Forward Email Agent

The Forward Email Agent gives a mailbox its own generated email address. When you send or forward a message to that address, the agent reads the sender, subject, message content, and supported attachments, then creates or updates records in the CRM according to the mailbox setup.

This is useful when important business information already arrives by email. Instead of copying a website enquiry, pricing request, or customer message into the CRM by hand, you can route it to the mailbox and let the agent file the useful details into one or more groups. Processing happens in the background, so review the resulting records before treating them as final.

The mailbox is a processing address, not a normal inbox. It does not replace your email account, and it cannot delete CRM records. Anyone who has the generated address can send information to it, so keep the address private and share it only with the form, forwarding rule, or team members who need it.

Use cases

The best results come from giving each mailbox one clear job. A small sales team might use separate mailboxes for lead intake, quote requests, and customer issues rather than sending every kind of message to one broad mailbox.

Turn website enquiries into new leads

Scenario: Your website sends an email whenever somebody completes a “Contact us” form. The email contains a name, email address, company, website, and question.

How to use it: Create a mailbox for website contact forms, select your leads or contacts group, and map the values from the email to the matching CRM fields. Configure the form notification to send a copy to the generated address.

Why it helps: Every enquiry becomes a starting point for follow-up. The founder can open the CRM, see the person’s question and company details, and decide whether the next step is an introductory call, a qualification meeting, or a proposal.

Turn pricing requests into sales opportunities

Scenario: A prospect emails asking for a price or proposal and includes the product they want, their company, and a rough budget.

How to use it: Choose the quote or pricing request scenario. Select the groups that hold contacts, companies, and opportunities, if those groups are available to you. Map the customer, company, product, budget, and request summary to the appropriate fields.

Why it helps: The request can be filed as an opportunity while the contact and company are created or updated and linked where the available records support those relationships. You can then track the proposal and next action in the same sales process as your outreach and meetings.

Capture leads from a shared inbox or booking service

Scenario: A booking tool, event service, or shared sales inbox sends notifications to an address that several people monitor. The team often forgets to copy the details into the CRM.

How to use it: Forward those notifications to a dedicated intake mailbox. In the setup, list the details that appear consistently, such as name, email, event date, company, phone number, or request type. Map them to the group that the team uses for new leads or enquiries.

Why it helps: A notification that would otherwise remain buried in email becomes a searchable CRM record. Teammates can use the record as the handoff point instead of forwarding the same message repeatedly.

Log a customer question or escalation

Scenario: A customer replies to a founder or seller with a problem, a product question, or a request for help.

How to use it: Create a support or customer-request mailbox. Map the sender, subject, question or issue, and a short message summary to a request, support, or customer group. Add the people who should be notified when the mailbox creates or updates a record.

Why it helps: The issue enters the same record system as the customer relationship. A small team can see what was asked, connect it to the customer, and decide who owns the next response.

File a sales conversation while you work

Scenario: You are replying to a prospect from your normal email account and want the conversation represented in the CRM without leaving the thread to copy details.

How to use it: Add the mailbox address as CC or BCC on the message when appropriate, or forward the relevant message after the conversation. Use a mailbox with instructions for updating the existing contact, company, opportunity, or request rather than always creating a new record.

Why it helps: The CRM receives useful sales context as the conversation happens. This is especially helpful for founder-led sales, where the same person is doing outreach, calls, proposals, and follow-up.

Route one message into more than one part of the sales process

Scenario: A new enquiry should update the contact, update the company, and create an opportunity or follow-up request.

How to use it: Select more than one destination group in the wizard. Map only the details that belong in each group—for example, contact information in the contact group, company information in the company group, and product or budget information in the opportunity group.

Why it helps: One email can start a connected sales record instead of creating a single unstructured note. Keep the number of destinations focused so that the same message does not create unnecessary records.

Getting Started

Before you begin

Prepare the following:

A workspace account and access to the CRM.
A group view that you can edit.
At least one destination group with fields where the email details should be saved.
A clear idea of whether the message represents a lead, quote request, support issue, customer request, or another process.
An email source that can send or forward messages: for example, a website form notification, a shared inbox, or your normal work email.

The mailbox setup only offers groups that your account can edit and that have a usable table and fields. System fields, hidden fields, file-only fields, and fields such as record ID or creation time are not offered for mapping. If the group you expect is not listed, check its access and field setup first.

