Turn Support Emails into Cases Automatically with On-Demand Email-To-Case
Email-to-case feature in Salesforce enables you to convert the emails received at your support email address into cases. You can then inject these emails-turned-cases in your organization’s customer support queue and follow a systematic approach to track & resolve it.
Here is how the process works
Email-To-Case comes in two flavors
- Email-To-Case
- On-Demand Email-To-Case
Here’s a quick comparison of both features.
| Email-To-Case | On-Demand Email-To-Case |
| Desktop client required | Desktop client not required |
| Keeps email traffic inside network’s firewall | Keeps email traffic outside network’s firewall |
| Accepts emails larger than 25 MB | Refuses emails larger than 25 MB (including header, message & attachment) |
| Max. no of emails converted to Cases each day is 2500 | Max. no of emails converted to Cases each day depends on number of user licenses multiplied by 1,000, up to a daily maximum of 1,000,000 |
For the purpose of this blog post, we will go with the 2nd option – On-Demand email-to-case. On-Demand Email-To-Case uses Apex Email services. Setting it up is very simple. Just enable it, specify the support email address, set up forwarding in your email system and you are good to go!
Next time when your customers send an email to your support email address, a Case will get created automatically in Salesforce and Case fields will get populated. The support reps can reply to emails from within Salesforce so there’s less switching between the apps. The setting ‘Insert Thread ID in Email Subject’ adds the thread ID to the subject of email. The thread ID is a unique identifier that identifies the organization and Case associated with the outgoing email. It helps ensure that replies to the original email are associated with the correct Case.
That’s enough of talking! Let’s learn how to convert emails into cases in under 30 minutes
I have seen many of your articles and I really like the less but crisp details and how it comes as logically separated small bits easy to find and refer again and especially the screenshots .
Thanks a lot for such a great content.
References & Useful URLs
- Set Up On-Demand Email-to-Case – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=customizesupport_ondemand_email_to_case.htm&type=5
- Configure Routing Addresses for Email-to-Case and On-Demand Email-to-Case – Help Article (15 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=customizesupport_configuring_routing_addresses.htm&type=5
Thank you so much! This is amazing.
One question though. I implemented this in Dev..How do I deploy to full test sandbox and prod? Please advise
Hi Sirisha, I am not sure which part of the guide you are referring to, but please note that the “Email Service Address” created by Salesforce will be different in each org. So, you will have to set it up manually. I don’t think it can be deployed from one org to other.
Hello, my old colleague!
Your post here is all about On-demand. Are there instructions anywhere you know of that show how a heavily-regulated company can avoid using on-demand (i.e. avoid forwarding outside the firewall) but can still use E2C? Your small table here calls that solution “Email-To-Case”, which of course is a little confusing. In the configuration for E2C, you simply uncheck “Enable On-demand Service”, but I can’t find anything in the documentation that says “then what?”.
Hi Charles, great to hear from you. If you do not want to use on-demand email to case, previously you needed to download and install an agent on one the servers. But now the URL https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.customizesupport_email_to_case_settings.htm&type=5&language=en_US it says “Previously, Email-to-Case relied on an installed agent instead of the on-demand service. The older version is no longer supported, and the agent isn’t available for download.” So now, I am not sure what is the alternate of on-demand email-to-case. You will need to check with Salesforce Support.
Another excellent guide! Thank you, Ashish, for sharing these guides as they have helped me multiple times with Salesforce!
My pleasure Patti. Thanks for your feedback
Hi Asagarwal,
My company is using email-to-case, however, when a client sends in incoming email with a merge field in it that includes a reference to a record variable ({!$Record.FieldName} – for example, when they are trying to show us flow errors they’ve received), the email messages are not arriving in Salesforce, and not creating a case. Is there any workaround for merge fields?
Hi Rachel, I am not sure if I have understood your question correctly. There are merge fields in the incoming email? Can you upload a screenshot of the email for better understanding? On a related note, if the email-to-case is not working, please refer to the help article https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=000324022&type=1 that lists various reasons and suggested actions.
Can we control Email creation by subject line in email-to-case functionality
Hi Priyabhavana, there isn’t an out-of-the-box feature to do that, but you you should be able to achieve it either using custom code and Apex, or execute some post case creation logic using Flows. Will depend on what exactly you want to control.
We have case Assignment Rules in place. Whenever an email is sent to “Example@company.com” address, a case would be created and assigned to Admin queue. But for every reply or forward to that email with “Example@company.com” address, another case is being created(multiples cases are created based on replies & forwards). Is there a way to handle this? Thank you.
Hi Hara, can you check this article and see if this helps – https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=000330749&type=1
What is the max time to verify the email in Email-to Case?
“Verify the email in Email-to Case?” – Not sure what you are referring to Raghav. Can you please clarify.
Are able to do the email threading for other object other then case object ?
Hi Harshita, there is not out-of-box functionality in Salesforce for this. But you should be able to achieve this through custom code using Apex.
Hello #ohana! I set up Email-to-Case. I have a specific email address and verified it but cases are not being created however if I use the long SFdc email address, the case is created. Any idea how to resolve this?? Thanks a bunch.
Hi Rachel, if sending email to long SFDC email address is creating case, then there is some issue with forwarding the email from specific email address to long SFDC email address. You will need on investigate with your email admin on whether the forwarding is working correctly or not. Please also take a look at the URL https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=000324022&type=1 for other suggestions.
Amazing post on email-to-case. Just a quick question. In addition to the scenario explained i need additional feature. What would be the optimum solution?
If the case status is Cold, i want to route it to tier 1 team
If the case status is Warm, i want to route case to tier 2 team
If case is hot, I want to route it to Manager . How do i achieve this ?
Hi Sourav, you need to leave the ‘Case Owner’ field blank under the routing address in the email-to-case set up. If it is blank, then case assignment rules will fire to assign the cases based on the criteria. Please refer to URL https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=000313256&language=en_US&type=1&mode=1 for more information