Answer customer emails

Each agent can have its own email address. When an email reaches it, the agent reads it and either emails back an answer or handles it without replying, for example by saving a lead. Every email conversation shows up in Tasks with the channel Email and the email's subject as its title.

You need the Owner, Admin or Builder role to set it up. Viewers can see the settings but can't change them. Only Owners and Admins see forwarding confirmation codes.

Before you start

• Publish the agent. Emails always go to the published version of the agent. While the agent is a draft or paused, emails to its address are skipped.
• Decide how replies go out. If Reply to the customer is set to Ask first or Ask, then run after N hours, each reply waits in Tasks until someone approves it. For instant answers, set it to Runs freely. See Approvals.
• Decide which emails the agent should get. You can forward your whole inbox, or only some emails with a filter, such as those sent to orders@ or with "invoice" in the subject.

Turn on email

1. Open Agents and choose the agent.
2. On the Build tab, scroll down to Email.
3. Turn on Answer emails sent to this agent.
4. The agent's address appears, such as kiran-ab12cd@in.dhanurai.com. Select Copy address.
5. Under When an email arrives, choose Reply by email or Don't reply, just handle it.
6. If you like, change:
   • Name shown to customers: replies come from "Kiran via Dhanur AI". Leave it empty to use the agent's name.
   • Signature: added at the end of every reply, such as your business name and phone number.
   • Allowed senders: answer only some people. See Allowed senders.

Settings save by themselves. The section shows Saving… and then Saved. The address never changes, even if you turn email off and on again.

The address isn't secret, but anyone who has it can start a task. Give it only to people you want the agent to answer, or forward your inbox to it and keep it to yourself.

Forward your business email

Forwarding keeps your usual address. Customers still write to you, and your email provider sends a copy of each email to the agent. The steps are also in the Email section, with your agent's address filled in. Menu names can differ slightly between versions.

Gmail and Google Workspace

1. Open Gmail on a computer. Select the gear icon, then See all settings.
2. Open the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab and select Add a forwarding address.
3. Paste the agent's address, then select Next, Proceed and OK.
4. Gmail sends a confirmation to the agent. See The forwarding confirmation below.
5. Back in Forwarding and POP/IMAP, choose Forward a copy of incoming mail to, pick the agent's address, keep Gmail's copy in the inbox, and select Save Changes.

To forward only some emails, create a filter instead: search for the emails, select Create filter, then Forward it to and the agent's address.

Outlook and Microsoft 365

1. Open Outlook on the web. Select Settings (the gear icon), then Mail, then Forwarding.
2. Turn on Enable forwarding.
3. Enter the agent's address and tick Keep a copy of forwarded messages.
4. Select Save.

Microsoft 365 often blocks forwarding to outside addresses. If emails don't arrive, ask your IT admin to allow automatic forwarding for your mailbox, or forward with a rule: Settings, Mail, Rules, Add new rule, then Forward to.

Zoho Mail

1. Open Zoho Mail. Select Settings, then Mail Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
2. Under Mail Forwarding, select Add forwarding address and enter the agent's address.
3. Zoho sends a verification to the agent. See The forwarding confirmation below.
4. Turn forwarding on for the address, and choose to keep a copy in Zoho Mail.

The forwarding confirmation

Gmail and Zoho Mail check that you own an address before they forward to it, by emailing it a code. Dhanur AI spots these confirmation emails and never passes them to the agent. Within about a minute:

• The Email section shows the provider, the code and, for Gmail, a confirmation link. Only Owners and Admins see the code and the link. Builders and Viewers see that a confirmation arrived.
• Every Owner and Admin of the workspace gets an email with the code and a link to the agent.

Type the code into Gmail or Zoho, or open the link while signed in to the mailbox you are forwarding from. Once forwarding works, select the X on the confirmation to hide it.

We only show confirmations that we can verify came from Google, Microsoft or Zoho.

Send a test email

From your own email account, write to the agent's address with a subject and a question. Within a minute:

• a task appears in Tasks with the channel Email and your subject as its title, and
• with Reply by email, the answer arrives in your inbox (or waits for approval).

Reply to that answer to check that the conversation continues in the same task. Recent emails, at the end of the Email section, lists the last few emails and why any were skipped.

How replies look

Replies are threaded, so they appear under the customer's email in Gmail, Outlook and other mail apps. When the customer replies, their answer comes back to the same task. If someone else writes into the conversation, their email starts a new task, so the first customer's messages are never shown to them.