You can create up to five mailboxes in the current interface. A separate mailbox for each repeatable process usually makes the instructions easier to understand and safer to change.

Understand access, ownership, and notifications

There are three different permissions to understand:

Setting	What it controls
Your workspace role	Workspace admins and editors can create mailboxes. A viewer cannot create one.
Destination-group access	The wizard lists groups that the current user can edit. A group that you can only view is not a safe destination for this setup.
Mailbox owner	The owner determines the organisation visibility used when the agent processes incoming email. Choose a member whose access is appropriate for the records and groups involved.
Also notify	Selected workspace members receive an in-app notification when this mailbox creates or updates something. Being notified does not automatically make someone the mailbox owner.

Admins and editors can manage mailboxes. The mailbox owner can also manage their mailbox. If ownership changes, the agent may work with a different visibility scope, so agree on the owner before using a mailbox for shared customer data.

Open the mailbox setup

Open a group view that you can edit.
Select Import / Export in the group header.
Open the Email tab.
If no mailbox exists, select Create your first mailbox. If mailboxes already exist, select New Mailbox.

The other tabs in Import / Export are for different kinds of imports. This manual covers the Email tab and its generated processing mailboxes.

Complete the setup wizard

The wizard has seven steps. You can go back to change an earlier answer before creating the mailbox.

1. Start with the introduction

Read the short explanation, then select Get started. Think of the mailbox as a named rule for one type of incoming email.

2. Choose what you will forward

Choose the closest scenario:

A website contact form for website enquiries containing a person’s contact details and message.
A quote or pricing request for requests asking for a price or proposal.
A support or help message for customer questions or reported problems.
Something else when the email has another consistent purpose. Describe it in your own words, such as “an event registration” or “a partner referral”.

Choose the most specific option. The scenario gives the agent useful context about what the message means; it is not a replacement for field mapping.

3. List the details usually found in the email

The wizard suggests details such as customer name, customer email, company name, website, message, product or service, budget, subject, issue, and phone number.

Keep the details that normally appear in your messages. Edit them when your form uses different wording, and use Add to include another detail such as an order number, event date, or referral source. You can remove irrelevant details. Each detail is a short label, up to 60 characters, and duplicate labels are ignored.

This step is a checklist for the next step. The important instruction is the mapping that says what to take from the email and where to save it.

4. Choose the destination groups

Select the groups where the information should go. You can choose more than one—for example:

Contacts or Leads for the sender’s identity.
Companies or Accounts for the organisation.
Opportunities or Requests for the commercial ask.

Only groups that your account can edit and that contain usable fields appear. If there are no eligible groups, create or fix a group first, then return to the wizard.

Do not select every possible group just because it is available. Each selected group is an instruction to consider writing data there.

5. Map email details to fields

This is the most important setup step. Each line has two sides:

what to take from the email → the CRM field

For example:

What to take from the email	Field to fill
The sender’s full name	Name
The sender’s email address	Email
The company named in the enquiry	Company
A short summary of what they need	Request summary
The amount or budget, if mentioned	Estimated value

To create a mapping:

Select Add a line or add a field for the relevant group.
In the text box, describe the value in plain language.
Select the destination field. Use Search fields… if the list is long.
Remove lines that are not relevant.
Review each selected group separately.

The wizard pre-fills plain-language guesses for common field names such as email, phone, company, website, job title, amount, address, and summary. Treat those guesses as suggestions. Check that “amount” is mapped to a number or value field, that “summary” is mapped to a suitable long-text field, and that a person’s details are not mapped into a company-only field.

Leave a field blank when the email does not reliably contain that value. The agent uses the incoming message as its source. It does not ask you a follow-up question when a detail is missing.

6. Name the mailbox

Give it a name that describes its job, such as:

Website Leads
Quote Requests
Customer Questions
Partner Referrals

The name is for recognising the mailbox later. It does not change the email address or the records it can access.

7. Review and create

Review the mailbox name, scenario, destination groups, and field instructions. Select Change next to a section if something is wrong. When the summary matches your intended process, select Create mailbox.

After creation, the mailbox card shows a generated email address. Select the copy control on the card to copy it.

Choose the owner and notification recipients

After creating the mailbox:

Open the mailbox card’s settings icon, labelled Open mailbox settings when you hover over it.
Check Mailbox Owner. The default is the member who created the mailbox.
Choose another workspace member only if that member’s visibility is the right scope for the records this process will handle.
Under Also notify, add the members who should receive an in-app notification after the mailbox creates or updates something.
Select Save Settings.

