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Engage Digital | Email channel connection settings

Last updated on October 26, 2021

An email channel can send and receive emails in several modes of configuration, such as Postmark, IMAP/SMTP, or a hybrid configuration. Your organization will choose a mode based on your operational needs, technical constraints, and desired speed of implementation. Depending on your selection, you may need to configure different sections when creating an Email channel.

Postmark settings

Enable: Check this box to allow emails to be sent and received in Postmark mode.
Email address: The email address associated with this account.
API key: The API key generated in Postmark and provided to you by RingCentral.
Enable open tracking: Check this box to let agents see a ‘Read’ indicator when the customer reads the agent’s email reply.

IMAP/SMTP settings

Add the email address associated with this account.

IMAP settings

Server host: The hostname or IP address of the IMAP receiving server.
Server port: The port number used by the receiving server. The port numbers generally used for receiving emails via IMAP are 993 and 143.
Use SSL/TLS: Check this box if your receiving server supports SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption.
Use StartTLS: Check this box if your receiving server supports StartTLS (Opportunistic Transport Layer Security) encryption.
Folders to synchronize: The names of directories to synchronize for importing emails. As soon as the first synchronization has been done, the list of folders is retrieved and you can choose the folders to synchronize by autocompletion. You cannot manually enter the folder names.
Folder for ‘Sent Mail’: The name of the directory that contains sent mail. As soon as the first synchronization has been done, the list of folders is retrieved and you can choose the folders to synchronize by autocompletion. You cannot manually enter the folder names.
Authentication type: Select whether the IMAP server uses the basic authentication protocol or Microsoft identity platform OAuth 2.0.
Username: The username of this account, for example "john.doe". Some email service providers require the full email address as the username.
Password: The password of this account.
SSL verification mode: Lets you verify the client SSL certificate. Leave this field empty unless the email channel has errors when using StartTLS or SSL/TLS.

SMTP settings

Server host: The hostname or IP address of the SMTP receiving server.
Server port: The port number used by the receiving server. The port numbers generally used for receiving emails via SMTP are 465 and 587.
Use SSL/TLS: Check this box if your receiving server supports SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption.
Use StartTLS: Check this box if your receiving server supports StartTLS (Opportunistic Transport Layer Security) encryption.
Authentication type: Select whether the SMTP server uses the basic authentication protocol or Microsoft identity platform OAuth 2.0.
Username: The username of this account, for example ‘john.doe.’ Some email service providers require the full email address as the usernam.
Password: The password of this account.
SSL verification mode: Lets you verify the client SSL certificate. Leave this field empty unless the email channel has errors when using StartTLS or SSL/TLS.
Domain: The domain used for the extended HELO/EHLO command when connecting through Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (ESMTP). This command has the server identify itself when connecting to another email server to send an email. The default value is ‘localhost’ (optional).

Advanced settings

You may also need to configure these settings when creating an Email channel:

Threading heuristics: Check this box to require the platform to check every new imported email for a matching email. If an already imported email has the same recipients and subject, the new email is added to the existing thread. You should not check this setting when implementing a form.
Email parser (BBCode): Check this box to interpret BBCode tags. Make sure to check this setting when implementing a form.

By default, all BBCode tags (including those that are correctly interpreted) are displayed. To display only unrecognized tags, check the Display only unknown BBCode tags field, which you can configure by navigating to Settings > Account Settings in the left-hand navigation bar.
Whitelisted emails: The list of whitelisted email addresses. Emails imported from whitelisted email addresses are treated with special rules. Each new email imported will create a new thread (no thread aggregation), and each new email will be associated with an anonymous identity, unless a ‘ReplyTo’ is specified in the email’s raw source.

Make sure to check this setting when implementing a form.
Spam threshold: Lets you configure the spam detection threshold. When enabled, the platform uses the Apache SpamAssassin set of heuristic rules, which assign a score to imported emails based on the email’s content and characteristics. There are three thresholds:
- Disabled: Disables spam detection.
- Relaxed: Detects spam with a score less than or equal to 10.
- Strict: Detects spam with a score less than or equal to 5.
  
  When the score of an email is greater than the chosen threshold, the message is archived. The stricter the threshold, the greater the risk of legitimate mail being archived. To learn more about how the rules assign a score to imported emails, see the Apache SpamAssassin documentation.
Attachments security level: Lets you specify what kind of attachments can be uploaded to and downloaded from this email account. There are three levels:
- Strict: Allows audio, video, image, text and PDF files to be attached (this is the default value).
- Relaxed: Allows all the file types that are allowed in Strict, plus Microsoft Office and iWork document files to be attached.
- Permissive: Allows any type of file to be attached.
Exclude from TO/CC: Lets you specify email addresses to exclude from receiving replies.