Digital Worker Email

A Digital Worker can handle customer email two ways — by connecting an email account over OAuth, or by forwarding support mail to it (or both at once). This guide covers when to use each, how the options appear on the worker, how to set them up, how to reply from a different address, and what the full flow looks like.

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The two modes

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Which should you use?

• Connect an email account when the worker should work a specific, real mailbox and reply from that exact address — a named or shared mailbox you can authorize over OAuth (read + send). No DNS setup is required; replies come from the connected mailbox itself.
• Use forwarding when you have a shared support inbox (like support@acme.com) that you’d rather forward than connect directly, and you want replies to go out from your own verified domain. This needs a verified sending domain (DNS) and a forwarding rule in your mail system.
• If your support address is a group or distribution list (for example, a Google Group), use forwarding — a group has no mailbox to connect over OAuth.
• You can run both — for example, connect one mailbox directly and forward another.

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How the email options appear on the worker

Open Digital Workers, select your worker, and go to the Email tab. Turn on the master Email toggle to reveal three sections: Scan connected mailboxes, Receive forwarded email, and Auto-reply on hold (an optional acknowledgement sent in-thread when a reply is held for a human).

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Prerequisites

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Option 1 — Connect an email account

The worker watches a mailbox you connect and replies from the address each email arrived at.

1. On the Email tab, turn on Email, then turn on Scan connected mailboxes.
2. Under Monitored mailboxes, click Add mailbox.
3. In the picker, choose an already-connected mailbox, or use Connect a new Gmail mailbox / Connect a new Microsoft 365 mailbox to authorize one (a Google or Microsoft sign-in opens; this OAuth step happens in Statisfy). Only mailboxes connected with both read and send permission appear here — each is shown with Reads / Sends tags (see the Email tab above).
4. If a mailbox shows “Missing read and/or send permission — reconnect to update,” reconnect it with both permissions.

How replies work. When mail arrives at a monitored mailbox and resolves to a customer, the worker replies from that same mailbox — the address the email arrived at. If that mailbox can’t send, the reply is held in the worker pool for a teammate instead.

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Shared mailboxes (Microsoft 365)

An Outlook shared mailbox — for example, support@yourcompany.com — has no password of its own, so it can’t be connected over OAuth directly. Instead, Statisfy reads it through a connected teammate whose Microsoft 365 account has been delegated access to it in Exchange. Add shared mailboxes under Shared mailboxes, right below Monitored mailboxes:

1. Under Shared mailboxes, type the mailbox address (for example, support@yourcompany.com) and click Add shared mailbox. Repeat for each one.
2. To remove a shared mailbox, click the ✕ next to its entry.

Once added, mail in the shared mailbox is synced into Statisfy about every four hours and attaches to the matching customer accounts, like other email. Prerequisites

• At least one connected Microsoft 365 mailbox that granted shared-mailbox access. A mailbox you connect from this tab with Connect a new Microsoft 365 mailbox requests it automatically — accept Read mail you can access on Microsoft’s consent screen. A connection made from the Integrations page needs Read shared mailboxes you have access to ticked — see Microsoft 365 Integration. If no connected mailbox has this access, the section shows a warning that the shared mailboxes won’t sync.
• At least one of those connected teammates must have Full Access (or the appropriate folder permissions) on the shared mailbox in Exchange, granted by your Microsoft 365 admin. Statisfy can’t check this from the app — if access is missing, mail from that mailbox doesn’t arrive.

You can also view, add, and remove shared mailboxes from the Microsoft 365 card on the Integrations page, without opening a worker. See Microsoft 365 Integration. Gmail doesn’t expose a comparable delegation model, so shared mailboxes are Microsoft 365 only. For a shared Gmail address, use forwarding (Option 2 below) instead.

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Option 2 — Forwarding

You forward your shared support inbox (for example, support@acme.com) to a unique Statisfy address, and the worker replies from your own domain.

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Step 1 — Verify your sending domain (DNS)

Replies go out from your own domain, so Statisfy only sends from a verified domain. Until you have at least one, the Receive forwarded email toggle stays locked.

1. Go to Settings → DNS.
2. Add your domain (for example, acme.com) and copy the generated Type / Host / Value records into your DNS provider.
3. Click Verify. Verification can take up to ~24 hours; the domain shows Verified when it completes.

For the full walkthrough, see DNS Setup.

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Step 2 — Set the company address

On the Email tab, turn on Receive forwarded email, then set the company address — your shared support inbox, the address you forward mail from.

1. In Company address (required), type the local part (for example, support).
2. Pick one of your verified domains from the dropdown.
3. Confirm the summary line — for example, “Replies will come from customersuccess@sentriq.site.”

When the worker replies on its own, it sends as this address. (When a teammate sends a reply from a different mailbox, your company address is added to CC so it stays on the thread — see Replying from a different address.)