The owner and notification list are different. A seller can own the mailbox while a founder or support teammate receives notifications, or the owner can be changed to a shared-process owner who has the appropriate access.

Connect the email source

Copy the generated mailbox address and place it where the relevant email is produced:

Add it as the notification recipient for a website contact form.
Add it to the forwarding rule for a shared inbox or booking service.
Forward an individual message to it from your work email.
Add it as CC or BCC on a message when you want the conversation filed as you send it.

Keep the address private. The current interface warns that anyone who has it can add data to the CRM. If the address is exposed, change the process that sends to it and ask an administrator or support contact about replacing the mailbox address; do not publish it on a website where visitors can send arbitrary content directly.

Run a meaningful first check

Before routing live traffic:

Send one representative message with safe, realistic values.
Include the kinds of details that matter in the real process: a person, company, request, product, or budget.
Wait for background processing to finish.
Open every expected destination group and check the created or updated records.
Confirm the fields, links between related records, and notification recipients.
Correct the setup before enabling the live form or forwarding rule.

A useful first check is a business-process check, not just a “hello” email. A blank message cannot show whether the system will distinguish a contact from a company or place a quote request in the correct opportunity group.

How to use it

Forward one email manually

Identify which mailbox matches the message’s purpose.
Copy the address from that mailbox’s card if you do not already have it saved.
Forward the relevant email, or send a new message to the address.
If forwarding a long thread, make the current request clear in the newest message. Keep the original sender’s contact details in the forwarded content when they are important for matching.
Wait for the background task to process the message.
Review the resulting record or notification in the CRM.

The processing service receives the message sender, subject, and body. When you forward a message, the technical sender may be the person doing the forwarding, while the original customer’s address is inside the forwarded text. If the original address is missing, the agent may not have enough evidence to match the customer correctly.

Use a website contact-form mailbox

Set up the mailbox for the fields your form actually sends. A practical mapping is:

Contact name → contact name field.
Contact email → email field.
Company name → company field.
Website → website field.
Message → enquiry summary or notes field.

Then configure the form notification to send to the generated address. When a real enquiry arrives, check that the agent:

used the contact email as the strongest identity clue;
kept the company details with the company they describe;
preserved the enquiry as a concise summary; and
created or updated the intended lead/contact record rather than an unrelated record.

If the form sends a field with a changing label, such as “Tell us about your project” in one version and “Message” in another, update the mapping to describe the meaning rather than relying only on the label.

Use a quote-request mailbox

For a quote or proposal process, select the quote scenario and map the commercial information separately from identity information:

Map the requester’s name and email to the contact or lead group.
Map company name and website to the company group when those fields exist.
Map product or service, budget, and the request itself to the opportunity or request group.
Select a field that makes the new opportunity easy to recognise, such as a title or name field.
Review the opportunity and related records after the email is processed.

A pricing request may not contain a budget, a complete company name, or enough information to identify an existing record. Do not invent those values. Missing values should remain blank or use the workspace default; refine the prompt only when the same kind of missing or ambiguous information is recurring.

Use a support or customer-request mailbox

For customer help messages, map the sender, subject, and issue separately:

Use the sender’s email to find or update the customer record.
Use the subject as the request title when it is meaningful.
Use the question or issue as the request summary.
Add a priority or owner instruction only when the email contains a reliable signal and the destination group has a compatible field.
Add the responsible workspace members under Also notify.

The agent can create or update records, but it does not replace the person who decides what to do next. Read the issue and confirm ownership before promising a response or resolution.

File sales email with CC or BCC

When the mailbox address is added as CC or BCC, the message is sent for processing while you continue the normal conversation. Use this for messages that contain a clear change in sales context—for example, a confirmed need, a proposal request, a decision date, or an agreed next step.

Use one narrow mailbox and a clear prompt for this process. Do not send every internal message, newsletter, receipt, or unrelated thread to a mailbox configured for customer leads. When a message includes a long quoted history, make sure the current request is clear and verify the resulting record.

Route to multiple destination groups carefully

The wizard lets you select more than one destination group. Use this when one message legitimately affects several parts of the sales process, such as a new person, their company, and a new opportunity.

For each group, describe only the fields that belong there. Do not map the same free-form message into every group unless that is intentional. Multiple destinations increase the number of records that may be created or updated, so the first live messages should be reviewed carefully.

