Admins can configure their Magic Inbox and their Email Submission at the Initiative-level only (this feature is not available at the Enterprise-level). Admins can locate this setup area by navigating to their Site Setup > Mail tab.
Creating a Mailbox for Email Submission
When an Admin chooses to "Create a Mailbox", they will see a screen that displays a field for the Mailbox address. This field allows you to choose a subdomain (typically the name of the Initiative) followed by the Brightidea URL of your affiliate. Please Note: Custom domains are not supported for Mail Submission feature, the selected email domain must utilize "brightidea.com".
Each Initiative can have their own Mailbox, or multiple Mailboxes, set for any Initiative.
When a Mailbox is created, Admins will also see a field to set the Category for the Mailbox. Every Submission that is sent to that address will automatically be associated to that assigned Category. Additionally, emails sent to the defined address will submit to that Initiative with the following information:
- The sender’s email address is submitter
- The email subject line is the title
- The email body is the description
- A hashtag followed by text will post as a tag (example: #innovation)
- Any email attachments will post as attachments on the submission, with the first attachment becoming the idea image
Additional submission questions on the submission form, including required questions, cannot be completed using Email Submission and will be left blank. The submitter can edit the submission afterward to fill any incomplete fields.
Submission confirmation emails will send once a Submission has been emailed into the Initiative.
Setting up a Magic Inbox
When setting a Mailbox as a Magic Inbox, Admins must first decide which Initiative they want to connect their inbox to (the Magic Inbox can currently only be assigned to one Initiative per domain). The domain of the email you are using to access your Brightidea will populate into the "Sender Domain for Magic Inbox" field.
If the domain of the email you are using is available, then a green Available tag will appear. If the field shows as Unavailable, then the domain you are using is currently connected to another Magic Inbox.
Then check the box for "Make this a Magic Inbox" if the chosen Mailbox is to be set as Magic Inbox for the Initiative.
Now that the Magic Inbox has been created, all Submissions that are sent to my@brightidea.com from any account using your sender domain, will be "magically" routed to this Initiative. We configured the mailbox my@brightidea.com on our end to check the sender's domain and check if there is an existing Inbox associated to that domain.
Additionally, the Users do not need to have a registered account to send to a Magic Inbox. Any User with the sender domain can send in a Submission, and then once they register their account for the first time, their Submission will be automatically created.
If Admins wish to configure more options for their Magic Inbox, these options live under System Setup > Beta tab. The options available range from allowing Unregistered Users to send in Submissions, posting Submissions immediately, and holding Submissions until the User registers.
Comment Submission
Administrators may also enable comments via email and define the email domain. All users will then receive an email update that a comment has been made on their Submission, or that another user has replied to their comment. They may then send an email reply with their own comment.
Important Notes
- When the submission is posted, all necessary points (for the user and submission) are reflected as if it were submitted through the Initiative.
- If the submission period for the initiative is closed users were receive an email message response noting submissions are no longer being accepted:
Troubleshooting
Email submissions may fail for the following reasons. Feedback responses to the submitter can be enabled and edited in System Email Messages, which can help with troubleshooting.
- The submitter's email address does not match to an account in the system, and unregistered submission is currently disabled
- Submissions to the activity are currently disabled (either due to Scheduler submission window or manually disabled)
- The submitter is not included in the access group for the activity
- The submitter's email domain is restricted
- The submitter's account has been deactivated
- The target mailbox is invalid or has been deleted
Do you know yet when this will come out of beta and be released?
Thanks
Hi Vicky -
This feature is still fairly new - I can however enable it it for you in your system, perhaps in a test WebStorm so you can check it out? Let us know!
We are hoping to push it to our normal setup area very soon, Thank you!
Best, Anthony
Hi,
two questions:
thanks
Carmelo
Hi Carmelo,
This would still be considered a beta feature, it's not included in the out of the box software. If needed, please enable the "Mail Tab" under the WebStorm Beta tab in your Webstorm setup area.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Best,
Brightidea Support
Thanks Ron,
I have now enabled the beta feature.
thanks!
Hi Ron,
Is it possible for this functionality to exist without the Mail tab enabled?
Thanks,
Stephanie
Hi Stephanie,
The beta 'mail' tab should be enabled in order to configure the mail boxes for each category in your WebStorm.
Thanks,
Brightidea Support
Hi Ron,
Yes that makes sense. I guess my question was more directed at the comment submission portion and how the end user can respond via email to post a comment.
Hi Stephanie,
When the comment reply feature is enabled in the 'Mail' tab, a user who receives a comment notification email can reply to that email and their comment will be posted as a reply.
Let me know if that answers your question.
Thanks,
Brightidea Support
I have a scenario right now where a user responded to one of the system based emails. The email came into our team's mailbox and when I checked the idea, the comment was also posted there. So I'm trying to determine if the user only sent the email and it automatically posted his content as a comment or if the user did two separate actions, respond to the email and posted a comment on his idea.
Hi Stephanie,
That sounds like the user performed two different actions if the 'mail' tab was disabled and comment reply emails were never emailed before.
Thanks,
Brightidea Support
Okay thank you for the confirmation! (as always, very helpful)
Ron, I just did a test and replied to a system generated email that notified me someone had commented on my idea. The email reply DID show up on the idea comment feed as a response to the respective comment.... FYI :) I thought it was odd seeing your note above so I wanted to share with you.
Hi Stephanie,
It must be the case that you had or have the mail tab enabled where the comment reply was tested. If that was the case, it will indeed post the reply as a comment.
You can double check in WebStorm setup.
Thanks,
Brightidea Support