Email

Simplify the process of managing incoming emails, creating conversations, and handling tickets by using DevRev’s Email integration snap-in. DevRev integrates with a variety of providers like Google Workspace, Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Zoho Mail, and custom domains, allowing efficient handling of any organizational email directly within the app.

For more information, refer to the Email snap-in on the DevRev marketplace.

Conversation and ticket creation for emails

When an email is received, DevRev checks if the sender is linked to your workspace and creates a conversation or ticket. If a sender is not recognized, DevRev creates a new user profile to track interactions (Support > Inbox for conversations and Support > Tickets for tickets). All replies are sent from your organization’s own email addresses, maintaining a professional and personalized customer experience that strengthens your brand and fosters better engagement. This method builds trust with mailbox providers and recipients across any email service, reducing spam flags and protecting your brand identity by adhering to DMARC standards.

You can choose for a an email address that messages to it create either a conversation or a ticket, but not both simultaneously. Whether to create a conversation or a ticket depends on the nature of the emails received at a specific email address.

Read more about conversations and tickets to decide which is more suitable for your use case.

When needed, you can link a conversation to a ticket. This is particularly useful if you decide to use conversations for all your communication requirements.

The visibility and interaction capabilities with a ticket in DevRev are determined by the user's role and how they were added to the email thread.

End users

Original sender

Added to: Reported by or Email members field.

Is able to: View the ticket on the portal and reply via email.
An end user in the same organization

Added to: To or CC fields in the email thread; Reported by field, Email members field, or @mentioned in the DevRev app.

Is able to: View the ticket on the portal and reply via email as an email member.
A customer admin for the same workspace

Added to: Customer Admins group.

Is able to: View the ticket on the portal once their workspace is updated on the ticket.
An end user outside original sender's organization

Added to: To or CC fields in the email thread, or mentioned in the DevRev app (adds them to CC).

Is able to: Reply to the ticket via email. They cannot view the ticket on the portal, as they are added to the Email members field but not to the Reported by field.

Employees

With DevRev account (added to email thread)

Added to: To, CC, or Email members field.

Is able to: View the ticket on DevRev, reply via email, and receive in-app notifications. If they make changes to ticket attributes, they remain subscribers.
Manually added subscribers

Added to: Subscribers field.

Is able to: View the ticket on DevRev and receive in-app notifications.
Without DevRev account

Added to: Email members field as subscriber.

Is able to: Reply to the ticket via email.

Setting up the email integration snap-in

1. Create a new connection

If you are using Google as the mail provider, refer to Gmail connection; if you are using custom domains or other providers, refer to Email connection.

You must be a part of the group and have permission to send emails to the Google Group. This approach doesn't work with generic Google Groups ending with @googlegroups.com.

In the DevRev app, go to Settings > Integrations > Snap-ins and click Connections.
In the top-right corner, select + Connection, choose Google, and enter your connection name and domain name.
Toggle on Make public to make the connection public for your organization and click Next.
Click Sign in with Google and add your organization’s Gmail account. If you are already logged in using a different Gmail account select Use another account and continue.

If you are using Google Groups then use the same Gmail account which has permission to send emails to the group and is a member of the group and continue.
In your Gmail account, go to Settings > Accounts and Import > Send mail as and add your group address.
Grant DevRev additional access to your Google account. Refer to our privacy policy for more information.

Troubleshoot DNS record configuration

When setting up DNS records for DMARC configuration, it's important to ensure the correct format to avoid any issues. Here are some common troubleshooting tips for setting up DNS records.

Some DNS providers automatically append the domain name at the end when adding DNS keys. For example, if your domain is support@example.com ensure that the DNS key is added as support@example.com and not support@example.com.example.com. This duplication can cause validation errors.
Double-check that the DNS record is correctly formatted according to the instructions provided by DevRev. Any mistakes or incorrect formatting can lead to DNS record validation failures.
Take note of the TTL value specified during the DNS record configuration. Changes to DNS records may take some time to propagate across different DNS servers due to the TTL. Be patient and allow sufficient time for the changes to take effect.
If you encounter any issues with DNS record validation, you can try clearing your DNS cache from your servers or workstations. This helps ensure that your DNS queries fetch the latest DNS information without any cached records causing conflicts.

2. Configure email integration snap-in

Go to Settings > Snap-ins. In the top-right corner, click Explore Marketplace.
Scroll down the page to find the Email Integration snap-in and click Install.
In the Connections tab, select the connection that you created. You could create a new connection here as well.
Select the options and inputs suitable for your organization in the Configuration section.

