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Introduction to Email Import

Essal Office can automatically import documents from a dedicated email inbox. When you configure an email account for Essal Office to monitor, it checks the inbox on a schedule, scans incoming messages, and imports any attachments as documents.

This means your team can forward invoices, send scanned documents, or route supplier emails directly into your Essal Office archive — without anyone manually uploading files through the web interface.

How Email Import Works

  1. You configure a dedicated email address (or a shared mailbox) in Essal Office
  2. Essal Office connects to that inbox using standard email protocols (IMAP)
  3. On a regular schedule, Essal Office checks the inbox for new messages
  4. It downloads email attachments (PDFs, images, documents) and imports them as documents
  5. Depending on your configuration, the email subject, sender, and other details may be used to set document metadata automatically
  6. Processed emails are marked as read or moved to a processed folder

What Gets Imported

By default, Essal Office imports:

  • Attachments — PDF, image, and other supported file formats attached to the email
  • The email body — optionally, the email body can be saved as a text document
  • Metadata from the email — the sender can be matched to a correspondent, the subject can become the document title

Typical Use Cases

  • Use case: Supplier sends invoices by email
  • How email import helps: Supplier emails go to the import inbox; attachments become invoices automatically


  • Use case: Team forwards documents for archiving
  • How email import helps: Staff forward emails to the archive address; attachments land in the Inbox view for review


  • Use case: Scanner sends scanned PDFs by email
  • How email import helps: Configure your scanner to email scans to the import address


  • Use case: Utility bills delivered electronically
  • How email import helps: Automatic email import captures statements without manual downloads

Requirements

Email import requires an admin to configure the connection. See Configuring an Email Account for Import for setup instructions.

All users benefit from the imported documents once they arrive — they appear in the document list and can be tagged, assigned, and managed like any other document.

Privacy Consideration

The email account configured for import should be a dedicated mailbox used only for document archiving — not a personal or general-use inbox. Essal Office will access and process all messages in the configured inbox.