Edit the setup after creation

To change the scenario, destination groups, or field mappings:

Open the mailbox card’s settings.
Select Edit setup.
Move through the wizard and correct the relevant step.
Review the new summary.
Select Save Settings.

To change the mailbox’s behaviour in more detail:

Open mailbox settings.
Edit Mailbox Prompt.
State what the incoming message represents, what to create or update, which fields matter, and what to do when information is missing.
Use @ in the editor to mention a workspace group, member, or existing record when the instruction needs a specific target.
Select Save Settings.

Useful instructions are specific and short. For example:

When I forward a website enquiry, create or update the matching lead using the sender’s email. Save the person’s name, company, website, and enquiry summary in the Leads group. If the email does not contain a value, leave that field blank. Do not create a second lead when the email already identifies an existing one.

For a quote process:

When I forward a quote request, create or update the requester and company when they can be identified, then create or update one opportunity for the product or service requested. Save the budget only when it is stated clearly. Link related records when the match is reliable and leave uncertain relationships unlinked for review.

For a support process:

When I forward a customer help message, create or update one customer request. Use the subject for the title and the customer’s question for the summary. Keep unrelated people in quoted history as context, not as new customers. Notify the selected support members after the record is created or updated.

These examples describe intent in ordinary language. Use the actual group and field names shown in your workspace, and do not paste internal record IDs into the email body.

Review what the agent did

For each important message, check:

The record is in the intended group.
The agent created a new record only when no reliable existing match was found.
Existing values were not overwritten by a weaker or contradictory detail.
The person, company, opportunity, or request boundaries are correct.
Related records were linked only when the email gave enough evidence.
The summary contains the useful request without copying an entire thread into one field.
Any attached files that matter are present.

The agent is instructed to search for existing records before creating records, use exact identity clues such as an email address when available, preserve existing information when uncertain, and avoid merging separate people or companies just because they appear in one thread. These safeguards reduce duplicates, but they do not remove the need for a quick human review of important sales or customer records.

Attachments are supported, but only up to five attachments are sent for processing for one incoming message. If an email has more than five, keep the important files in the first five or send a smaller message separately.

Stop or remove a mailbox

To stop incoming processing without changing existing CRM records:

Remove the mailbox from the website form, forwarding rule, CC/BCC process, or team instructions.
Wait for any messages already in transit to finish.
Keep the mailbox if you may resume the process later, or open its settings and choose Delete Mailbox when the control is available.

Deleting the mailbox removes its configuration and generated address. It does not delete records that were created or updated earlier. In the current interface, Delete Mailbox is shown only when the workspace has more than one mailbox; if it is the only mailbox, remove the forwarding source and ask an administrator or support contact about configuration cleanup.

Troubleshooting

The Email tab or create button is missing

Open Import / Export from a group view that you can edit and select Email. If the create control is still missing:

Check that you are signed in to the correct workspace.
Check that your workspace role is admin or editor.
Check whether the workspace already has five mailboxes.
Refresh the page and reopen Import / Export.

If you are a viewer, ask an admin or editor to create the mailbox or to confirm the required access.

No destination group is listed

The wizard only displays groups that your account can edit and that have a table with usable fields. Ask a workspace admin to check:

your group access;
whether the group has a view connected to a table; and
whether the table has visible, non-system fields such as text, number, date, select, or relation fields.

After the group is fixed, leave the wizard and open it again so the available groups are loaded again.

The group is listed but the field I need is not

The mapper hides system fields, hidden fields, file-only fields, and fields used internally for record identity or timestamps. Add a normal field of the right type to the destination table, then reopen the setup wizard. If the field exists but has an unexpected name, search for it with Search fields… and map it using a clear plain-language description.

I cannot create or save the mailbox

Check that:

the mailbox name is not blank;
at least one destination group is selected when eligible groups are available;
you are still a member of the workspace;
you have not reached the five-mailbox limit; and
the page has not lost its connection while saving.

If the save error continues, note the mailbox name, workspace, approximate time, and whether you were creating or editing. Give that information to an administrator or support contact; do not send the generated address in a public support channel.

The message was not processed

First confirm the basics:

The mailbox still exists in the Email tab.
The address was copied correctly, including the part after the + and the full domain.
The message was actually sent or forwarded, rather than saved as a draft.
The source email system did not reject the recipient or report a delivery failure.
The mailbox owner is still a member of the workspace.

