Replies by email and the inbound quarantine

Every application and contract has its own reply address. When Backed emails someone about a new message in a conversation, that email replies to the record's address, so the person can answer from their inbox. A reply from someone in the conversation is added to it. Anything else waits in the inbound quarantine until an administrator files it or discards it.

The reply address

Open the application and select the Communications tab, or open the contract and select the Details tab. The Reply address card shows the record's address, for example app-k4mz7q2rx9bd@in.backed.giving. The address names nothing about the record, so it is safe to share.

• Select Copy to copy the address, for example to give it to someone who wants to send documents by email.
• If the card says No reply address yet, one is made when the first conversation email is sent. Select Create address to make one now.

Reset the address

Reset the address if it has been shared with someone who should not have it, or if it is getting unwanted mail.

1. Select Reset address.
2. Read the warning and select Reset address again.

A new address replaces the old one straight away. Emails sent to the old address are returned to the sender with a short note, and nothing about the record is in it. Anyone who saved the old address must use the new one. Later conversation emails reply to the new address.

You need to be able to send messages in the record's conversation to create or reset the address.

What happens to a reply

A reply is added to the conversation when it comes from someone in it: an applicant who is a member of the applicant's organisation, or an administrator who can see the record. Backed also checks that the email really comes from the address it says it comes from.

• The entry is marked via email and shows the email's text. Its attachments are checked for viruses like any other upload.
• If an attachment does not pass the virus check, it is not added, and the entry says how many were withheld.
• Automatic replies, such as out-of-office messages, are not added.
• An email over 25 MB is not accepted.

The inbound quarantine

Open Communicate and select Unfiled email. It lists the emails that reached a reply address but could not be added on their own, newest first, with when each arrived, who sent it, the subject, why it is waiting and the record it was sent to. An email waits because:

• Sender is not in the conversation: the sender is not an applicant or an administrator on the record.
• Sender could not be verified: Backed could not confirm the email came from the address it shows.
• The record takes no messages: conversations are turned off, or the record no longer takes messages.

The list shows emails that are Waiting at first. Use the status filter to see the ones already Filed or Discarded.

File or discard an email

1. Select Review on the email.
2. Read the start of its text. To read all of it, select Download the original (.eml) and open the file in your email program.
3. Choose where it goes:
   • To file it to the record it was sent to, leave that option chosen and select File.
   • To file it somewhere else, choose Another record, pick the record type, enter the record's ID (the number at the end of its page address) and select File.
   • To throw it away, select Discard, then Discard again. This can't be undone.

A filed email becomes an entry in the record's conversation under your name, with the sender's address on its first line, and the record's assigned administrators are told. You can only file an email to a record you can see and send messages on.

If someone else filed or discarded the email first, Backed says so. Close the email and look at the list again to see where it went.

You need Can access Settings > Emails to see Unfiled email.