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Step 3 — Copy your forwarding address

In the Forwarding address box, click copy. The address is unique to your workspace and looks like dw-<your-workspace-id>@dw.statisfy.dev.

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Step 4 — Set up the forwarding route

Create a forwarding rule so mail that arrives at your support inbox is also delivered to the forwarding address, keeping delivery to the original inbox so your team still sees it.

Google Workspace (Gmail)

Set the route up in the Google Admin console:

1. Go to Apps → Google Workspace → Gmail → Routing (admin.google.com/ac/apps/gmail/routing).
2. Under Email forwarding using recipient address map, click Add and map your support address (customersuccess@sentriq.site) → the Statisfy forwarding address (dw-…@dw.statisfy.dev).
3. Set Messages affected to All incoming messages, and keep Also route to original destination checked.
4. Click Save.

Microsoft 365 / Outlook

Set up a mail flow rule in the Exchange admin center:

1. Go to the Exchange admin center → Mail flow → Rules.
2. Add a new rule (Create a new rule).
3. Condition — The recipient is your support address.
4. Action — Bcc the message to (or add a copy to) the Statisfy forwarding address. Using Bcc/copy rather than a plain redirect keeps the mail flowing to your team as well.
5. Save and enable the rule.

Microsoft 365 blocks automatic external forwarding by default. An admin may need to allow it for the forwarding address (in the outbound spam / remote-domain settings) before mail will leave your tenant.

How replies work. The worker replies as your company address over a verified domain. If the company address is unset or its domain isn’t verified, the reply is held for a human rather than sent. Replies are reply-all: the reply goes To the customer who wrote in, and everyone else on the incoming email — its CC recipients plus any other To recipients — is kept on CC, so nobody drops off the thread. The sending address itself is never added to CC, and BCC recipients are carried over as-is.

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Replying from a different address

Autonomous replies always use the mode’s default sender (the arrival mailbox for a connected account; the company address for forwarding). A reply a teammate sends from the worker pool starts from the same default, whether it is the worker’s held draft or one the teammate writes. To send from a different address, the teammate opens the conversation, where a From picker appears:

• The From dropdown (“Select a From address”) chooses the sending address.
• For forwarded mail, the default is your company address (labeled “(company address)”).
• You can switch to any connected send-capable mailbox — a Gmail address, or an Outlook one (labeled “(Outlook)”).
• The Send button reflects the choice: Send via Gmail, Send via Outlook, or Send. Pick a From address first, or you’ll see “Choose a From address before sending.”
• For forwarded mail, if you send from a mailbox other than the company address, the company address is added to CC so the thread stays on your shared inbox.

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Watch conversations in the worker pool

To see every conversation your Digital Workers are managing, open the Digital Workers tab in the top navigation (next to Dashboard) — this is your worker pool. A worker’s proactive email opens its conversation as soon as the email is sent, in WAITING ON CUSTOMER. Until the customer replies, it appears on the pool’s Proactive Outreach tab but not on Conversations, unless a person is assigned to it or has taken it over. See Proactive outreach. Open a conversation to read the thread and see its Status (for example, NEEDS RESPONSE when a reply is waiting on a human, or IN PROGRESS), Assignee, and Digital owner (the worker). This is also where held replies are reviewed and sent.

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How the worker replies

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Who a reply reaches

A reply always goes back on the thread to the original sender, with everyone on the Cc kept on (reply-all). The worker can’t re-address a reply. Naming or greeting someone else in the text doesn’t send it to them. If an email also goes to someone outside the customer and your company, the worker doesn’t answer it, because a reply-all would reach that person too. The email is held for a person on your team to review and answer instead. Reply-all on a thread between the customer’s own people and your team is unaffected. To reach someone who isn’t on the thread, such as a successor the customer hands the worker to, the worker can schedule a follow-up for that person instead. The follow-up only runs when the Enabled switch on the worker’s Proactive tab is on and the person is a contact on the account. Its email follows the worker’s usual outreach rules, so it may be held for approval.

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Conversation status after a reply is sent

When the worker sends a reply, it also judges where the conversation stands. Statisfy sets the conversation’s status from that judgment: The conversation goes to IN PROGRESS if those statuses aren’t set up. The conversation stays open as WAITING ON US (or IN PROGRESS), whatever the worker judged, when:

• The reply promises follow-up work, such as “I’ll send that over tomorrow.”
• A teammate still has an open action on the conversation, such as a held draft or an escalation.

A held reply doesn’t use these rules. It moves the conversation to NEEDS RESPONSE until a teammate acts on it. When a customer writes into a CLOSED or WAITING ON CUSTOMER conversation, Statisfy moves it back to WAITING ON US (or IN PROGRESS) before the worker runs. If the worker’s turn fails, the new message still stays in front of your team.