Email HTML

For inserting an image: <img src="image link" />
For inserting a link: <a href="link_address">link title</a>

Signature example:

1 <table
2   style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; border: solid; border-width: 1px; border-color: gray"
3 >
4   <tr>
5     <td style="padding-right: 20px">
6       <img
7         src="https://d36urhup7zbd7q.cloudfront.net/a/bb923e8f-0044-4646-a84e-3a8128d90971.png#logo"
8         alt="DevRev"
9         width="30"
10       />
11     </td>
12     <td style="padding-right: 20px">DevRev</td>
13     <td style="padding-right: 20px">
14       <a href="https://devrev.ai">Support chat</a>
15     </td>
16     <td style="padding-right: 20px">
17       <a href="mailto:support@devrev.ai">support@devrev.ai</a>
18     </td>
19   </tr>
20 </table>

Result:

3. Configure email forwarding for your email provider

For conversation or tickets to be created in DevRev, the emails must be forwarded from your email provider.

In the DevRev app, under the Instructions tab you can see a forwarding email address displayed as v___________@hooks.devrev.ai. This is the address where you can forward your support emails.

If you are using Google Groups, add your support address as a member of the Google Group.

You must be a part of the group and have permission to send emails to the Google Group.
Go to the settings of your support Gmail account.
Navigate to Forwarding and POP/IMAP and add the forwarding email address v___________@hooks.devrev.ai. Click Next.
Click Proceed when you are redirected to a new webpage. You are asked for a confirmation code sent to this forwarding address.
If the Primary Use Case is Tickets, go to Support > Tickets in the DevRev app; otherwise, if the Primary Use Case is Conversation go to Inbox. Find and open your verification message here.
Open the given link to confirm the request. Make sure you click the link that allows your support address to be forwarded to v___________@hooks.devrev.ai.
Go back to your Gmail forwarding settings, select Forward a copy of incoming mail and Save Changes to get this confirmation message on the top.

4. Verify configuration

Send an email to the configured support email address.
Confirm that a ticket or conversation is created in the DevRev app.
Add a comment to the ticket or conversation and verify that it is received at the email address that sent the original message.

Email deliverability status

The sender of an email is able to view the status of an email. Additionally, the sender can view if their email has bounced, along with details about the bounce event.

Below are the various possible states of an email.

In Transit: This email is now queued for outbound. DevRev is attempting to send this email, and the process is currently in progress.
Sent: DevRev has successfully sent this email. At this point, the email is on its way to the intended recipient.
Delivered: DevRev has successfully delivered this email to the recipient's email server.
Even if DevRev delivers the email, the recipient's email server may quarantine the email, or it may end up in the recipient's junk or spam folder. Despite this, DevRev still registers a Delivered event, as the email has reached the intended recipient's server.
Bounce: The recipient's email server rejects the message, which can happen for several reasons. These may include the email address no longer existing, a typo in the address, or the email failing to meet the recipient server's security policies. The specific reason for the bounce is detailed in the Bounced event. The sender is notified whenever their email bounces.

Troubleshooting deliverability

While the DevRev app ensures that emails are sent, the deliverability of the emails to the end customers is dependent on the email client and the SPF and DMARC policies that have been set up in the organization.

There are several tools that can perform a deliverability check of the support email address. Some of the options are as follows:

To ensure that the configured support address is able to deliver email without any issues, perform the following checks:

Send a test email to your configured address from the deliverability tool and confirm that a conversation or ticket is created.
Respond from the test conversation or ticket in DevRev to the address mentioned in the deliverability check tool.

You need to add the address as a contact, which can be done in the email composer page.

Check the status of the email sent by coming back to the chosen tool.

If the DMARC Compliance checks on the tool pass, then DevRev email is deliverable.

Threading

Email integration preserves threading by using the References and In-Reply-To email headers and by correlating the email Subject field and the ticket title. If either the ticket title or the email subject is changed at any point after ticket creation, follow up emails may cause a new ticket to be created.

Once a ticket is created from an email, it is recommended to avoid changing the email Subject or the ticket title.

Specifically, threading breaks when the order of words in the subject is changed, when words are replaced, or when words or symbols are inserted in the middle or appended. Threading is maintained if the subject change is limited to the addition of words before :, words between [], words between ##, or common prefixes (such as Re or Fwd.)

Rate limiting

To ensure that your support system is protected from potential spam attacks as well as from issues arising due to mail loops, the email integration has the provision to specify user-specific email limits. By default, the user-specific limit is set to 30 emails per 10 minutes.

If a user sends 30 emails in a 10-minute time frame, this particular user is marked with the tag spammer. Once marked as a spammer, the user can only send 100 emails in a 24-hour period. All of these emails are marked as spam by the system. Any emails beyond the 100 spam email default limit are dropped, and the blocked tag is added to the user. The user can be removed from the spam list by navigating to the contact and removing the spammer tag from the contact.

If you want to allow a user to send emails without rate limits, add the power-user tag to the user.

By providing explicit tuning for specifying the rate limit, DevRev ensures that legitimate support emails are not affected by potential spam attacks or mail loops.