Configuring your CafeX assistant mailbox

If you are using Microsoft Office 365 or Google Suite to manage an email domain for your organization, you can configure the mailbox of your CafeX assistant.

In this article, the mailbox of the CafeX assistant is: [email protected]

• casper is the primary alias of the mailbox.
• The CafeX assistant uses dynamic aliases to target workspaces, in the following format: [email protected].  CafeX assigns a unique value to alias for each workspace.
• Your mail server forwards emails in this format to the mailbox of your CafeX assistant.
  • Google Suite, by default performs this.
  • Microsoft Office 365 requires further configuration

If you do not configure an assistant mailbox, CafeX sends notification emails from [email protected] in some cases. The majority of the features are not going to be available to in your tenant.

Configuring CafeX to connect to your mail server

As a tenant’s administrator, to setup the CafeX assistant to use a mailbox:

1. Create a mailbox for the assistant:
   • Microsoft Office 365
   • Google Suite
2. Open your Profile menu > Tenant settings > Email
3. Complete the mailbox configuration for your assistant to use.
   

   Attribute	Description
   Mailbox	The mailbox identity of your CafeX assistant. For example: casper
   Domain	The domain of your CafeX assistant’s mailbox. For example: example.com
   Display Name	the display name the assistant presents in the emails it sends. For example: Casper
   Mode	Important: Unless CafeX instructs you, set this to Unseen. The CafeX assistant processes unread emails, before it marks them read.

4. If you are configuring a Microsoft Office 365 suite, specify connection details for your Exchange Server:
   

   Attribute	Description
   Password	The mailbox password for your CafeX assistant.
   Server	The address of your IMAP email server. For example: outlook.office365.com
   Port	The IMAP email server port. For example: 993
   SMTP Server	The address of your SMTP server. For example: smtp.office365.com
   SMTP Port	The port of your SMTP server. For example: 587
   SMTP Encryption	The encryption method to use to connect to your SMTP Server. For Microsoft Exchange use: STARTTLS

   If you are configuring another Exchange server, these hostnames and ports must be accessible from CafeX.
   See also:

   • Microsoft Exchange Online IMAP4
   • Configure authenticated SMTP settings for POP3 and IMAP4 clients in Exchange Server
5. Alternatively, if you provide a SendGrid API key for outbound messages, emails that your CafeX assistant sends originate from SendGrid. See: SendGrid—API keys
6. Verify your CafeX assistant mailbox - See BELOW
7. Click Update

Configuring Microsoft Exchange Server for CafeX

As a administrator, in your Exchange Server configure the following:

1. Configure your mail flow settings for the CafeX assistant - See BELOW
2. Configure the assistant mailbox - See BELOW

Configuring the Microsoft Exchange mail flow rules

As a administrator, to create the mail flow rules that the CafeX assistant uses to detects dynamic alias, configure the following: 

1. To receive email from outside of your organization, set the accepted domain to use internal relay
   See: Managed accepted domains in Exchange Online
2. Create a rule to forward emails to the mailbox of the CafeX assistant with the following:
   

   Attribute	Description
   Name	The name of your CafeX assistant mail flow rule. For example: CafeX Assistant rule
   Apply this rule if…	Set this to: The recipient address includes… The primary alias of your CafeX assistant mailbox. For example: casper
   Do the following…	Redirect the message to… Your CafeX assistant

   See: Manage mail flow rules on Exchange Online

   For example:
   The mail flow rule for the mailbox for [email protected] may appear as the following:
   
   

CafeX assistant mailbox configuration

As an administrator, To allow CafeX to read calendar events in the CafeX assistant mailbox, enable the follow IMAP option:
Send event invitations in iCalendar format

See also: Microsoft—POP3 or IMAP4 Settings for a user

Verifying your assistant mailbox

After you fill in the mailbox settings, to verify that CafeX can connect to your assistant mailbox, click Validate email config.

CafeX uses the configuration you provide to:

• Connect to the mailbox to check that CafeX can read emails it receives.
• Make a request to send an email from the mailbox. CafeX does not verify that it receives the email, only that the request to send an email is successful.

If the validation is not successful, there is an error message that CafeX receives during the attempt to connect to the mailbox.