Forwarding email creates contact with wrong email address

[kathla]

We have been testing whether we could forward inquiries sent to an organizational email (help@[ourdomain.org]) and have them create a new HubSpot contact. 

The help@[ourdomain.org] is redirected to one of our HubSpot users, who then forwards it to our [HubID]@forward.hubspot.com. The test from my Gmail account did successfully create a new contact using my Gmail email address; however, it also created a new contact with our help@[ourdomain.org] email, which is listed in the "To" field. Here's what the forwarding header looks like:

From: Katherine Lawrence <[mygmail]@gmail.com>
Reply-To: Katherine Lawrence <[mygmail]@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 6:26 AM
To: "help@sciencegateways.org" <help@sciencegateways.org>
Subject: Test #2: Sending to HubSpot

Shouldn't HubSpot use the "From" as the basis for the new contact, not the "To" as well?

 Thanks for any insights you can offer!

[nicolebrenner · Accepted solution]

Hi @kathla, thanks for your question. In order for the forwarding address to work as designed, there are some very specific formatting conditions that must be met. 

• The email address that you forward the email using must match the email address of your user in the CRM.
• The contact cannot have the same company email domain as you. 
• Our system looks at the block of text that is automatically added by your email client when you select the forward button, which usually looks something like this:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chris Stone <stone@sidekick.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: Please read
To: Emily Keefe <ekeefe@hubspot.com>

• The Forwarded message text block must be present at the top of the email and in English.

Because the email that you are forwarding to HubSpot has multiple "To" fields, our system is creating these two contacts. In order to prevent this behavior, I would recommend trying one of two things

1. Forwarding the emails to HubSpot directly from the help@[ourdomain.org]

2. Removing the To: "help@sciencegateways.org" <help@sciencegateways.org> field from the automatically generated block of text before sending

Since this is a bit of a workaround outside the primary design of the tool, I can't guarentee that either of those options would create accurate records, but testing on your end should help to determine if this will work for you.

Some other resources you may find useful are linked below: 

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/email/difference-between-bcc-and-forwarding

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/email/do-email-replies-get-recorded-in-the-crm

Lastly, please share your results with the community here so we can continue to expand our resources. 

[mnph]

I have an interesting issue which causes forward to fail.

When I set up Hubspot, I used my GMAIL account as log in. However, I use my own domain and email for email integration. Everything works fine sending and receiving, and the BCC function properly sets up accounts.

In my Profile and Preferences, I set up an email alias to use my own domain to be equivalent to my gmail account.

But when I use forward, (HubspotID@forward.hubspot.com) the forwarded email never is logged and is not rejected. It just has no record at all.

Does an ALIAS email not work with forward but only with bcc? Here is the header and forward block of the email.

=========

Fwd: Urgent 
From: Peter <pete@           .com>
To: ######@forward.hubspot.com
Date: Today 10:52
---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: Urgent 
Date: Wednesday, May 01, 2019, 10:01
From: N Hasna <hasna@        .net>
To: pete@            .com

Email content here.

==========

Thank you!

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @mnph,

Forwarding address should work with email aliases that are set up through your Gmail. There are a few other reasons that the information may not be logging. I wanted to share this resource which walks through how ensure your emails are properly forwarded.

Thank you,
Jenny

[mnph]

Thank you for the reply.

All boxes are checked off.

• Email is set up as a connected inbox in my profile,
• and as an alias.
• Forwarding address is correct.

Maybe I'm not understanding. I want to forward an email TO HUBSPOT and log the email IN HUBSPOT, not an external CRM. But when I forward the email to HUBSPOT, it is not logged.

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @mnph,

You should be able to forward emails from your inbox into HubSpot. That is what the forwarding address is for. 

If you can direct message me full headers where you are forwarding the emails, and the names of the contacts where they aren't showing up, that would be great! You can direct message me by clicking on my name>send message.

Thank you,
Jenny

[mnph]

I think I found the solution to the problem as well as a possible bug. I switched to a text-only email program and forwarded an email from there. Hubspot received the email fine. The format for the forwarded email header was different than what is indicated, however. But it worked.

EDIT. A different email program with a different forwarding header also worked. Is it possible that this bug has been resolved?

From: Pxxxxxn <pxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxn.com>
To: Hubspot Forward <9xxxxx@forward.hubspot.com>
Subject: Fw: Your appointment is set!
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2019 13:23:51 -0500
X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.17.3 (GTK+ 2.24.31; x86_64-slackware-linux-gnu)



Begin forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2019 16:26:23 +0000
From: xxxxx <Kxxxs@bxxxxx.com>
To: Pxxxxxn <pxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxn.com>
Subject: Your appointment is set!

Notice that instead of the forward banner which seems to be required, here it shows "Begin forwarded message: "

EDIT: Second Email Program with different forwarding header

From: Pxxxxxxx <pxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.com>
To: 9xxxxx@forward.hubspot.com
Subject: Fwd: Global
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:09:38 -0500
User-Agent: K-9 Mail for Android




-------- Original Message --------
From: "Pxxxxxxxxx" <Bxxxxxxxxx@bxxxxxxxxx.com>
Sent: June 21, 2019 4:02:29 PM CDT

Now two different forwards from two different emails work. I think whatever the bug had been has been resolved. Neither of my emails adhere to the requirement below.

[mnph]

Hi Jenny. As I mentioned in my DM, but sharing here, it appears my email program is misformatting the Forward Header. This I am sure is confusing the Hubspot system.

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: Urgent xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDate=
: Wednesday, May 01, 2019, 10:01From: N Hxxxxx<xxxna@xxxxxxxx.net>To: p=
ete@xxxxxxxxxx.com

I will continue to investigate this on my end. Thank you for your dedication to excellent client service.

[mnph]

Unfortunately, verifying the format of forwarded emails made no difference. They do not appear in any contact record, or in the Activity History.

I also tried forwarding from the primary, not alias, email. But that did not work either.

So, I'm stuck for now. What I do is to just cut and paste the email and add a note to the activity history.

I've invested enough time on this. Not worth the bother since when I reply to an external email, I BCC hubspot and that keeps the whole email chain.

Thanks again

[user5327]

Hey @nicolebrenner,

Your response is in depth and insightful, as such I was hoping to add a parrallel quesiton.

We use HS primarly for support purposes and have our clients contact us via a conversation inbox.

What happens a decent portion of the time is that our client will contact us by fowarding an email from their client.

Now HS associates that communication with the original sender (their client) not the client that contacted us. 

This in turn creates a lot of contacts and companies that are of no concern to us.

I am wanting to know how I can get the inbox email to be associated with the forwarder (our client) and  not the original sender (their client) 

Thanks in advance.