Email Ingestion Overview - How it Works

In the SmartUi platform, email ingestion refers to the process of importing attachments and email bodies (where required) from email messages sent to you by vendors and customers to your dedicated Inbox . The process typically involves the following steps:

1. Connecting to an email (Office 365 or Gmail): 

SmartUi connects to the email server using the appropriate protocol (IMAP, POP3 or Microsoft Graph API) and credentials. This can be done through built-in email connectors such as Microsoft Graph API.

The system supports both named account and Shared mailboxes

2. Retrieving email messages: 

SmartUi retrieves the messages from the email Inbox every 20 seconds and processes them individually. The messages can be filtered by criteria such as sender, subject, and date range. Messages can have one or multiple documents attached.

Note: the system can ingest emails from the main "Inbox" or from a nominated "Folder" within the Inbox.

3. Moving ingested emails: 

Successfully ingested emails to SmartUi will be moved to the "Processed" folder within the Inbox whilst emails that have failed to ingest will be moved to the" Exceptions" folder within the Inbox (See below).

Inbox Processed & Exception Folders

The use of processed and exception folders in the email Inbox allows for better management of the email ingestion process, as it separates the successfully processed emails from the ones that need further attention. It also allows to keep track of the emails that were not processed correctly and take action accordingly.

In your Outlook or Gmail Ingestion Inbox, the processed and exceptions folders are used to manage the flow of email messages during the email ingestion process.

The processed folder is where the system moves email messages that have been successfully processed and had their data extracted. 

The exceptions folder is where SmartUi moves email messages that could not be successfully processed. These messages may have failed to import to the cloud due to factors such as password-protected pdf or the email's missing an attachment. 

*IMPORTANT* Please ensure the AP staff monitor the messages stored in the exceptions folder in Outlook and manually email the into the system if necessary. Please notify your vendors to attach documents to emails or they will not be ingested into SmartUi

How to configure an automated response to vendors sending emails missing attachments can be found here: 

Article link: Configure Automated Email Response - Missing Attachments