In helping your business stay connected with customers through the Qiscus App Center, Qiscus has released the Email App, which can be integrated into Qiscus Multichannel Chat. Integrating the Email App allows you to easily connect your official email account into Qiscus Multichannel Chat and access it with other channels on one dashboard.
Here’s how to set up the Email App in Qiscus App Center:
Add Email
When the Email App has been activated, the Admin will be able to view the email settings page. To add an email to be integrated, the Admin can click the + Add New button to add the email address on the email page. Currently, one Qiscus Multichannel account can be linked to three email accounts. To connect to more than three accounts, you can contact us here.
The following is an explanation for each field that needs to be completed:
1. Channel Name
Admin can fill in the channel name, which will later appear on the Qiscus Multichannel page.
As shown in the image above, in the Chat & Customer Info section, we can see the name of the channel that we have set.
2. UUID (Email Username)
This UUID (User Unique ID) is used to create an email with the domain @mail.qiscus.com, which will then be used to forward incoming messages from the integrated email account to Qiscus Multichannel Chat.
3. SMTP Configuration
Email App uses SMTP protocol to connect your email address with Qiscus Multichannel. Regardless of what email provider is used, the integration process can be carried out as long as the email to be integrated supports the SMTP protocol and is allowed to forward emails to Qiscus Multichannel.
a. SMTP Host
The server name is used to redirect email messages, such as smtp.gmail.com for Gmail or smtp-mail.outlook.com for Microsoft Outlook Cloud.
b. SMTP Port
The Server port is used to redirect email messages and the recommended port is 465 as this port is used to send messages using SMTP with a secure path (SSL/TLS)
c. SMTP Username
This refers to the username for the email account to be integrated
d. SMTP Password
This is the password used for the email account to be integrated. Some email providers have unique methods to determine the password used for an account. For example, for Google Mail (Gmail), the password used is not the email that will be integrated but a Google Mail (Gmail) App Password that needs to be created first. A full explanation can be seen on this page.
e. SMTP Auth Type
SMTP authentication allows a server to check whether an SMTP client is authorized or not. There are several types of authentication provided to support email integration.
- Plain authentication mechanism using username and password which are sent in a string and encoded using Base64 format
- Login and authentication mechanism using username and password encoded using Base64 format. The difference with Plain is that the username and password here are sent in stages (username first, then password)
- Cram MD5, an authentication mechanism in which the server prompts the client to solve computing challenges using a password. The client response is a string containing the username and a 16-byte digest in hexadecimal notation. The string is BASE64 encoded.
f. SMTP Email From
The email that will later appear as a description of the email is sent from here, which can be different from the integrated email account.
The following is an example of a field that has been filled in and uses Google Mail (Gmail) as the email provider.
If all the fields have been filled in, save the settings by clicking the Save button on the lower right corner. If successful, you will be redirected to the email integration details page.
Email Integration Details
On this Email Integration Details page, the admin can change the SMTP settings.
Email Setup Trial
The admin can test the email. The flow is that the Email App will send a message to the email address registered based on the email settings that have been made. It can be done by clicking the Send Email button.
If the settings are appropriate, a message will appear to show that the email has been successfully sent.
After the email integration settings have been completed, the next step is to apply settings on every email provider that has been successfully integrated so that every message that comes into the email can be forwarded to Qiscus Multichannel Chat.
For more details, in this example case, we use Google Mail (Gmail) as the email provider, which we will explain further in this article.
Forwarding Emails in Google Mail (Gmail)
Some email providers, such as Gmail, require a verification process when forwarding emails. See how this is done below:
- Login to the email account that has been integrated
- Click the Gear icon in the upper right corner and select ‘See all settings.’
- Then , navigate to the tab titled ‘Forwarding‘
- Select ‘Add a forwarding address‘ and enter the pre-set UUID.
- Click ‘Next‘, and a new window will appear. Select ‘Proceed‘.
- If successful, the following display will appear.
- Gmail sends a confirmation code to the UUID that has been set as the forwarding address. Go back to the email integration details page and click the ‘Verify Email‘ button to get the code.
- Click Next and a new window will appear. Then, select Proceed.Fill in the Confirmation Code field with the code.
- Click the Verify button and set the email to the Gmail account to be forwarded to Qiscus Multichannel Chat.
- Save changes by clicking the Save Changes button for further email integration tests to be carried out.
Send Test Email
- Send an email to the Gmail account that has been connected to Qiscus Multichannel Chat. The email should appear on the Qiscus Multichannel Chat dashboard as seen below
- Reply to the email
- You will then find that the admin’s reply fwill be visible from the customer’s Gmail (see below email with the customer’s name Yudha Pratama)
- The following is a display of the response from the customer with the name Yudha Pratama and the email signature.
You can manage your business email account more efficiently now by enabling and integrating your business email address into Qiscus Multichannel Chat.
Qiscus App Center: Increases Extensibility and Flexibility of Qiscus Multichannel Chat
Email App is one of many other apps that you can integrate into Qiscus Multichannel Chat. Extensibility and flexibility are values that we always apply to our products. Find the application you want on this page and receive support from our professional team to meet your application needs.
