicketing"
    ],
    "address": "[email protected]",
    "outboundConfig": {
        "server": "outlook.office365.com",
        "port": 587,
        "username": "[email protected]",
        "name": "Customer Service Shopping",
        "password": "abc",
        "securityType": "SSL",
        "useAdvanceConfiguration": true,
        "advanceConfiguration": {
            "service": "Outlook365",
            "auth": {
                "user": "[email protected]",
                "pass": "abc"
            }
        }
    }
}

note

• To send mail on behalf of the client, the client should enable SMTP authentication.
• In cases where clients have disabled SMTP auth for security reasons, they can whitelist Yellow.ai’s IP and allow emails from that IP.
• For Yellow.ai to receive emails from the customers of the client, the client needs to configure a unique forwarding address provided by Yellow.ai after configuring an email on the Channels page.

Get your Outlook SMTP

To get Outlook SMTP, follow these steps in Outlook:

1. Navigate to the File menu.
2. Click Info. Go to the Account Settings page.
3. On the Yellow.ai platform, look for the email address that you want to configure.
4. Search for the Outgoing server field.
   • You will see the SMTP that you want.

Get your Gmail SMTP

For emails to be sent from smtp.gmail.com, make sure you have followed these 2 steps:

1. Enable 2-Step Verification in your Google account.

2. Go to https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords.

   a. Click Select app and choose Other (custom name) from the dropdown.

   b. Click Generate.

   c. You will receive a 16-digit code, this code should be used as a password in email configuration, and the user remains as your email.

Web-based email account (API)

Reach out to the yellow.ai team for setting up an email account. The process will cover domain/subdomain authentication and dedicated IP address procurement, among others.

Test your bot on Email

After connecting your bot to an email account, you can test your bot using the following process.

To test your bot on Email, follow these steps:

1. Go to your email account and send a mail to the customer support team. Enter the same mail address that you have configured in the STMP basic email section.

2. The ticket will be raised in the Inbox. Navigate to Inbox > Tickets.

   

3. The agent(customer support team) will send an email to your email address regarding your query.

   

Email troubleshooting

Troubleshooting email configuration

When configuring email, you might encounter the following issues:

• If you have entered a different email ID and username, the email channel will not be configured.
• If you have entered an invalid password, the email channel will not be configured.

To troubleshoot, follow these steps:

1. On the Email channel page, right-click > Inspect > Network.

   

2. Select the "add_config" API and click Preview to view the error message.

   

Similarly, if you have entered an invalid password, you can follow the above steps to troubleshoot.

Generate ppp password for Email Tickets

Sometimes, emails from agents might not reach the end users. To solve this problem, we can use an app password. This helps make sure agents and users can communicate better.

Prerequisites

You'll need access to the same email account and password that's linked to the bot.

Steps

1. Log in to the email account linked to the bot.
2. Use the link below to make the app password: App Password Creation Guide
3. Make the app name, then you'll get a 16-character app password.
4. Remove any spaces from the password and copy it.
5. Paste this password into the email settings.