Processing is asynchronous. Wait a little longer, then refresh the relevant group or notification list. Send a simple representative message to the same address. If it still fails, contact support with the mailbox name, approximate send time, sender address, subject, and delivery error—never include a password or private mailbox credentials.

The wrong group or record was changed

Open mailbox settings and choose Edit setup. Check the selected destination groups and every mapping line. Also inspect Mailbox Prompt for an old instruction that still mentions another group or record.

For a shared process, confirm that the mailbox owner has the intended organisation visibility. After changing the setup, send one representative message and review it before re-enabling the live forwarding rule.

A field is blank

The source message may not contain that value, or it may use wording that is different from the mapping. Check the original email, then:

make the mapping more explicit, such as “the email address in the contact-form submission”;
map the detail to the correct destination field;
make sure the value is not only present in an attachment or an inaccessible image; and
test with an email that clearly contains the value.

The agent does not ask the sender or the workspace user to supply missing details. It leaves missing information blank or uses a default rather than inventing an answer.

A field contains the wrong person’s or company’s details

Long threads often contain several people, signatures, quoted messages, or unrelated context. The agent is designed to keep those entities separate, but ambiguous emails still need review. Make the current sender and request clear, include the original customer’s email in the forwarded content, and add a prompt such as “use the current requester’s details; do not copy names from quoted history into the new contact.”

Correct the affected record manually, then narrow the mailbox mapping or prompt before sending more messages through it.

A duplicate record was created

Check whether the source email consistently includes a stable identity clue, preferably the customer’s exact email address. Avoid using only a partial name when several people may share it. Review the mailbox prompt for wording that tells the agent to always create a new record, and change it to “create or update” with a matching rule.

The agent searches before writing and is instructed to reuse an exact match, but it cannot deduplicate reliably when the email contains only an ambiguous name or when the original sender is hidden by forwarding. Clean up the duplicate manually, then test with a real message that contains the correct identity information.

A forwarded thread creates unexpected records

The processing input includes the forwarded body, which may contain old messages and several signatures. Do not forward an entire history when only the newest request matters. Add a short note above the forwarded content explaining the current request, or edit the mailbox prompt to treat quoted history as context unless a person is explicitly the current requester.

Review the records after the first few thread-based messages. A single thread is not proof that every person or company mentioned belongs to the same customer relationship.

An attachment is missing

Check that the file was attached to the email before sending and that it is within the first five attachments. The current email processor sends no more than five attachments for one message. If the file is important, resend it in a separate email or remove unneeded attachments before forwarding.

I did not receive a notification

Open mailbox settings and check the Also notify list, then select Save Settings. Notifications are sent to selected workspace members when the mailbox creates or updates something; adding someone as a destination-group member does not automatically add them to this list.

If the record changed but no notification appeared, check the member’s in-app notifications and confirm that the mailbox was saved after the member was added.

The owner or prompt change did not take effect

Return to the mailbox settings, confirm the new owner or prompt is still visible, and select Save Settings again. Make sure the new owner is a current workspace member. If the owner has left the workspace, an administrator may need to transfer ownership to another member before the mailbox can process messages reliably.

The mailbox address was exposed

Immediately remove the address from public pages, shared documents, or forwarding rules that should no longer use it. Check the records created around the time of exposure and correct or remove unwanted data manually according to your workspace process. Stop the source from sending more mail while investigating, and ask an administrator or support contact about replacing or deleting the mailbox configuration.

I want to change the destination without losing previous records

Edit the mailbox setup and select the new group or fields. Future messages will use the updated configuration. Earlier records are not automatically moved, rewritten, or deleted, so review and update those records separately if the sales process requires it.

Processing created a record when I expected an update

Check whether the incoming message contained an exact email, phone number, or other reliable identity clue. Check the mailbox prompt for a clear “create or update” instruction and confirm that the destination group contains the expected fields. If identity remains uncertain, the agent may create a minimal new record rather than risk linking the email to the wrong person or company.

Recommended operating checklist

Before putting a mailbox into daily use, confirm:

The mailbox has one clear purpose and a recognisable name.
The owner has the correct organisation visibility.
The destination groups are the minimum needed for the process.
Each important email detail has a deliberate field mapping.
The prompt explains what to create or update and how to handle missing information.
The generated address is used only by the intended form, forwarding rule, or team.
At least one realistic message has been reviewed end to end.
A person checks important opportunities, customer requests, and unusual messages after processing.