Inbound Email/POP Collection

Overview

Deprecated

This feature is now deprecated and will be phased out of Actionstep in the future (no current timeline).

Please consider using the Microsoft Office 365 add-in or the Google Gmail add-in to assign and upload email instead.

POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) is a one-way incoming mail protocol. Using this protocol downloads a copy of an email message from a server and delivers it to another location. Once a message has been downloaded, it is deleted from the server, however, many email clients have a setting to keep the messages in the inbox.

When POP Collection is enabled in Actionstep, messages are pulled into your system. Actionstep reads routing information in the emails to properly assign the messages to the correct matters, sales invoices/bills, supplier/vendor invoices, and/or users.

Note: This feature is not recommended to be enabled for new systems, instead we recommend using our Microsoft Office 365 add-in.

Who Should Use POP Collection in Actionstep?

POP collection may be a good option for users with an inbox dedicated to be used with Actionstep or users who do not use email services for which Actionstep offers add-ins/plugins like Office 365, Outlook, and Gmail.

Generally, POP collection can be beneficial for users managing emails ONLY in Actionstep.

Who Should NOT Use POP Collection in Actionstep?

POP collection may not be useful to those managing their inboxes outside of Actionstep. We offer some alternative tools to assign emails to Actionstep for the following services.

Microsoft Office 365 users

Note: Microsoft Office 365 is phasing out support for POP3 collection so this feature maybe unavailable to some Office 365 subscribers. We suggest Office 365 users utilize 

If you are managing your emails within Office 365 Outlook, we suggest using the Actionstep Office 365 Outlook Add-in.

Gmail users

Note: Google makes it very hard to enable POP3 collection in Gmail. If you get errors about your password being incorrect, it is generally due to your Gmail account not being configured properly for POP3 collection.

For users who manage their inbox in Gmail, we suggest using the Actionstep Gmail Add-on.

Windows desktop Outlook users

If you do not have an Office 365 account but use a desktop version of Outlook on Windows, we suggest using the Actionstep Microsoft Office Plugin.

Setting Up POP Collection

POP Collection can be enabled in your Actionstep system by going to Admin > Email > Inbound Email (POP Collection) and turning the Enable toggle on.

Once enabled, four sections of configuration options are revealed. Each option in each section is detailed in the tables below.

Mailbox Credentials

Username	The username or email address you use to log into your email.
Password	The password you use to log into your email.
Primary email address	This is the primary email address of this mailbox, avoid using any aliases here.

Server Details

You may need to talk to your network administrator to get the host, port, and authentication method values. If you have a self-hosted email system you may also need to grant access to Actionstep through your network firewall.

Auto-populate defaults	Selecting a value will auto-populate the default values for Host, Authentication and TCP Port Defaults are available for the following services: Microsoft Office 365 Google Gsuite/Gmail Yahoo! Secure POP3 Server (like Microsoft Exchange Server) Insecure POP3 server (like Microsoft Exchange Server)
Server host name	This is the DNS host name (or IP Address) for your SMTP server. Example: mail.myorgname.com
Authentication method	Most servers implement either basic or SSL. If the Port is 110 then you are normally on Basic.
TCP Port	This is the TCP port used to connect to your server, if self-hosted you need to ensure your network firewall has this port securely exposed to the internet.

Processing Settings

Undeliverable email address	When emails are unable to be assigned automatically they will be forwarded to this email address. This must not be the same email address as the POP collection mailbox as that would create a loop.
Notify sender of errors	When enabled, Actionstep will email the sender when there was a problem processing an email.
Wildcard mode	Actionstep supports inbound wildcard (aka Catch-all) mailboxes where the recipient address can contain information about the matter. For example: [e-mail] would imply the email should be routed to Matter id 42. This is explained further in the Receiving Emails section of this article.
Wildcard header	Different mail servers have different ways of letting Actionstep know who an email was delivered to. Most of the time Delivered-To is the correct header. Note that some servers do not support either, in which case you cannot use the wildcard functionality with Actionstep.

Warnings

The bottom of the configuration page offers warnings about the use of the POP collection feature. 

Deprecated

This feature is now deprecated and will be phased out of Actionstep in the future (no current timeline). Please consider using the Microsoft Office 365 add-in or the Google Gmail add-in to assign and upload email instead.

