How to set up VICIdial inbound email with a Gmail account

Gmail is the inbox most people reach for when they first wire up inbound email in VICIdial, and it works well once a couple of Gmail-side settings are in place. Email Groups let agents handle inbound messages the same way they handle calls: the email pulls the customer's record onto the agent's screen, locks it so they get nothing else while they work it, and ends with a Disposition just like a call. Here is the full path to get a Gmail inbox feeding that.

Turn the feature on first

Before any of the Gmail steps, two switches have to be flipped on the VICIdial side. In System Settings, set Allow Emails to 1. Then, on the user who will be doing this setup, enable Modify Email Accounts under the admin interface options. Without that permission the email account screens will not show up for that user.

Build the group, then the account

Create the Email Group first. Give it a group ID and name, set it active, and choose a routing method such as longest_wait_time so the email goes to whoever has waited longest. The group is the queue your Agent team will staff.

Now add an Email Account, which holds the Gmail connection. The key fields:

• Type INBOUND and protocol IMAP for Gmail.
• Reply-to address, server, user, and password for your Gmail account.
• Frequency Check Rate of 10 minutes (more on that below).
• In-Group ID set to the group you just made, so messages flow into it.
• Default List ID for where brand-new emailers land, and a handle method such as EMAILLOOKUP to match returning senders.

The Gmail-specific gotchas

Two more Gmail settings tend to block the connection. In Gmail's own settings, make sure IMAP access is enabled. In your Google Account security settings, you may need to allow access for less secure apps so VICIdial can log in over IMAP. And after all that, Gmail sometimes wants you to verify the login a second time by signing in as that user through a web browser before it will let VICIdial connect. For testing, basic authentication is the simplest mode to start with.

Wire it to a campaign

flowchart TD
  A["Allow Emails set to 1"] --> B["Create Email Group"]
  B --> C["Create Email Account, IMAP to Gmail"]
  C --> D["Set In-Group ID to the group"]
  D --> E["Enable group on a campaign"]
  E --> F["Agent logs in and staffs the group"]
  F --> G["Email pulls up the lead, agent replies"]
  G --> H["Agent dispositions and is free again"]

The last step ties the group to a Campaign. Open the campaign, find the allowed inbound groups section, check the box for your email group, and submit. From then on, agents who log into that campaign can staff the group and start receiving Gmail messages as they arrive. Each message lands on a Lead and is worked exactly like a call.

If mail still does not show up after this, the frequency limit is the usual culprit, so read the email frequency check rate next. For the broader view of email and chat queues, see the inbound email and chat guide. The same setup works for any Agent team you staff on the group. If you would rather have the parser, modules, and mailbox plumbing handled for you instead of installing them by hand, our managed VICIdial plans ship ready to go.