How does Email work in Upmind

Upmind provides integrated email management for handling both outgoing communications and incoming support requests. This guide covers how to:

1. Set up default and custom outbound email

2. Connect your own external SMTP mailbox

3. Send bulk email through Upmind

4. Configure incoming email piping

Outgoing email

This section covers all transactional, bulk, and manual emails sent from Upmind to customers, leads, and staff.

Default email configuration

Once registered, you can create a default support department email (e.g., support@randomstring.upmind.app). This can be accessed from Settings > Support Departments under Branding and Customisation.

Upmind utilizes Amazon SES to send all transactional, event-based, and manual emails, including invoices, password resets, and ticket notifications, ensuring excellent deliverability.

New accounts have sending limits to protect sender reputation, which gradually increase as activity grows. You can also create additional support department emails, such as support@randomstring.upmind.app, if needed.

Adding a custom SMTP server

Upmind can send emails through your own SMTP-enabled mail server, including third-party providers like Mailgun, MailChannels, or SpamXperts.

To configure your custom mailserver:

1. Navigate to Settings > Notification Channels under Automation.

2. Under Email Channel, select Use Custom SMTP.

3. You must specify a From Email and From Name. While these don’t require authentication and can be any name or email, it’s best to use the email linked to your SMTP server.

4. Fill in the information as needed, which can usually be obtained from your email provider (e.g., cPanel, Microsoft 365):

   1. SMTP Server Hostname

   2. Username

   3. Password

   4. Port

5. Save the changes.

6. If you want to send a test email to a client, you can do it manually by choosing the client first.

7. Then go to Overview > Quick Actions and click on Send Email.

By impersonating a client, you can also test it from the client’s profile by clicking on Open New Ticket under Support.

Sending bulk email through Upmind

Announcements and newsletters can be sent through Upmind under Client > Bulk Notifications. This feature is meant for quick client updates, not as a full replacement for tools like Mailchimp or CampaignMonitor.

Newsletters will be sent through either Upmind’s Amazon SES or your custom SMTP server. If using a custom SMTP, remove mailing limits for high-volume sends.

For more information on how to send bulk emails to clients, follow this guide.

Incoming Email

This section covers emails from customers and leads to Upmind, including new sales or support inquiries and replies to support tickets.

Incoming email piping

Clients can reply to Upmind-generated emails using the default outbound SMTP configuration or send new messages to any address at your Upmind dashboard domain (e.g., support@randomstring.upmind.app). Incoming emails are automatically converted into support tickets.

You can configure the process in the following way:

1. Create a support department and a support department email from Settings > Support Department. You can follow this guide.

2. With your domain provider, configure and set up an email forwarder from your branded address (e.g., support@yourcompany.com) to the Upmind destination mailbox (support@randomstring.upmind.app).

3. To pipe emails from a custom SMTP, set up an email forwarder that relays messages from your address (e.g., support@yourcompany.com) to the matching Upmind mailbox (e.g., support@randomstring.upmind.app).

You can follow this guide to create a forwarded message mailbox.

Website contact forms

If your website’s contact form creates support tickets by sending emails, you can make sure that replies to those emails go directly to the client’s email address, not just a generic support address.

You can do this by setting it to use the client’s email as the reply-to address.

To achieve this in Upmind, enable the setting Use ‘Reply-To’ Instead Of ‘From’ by navigating to Settings > Branding and Customisation > Service Desk > Tickets.

This setting ensures that when your support team replies to a ticket email, their response is sent to the client’s email address (the reply-to), making communication more direct and efficient.

Support department routing

You can route emails to specific support departments based on the mailbox address.

In Settings > Support Departments, assign destination mailboxes for each department (e.g., billing, sales). Then forward relevant emails from your custom domain to these addresses.