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When the worker doesn’t reply

Some messages need no answer, like a bare “thanks” or an automatic acknowledgement. The worker can decline to reply to these. What happens depends on the worker’s autonomy for email:

• Smart — Statisfy sends nothing and holds nothing, and moves the conversation to CLOSED. The worker’s reason isn’t shown in the app. If a held draft or tool approval is still open on the conversation, the status stays where that item put it.
• Human-in-the-loop (HIL) — The decision is held for review like any other reply. The held item says the worker suggests not replying and gives its reason. Dismiss it to leave the message unanswered, or write a reply.

When the customer writes again, their next message reopens the conversation.

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When a teammate is in the conversation

The worker replies only to your customers’ email. Email from someone on your team never starts a reply, including a note to colleagues with a monitored address on Cc. If a teammate answered the customer after the worker’s last reply, the worker still drafts an answer to the customer’s next email, but holds it in the worker pool for review, whatever its autonomy, and sends no automatic acknowledgement. If the worker judges that no reply is needed, the conversation stays in NEEDS RESPONSE for your team to close. Once one of its replies goes out from the worker’s own address, including a held draft a teammate approves as it was, it replies as usual again. A held draft a teammate sends from their own mailbox (picked in From) counts as their answer, and so does an email a teammate writes from the worker’s company address themselves. If a teammate answers while the worker is still drafting, its reply is held too, though a follow-up it booked during that draft stays booked. While a teammate holds a conversation the worker doesn’t book follow-ups. An email that went only to people on your team, with nobody outside your company on To, Cc or Bcc, isn’t counted as an answer to the customer. It doesn’t move the conversation out of NEEDS RESPONSE, and the worker reads it as an internal note.

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Mail from unknown senders

Mail from someone who isn’t on an account the worker covers (no account at all, or an account outside the worker’s accounts that no other worker covers) isn’t the worker’s to answer. To have a person answer it instead, turn on Unknown senders on the Email tab. It appears once Scan connected mailboxes or Receive forwarded email is on.

• Such mail lands in the worker pool in NEEDS RESPONSE, assigned by the worker’s assignment setting. If the worker assigns each conversation to the account’s owner, there’s no account to read an owner from, so the conversation is unassigned.
• The worker never replies to it, even when a later message comes from an account it covers.
• It counts mail sent to or from one of the worker’s monitored or shared mailboxes, or, on forwarded mail, to its company address. Mail to the company address of a worker with Unknown senders off stays out. Once a conversation is in, every later message on it is kept, including a teammate’s answer from their own mailbox. A conversation someone on your team starts comes in once the other person writes back.
• When a mailbox is first connected, only conversations with mail from the last 7 days come in.
• Bounces, mail only between people on your team, and most automatic replies stay out. From an Outlook mailbox, automated mail is recognized only by its sender (such as noreply@) or an “Automatic reply” subject, so a newsletter from an ordinary-looking address can come in. Close it like any conversation, or contact Statisfy support to keep a sender out.

With it off, mail from someone with no account isn’t stored.

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Bounces, out-of-office replies, and duplicates

• Bounces and auto-replies — On forwarded email, the worker recognizes delivery failure notices and automatic replies (like out-of-office messages) as automated mail and doesn’t answer them as if a person wrote them. Statisfy never sends or holds a reply to a mail system:
  • If the worker escalated the message, that escalation is the hand-off.
  • Otherwise, Statisfy opens an escalation for a person on the account, with any note from the worker. Bounces are filed at normal urgency and auto-replies at low urgency.
  • If the escalation can’t be filed, the reply is held for review in the worker pool. It’s never sent automatically.
  A bounce always reaches a person, even when the worker finds nothing to answer. The conversation isn’t closed silently, because a bounce means the contact’s address on file is wrong or dead.
• Duplicate messages — If the same customer message arrives twice and a reply to it is already drafted and waiting for approval, the worker is told so and doesn’t write the same answer again. If the worker stays silent on a duplicate or an auto-reply, Statisfy doesn’t put a blank draft in the queue.

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Who the worker treats a sender as

• Display names — A sender’s display name isn’t verified. If a message’s display name names your company but the address is outside your domain, the worker treats the sender as whoever the address belongs to.
• Other customers — The worker won’t confirm or deny that another named organization is your customer, even if the customer’s question names them. It declines without saying anything about them, for example “I can only discuss your own account.”

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See it end to end

Here’s what each mode looks like in practice, using a worker named Rosie. This is also how you test the setup — send a message from an external address (ideally a synced customer domain) and follow it through.

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Forwarding

A customer emails your shared support inbox (customersuccess@sentriq.site): The message shows up in the worker pool. If it’s held for review, a teammate opens it, picks the From address, and sends (see Replying from a different address). The reply is delivered from your company address:

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Connected mailbox

A customer emails a monitored mailbox (navin@sentriq.site): The worker drafts a reply in the worker pool. A teammate reviews it and clicks Send via Gmail (the button matches the mailbox’s provider): The reply is sent as a real email from that mailbox — it lands in the customer’s inbox and in the mailbox’s Sent items:

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Troubleshooting

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