Replies come from Dhanur AI's sending address, not from your own domain.

Don't reply, just handle it

Choose this for emails that need work but no answer, such as supplier invoices, enquiry forms from your website or order alerts. The agent reads each email, uses its tools, such as Save a lead, Notify your team or your connected apps, and writes a short note in the task. Nothing is emailed back, and the note never waits for approval.

In this mode, emails from no-reply addresses and other system emails are handled too. With Reply by email, they are skipped, because there is nobody to answer.

Approvals

The agent's Reply to the customer setting decides when a reply is emailed:

• Runs freely: straight away.
• Ask first: the task waits in Tasks under Needs approval. Approve emails the reply, and you can edit it first. Reject sends nothing.
• Ask, then run after N hours: as above, but the reply is emailed by itself if nobody decides in time.

Other tools, such as Send an email and your app actions, keep their own approval settings.

Allowed senders

Leave Allowed senders empty to answer anyone. Add addresses or domains to answer only them:

• You can type @sharmatraders.in or paste mailto: links. We keep the plain address or domain.
• Email from an allowed sender must pass its own domain's checks (SPF or DKIM), so nobody can pretend to be on your list. Gmail, Outlook, Zoho and most business email do this for you.
• You can add up to 50 entries.

What the agent skips

Some emails are never answered. They still show in Recent emails, with the reason:

• automatic replies, such as out-of-office messages
• newsletters and mailing lists
• delivery failure notices
• emails from no-reply addresses and other system emails, when the address replies by email
• Dhanur AI's own emails coming back, and emails between two agents' addresses
• emails our spam filter flags, and emails that fail the sender's domain checks
• senders who aren't on your allowed senders list
• emails with more than 20,000 characters of text
• more than 10 emails in an hour from one sender, or more than 120 an hour or 1,000 a day to one address
• anything that arrives while email is off, the agent is a draft or paused, or AI work is paused on Dhanur AI

Skipped emails aren't kept, and Recent emails holds no text or addresses.

Photos and PDFs sent by email

Customers often attach a photo of a damaged item or a PDF of a bill. The agent reads them.

• Photos (JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF) and PDFs are kept and shown to the agent, like a file sent in a chat.
• Up to 3 files an email, 4 MB each, and a PDF of up to 20 pages.
• What a file really is comes from the file itself, not its name. A spreadsheet renamed photo.jpg is left out.
• Anything else, and anything over the limits, is left out with a reason shown on the task and told to the agent, so it can say a team member will look at it. Nothing we can't read is kept.
• Turn Accept files off on the agent's Build tab and only the file names are kept.
• Files are kept for 90 days and then deleted, like chat files. Only your workspace can open them. See Data and privacy.

Reading a photo or a PDF costs the same as it does in a chat: the file counts towards the AI cost of that message. See Limits and costs.

In Tasks

• The task list shows the channel Email and the email's subject as the title.
• Each message shows who sent it and when, the text, the subject, any photos and PDFs, and the names of any attachments that were left out.
• Each reply shows whether it was emailed, and to whom, or why not.
• If the agent has Hide contact details on, Viewers see sender and recipient addresses hidden.
• Email costs are included in the task's cost, alongside its AI steps.

Things to know

• Follow-ups while the agent is busy: a follow-up waits while the agent is still answering the last email. If it's still busy after 15 minutes, the task is handed to your team.
• Run again: a task you run again from Tasks isn't emailed to the customer.
• Unverified senders: when we can't confirm that an email came from the sender's own domain, the task says so, and the agent avoids sharing private details such as order information.
• Privacy: sender addresses are stored encrypted. The email text is kept only in the task, like any other conversation. See Data and privacy.

If something doesn't work

• Nothing shows up in Tasks. Check Recent emails first. Then check that email is on, the agent is published, and forwarding is confirmed with your provider. On Microsoft 365, ask your IT admin whether forwarding to outside addresses is allowed.
• The confirmation code never appears. Check that the forwarding address was typed exactly, wait a minute, and reload the page. Only Owners and Admins see the code.
• Customers don't get replies. Check Needs approval in Tasks, and open the task to see whether the reply says it was emailed. Ask the customer to check their spam folder.
• Replies start a new task. This happens when someone other than the original sender writes, or when a mail app drops both the conversation code and the threading details.