WARNING - PLEASE READ

This feature works by using POP3 protocol to download emails. This will generally cause all email in the selected mailbox to be downloaded to Actionstep then deleted from the server. DO NOT connect this to your personal mailbox. DO NOT connect a real mailbox to a a test or trail Actionstep system that you do not intend on keeping. Email is not an easily transferable data set as there is no standard (like CSV) for exporting many emails. Once Actionstep has downloaded your email, you will require a lot of technical skill to transfer from Actionstep to your original mailbox. If in doubt, please use the Office 365 or Gmail add-ins instead.

Once all settings are configured and the warnings read, tick the I understand the risks of enabling this feature box and select the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

If Actionstep is unable to verify the settings and you receive an error, please check your settings and try again.

Some common issues are:

• Inaccurate configuration information (wrong password, port numbers, etc.)
• Server configuration - some server setting not allowing the connection
• Firewall settings - Port unreachable by Actionstep

Sending & Receiving Emails

As mentioned above, once POP collection has been enabled, messages in the connected inbox will be pulled into Actionstep.

By default, with no routing information, all emails will be pulled into the Unassigned inbox in Actionstep. This inbox is located at Comms > Unassigned Email > Inbox.

To properly associate emails with items in Actionstep, there must be routing information in the email. How Actionstep assigns the messages is dependent up whether the POP collection email is a wildcard email or not.

Wildcard

A wildcard inbox is one which can receive emails from any address with the same domain. For example: If your email domain is yourdomain.com, [e-mail] would end up in that inbox. In fact, any combination of characters @ yourdomain.com would be received.

If you are uncertain whether your inbox is a wildcard inbox, there are a couple options to confirm:

• Send a nonsense email to that domain: like [e-mail]. If the message is received, you most likely have a wildcard inbox.
• Or consult your IT department

When a wildcard inbox is set up via POP collection in Actionstep, emails that are sent out of Actionstep will use a special email address with your POP collection email domain as a reply address (along with the email address from which you sent the message).

Example

If I send an email out of Actionstep from the address [e-mail] and I have [e-mail] set up in POP collection: When the recipient replies to the email, the reply will be sent to [e-mail] AND the yourdomain.com email address. However, the yourdomain.com email address will not be [e-mail], it will have routing information in place of the word "matters."

Wildcard routing information

There are three routing indicators that can be prepended to the POP collection email domain to associate the email with items in Actionstep. Routing will be added automatically to the reply address when items are associated before sending the email from Actionstep.

a	"a" stands for "action," but you can think of it as a matter. The letter will be followed by the ID number of a matter. For instance, a22 is matter 22.  For an email to be collected by Actionstep and associated with matter 22, the address would include a22 like: [e-mail] Any email in your POP-connected inbox with that address will be available in Actionstep, associated with matter 22.
p	"p" stands for "participant." The letter will be followed by a participant/contact ID number to associate the email with the correct participant in Actionstep.  If the participant ID refers to a user, the email will appear in their inbox in Actionstep (Comms > My Email > Inbox). [e-mail] would reference the contact record with a participant ID of 10.
sp	"sp" refers to "Sale/Purchase." The letter will be followed by a sales/purchase ID from your Actionstep system. Sales/purchase IDs primarily reference sales invoices, supplier/vendor invoices, and bills.  [e-mail] would reference an sale/purchase record with an ID of 238.
Combination	a, p, and sp can be used in the same address to reference multiple items. There can even be multiple references to different instances of the same type of item. [e-mail] would reference matter 100, participant 32, and sale/purchase record 1001. [e-mail] references 2 participants, 3 matters, and 2 sale/purchase records.

Non-Wildcard

Non-wildcard POP collection inboxes can associate messages to items in Actionstep via the Subject Line Method. With this method, a code is added to the subject line to determine associations within Actionstep. This subject line code is added automatically to emails sent from Actionstep where the outbound mailbox is the same email address that is set up for POP collection.

The subject line can contain four bits of identifying information: 

• Your system's organization key (orgkey)
• a - Matters
• p - Participants
• sp - Sale/purchase records

A subject line for a system with an orgkey of orgcom where the email is associated with matter 1 and participant 10 would look like id=orgcom:a1p10

The subject line code can reference multiple matters, participants, and sale/purchase records. 

When Actionstep pulls emails with proper subject line routing via POP collection, the messages are associated with the items that correspond with the subject line code.

Related articles

• Email in Actionstep
• Setting up System Mailboxes
• Setting Up Personal Mailboxes
• Email Aliases
• Email Associations