Email

Overview

The Email destination lets you receive email notifications every time someone submits feedback through your forms. Whether you want to stay on top of customer sentiment, catch bug reports quickly, or simply never miss a response—email triggers ensure feedback lands in your inbox the moment it arrives.

This guide walks you through the full setup, from creating your first email destination to customizing how those notifications look and when they're sent. We'll keep things straightforward and explain each step along the way.

What You'll Need

Before you start, make sure you have:

• A feedback configuration — The form or feedback stream you want to receive notifications for
• SMTP credentials — Your email server details (host, port, username, password) from your email provider
• Recipient email address(es) — Where you want the notifications to go

If you're not sure about SMTP settings, your email provider (Gmail, Outlook, your company's IT team, etc.) can usually provide these. Many providers use port 587 with TLS for secure sending.

Step 1: Open the Destinations Page

Head to the Destinations section in your encatch dashboard. This is where you manage all your integration endpoints—Slack, Jira, webhooks, and of course, email.

On the Destinations page, you'll see a table showing any destinations you've already set up (or an empty table if you're starting fresh). In the top-right corner, look for the Add Destination button—that's your starting point.

Click Add Destination to open the configuration flow.

Step 2: Add a New Destination

A modal titled Add New Destination will appear. You'll notice a tab for Realtime Destination—this is the type you want for instant email alerts whenever feedback is submitted.

The modal is divided into a few sections:

Feedback Configuration

First, choose which feedback stream this destination will listen to. Use the Select a feedback configuration dropdown to pick the form or feedback type you want to receive notifications for.

Destination Name and Description

Give your destination a clear, recognizable name—something like "Destination Email" or "Feedback Alerts to Team". This helps you identify it later when you have multiple destinations.

Optionally, add a Destination Description such as "Destination config for email alerts" to document what this setup is for. These details are especially helpful when working in a team.

Step 3: Select the Email Notification Connector

Scroll down to the section Select from available destination connectors. You'll see a table listing the available connectors: Email, GitLab, Jira, Slack, and Webhook.

Find the Email Notification row:

• TYPE: Email
• NAME: Email Notification
• DESCRIPTION: Send Notifications to email
• VERSION: v1

Click the Select button next to Email Notification to choose it as your connector.

Once selected, the button will show Selected in purple. Then click Create Destination at the bottom of the modal to proceed.

Step 4: Configure Your Email Destination

After creating the destination, you'll land on the Edit Destination page. This is where you configure all the details that control how and where your email notifications are sent.

Destination Details (Left Column)

On the left, you'll see cards for:

• Destination Details — Confirm the type (e.g., Realtime) and any high-level settings
• Feedback Configuration — The feedback form you linked in the previous step
• Connector Configuration — Shows "Email Notification" and its description
• Destination Name — Edit the name you gave earlier if needed
• Destination Description — Edit the description if needed

Click Save Details when you're done with these fields.

Configuration (Right Column)

The right side is where the email-specific settings live.

To Address

Enter the email address (or addresses) that should receive the notifications. You can add multiple recipients by separating them with commas. This is a required field.

Email Subject

Define the subject line for your notification emails. You can also use template variables for dynamic content later.

Email Body

This is a large text area where you can customize the content of the email. You can use plain text or HTML, including styling:

<html>
<head>
<style>
  body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #333; }
  h2 { color: #1a73e8; }
  ul { padding-left: 20px; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
  <h2>New Feedback Received</h2>
  <!-- Your feedback content here -->
</body>
</html>

The body supports templating (e.g., Jinja2-style syntax) so you can inject feedback data dynamically—questions, answers, ratings, and more.

Step 5: Configure SMTP Settings

To actually send emails, encatch needs to connect to your email server. This is done via SMTP configuration.

You'll see fields for:

• SMTP Host — The hostname of your outgoing mail server
• SMTP Port — The port used by your SMTP server for secure submission
• Username — The username for authenticating with your SMTP server
• Password — The password for that account (stored securely)
• From Email — The default sender address shown in the "From" field

Fill in these details according to your email provider's documentation. If you're unsure, check your provider's help pages for "SMTP settings" or "outgoing mail server."

Click Save Configuration when you're done.

Step 6: Enable the AI Filter (Optional)

If you want to filter which feedback triggers an email, you can enable the AI Filter.

The AI Filter uses natural language prompts to decide which feedback should be forwarded to your destination. You can instruct it to, for instance, only forward negative feedback or feedback containing specific keywords.

To enable it:

1. Click Test and Enable AI Filter
2. Configure your prompt in the AI Filter section
3. Test the filter with sample feedback to ensure it behaves as expected

If you prefer to receive every email without filtering, you can leave the AI Filter disabled.

Step 7: Test and Enable

Before going live, test your setup. On the Destination Status card, click Test & Enable Destination to send a test email, verify your SMTP configuration works, and enable the destination so it starts sending real notifications. Then use the Test Template Output feature to preview how your email subject and body will look with sample feedback data—load sample feedback data, edit the subject template if needed, switch between Subject and Body tabs to preview both, and click Execute Process to run the test. Once enabled, every new feedback response that matches your configuration (and any AI filter) will trigger an email to your specified recipients.

Summary

Here's a quick recap of the flow:

Tips and Best Practices

• Use descriptive subjects — Include a prefix like [Feedback] or [Encatch] so you can filter or search quickly.
• Support multiple recipients — Add comma-separated addresses for team notifications.
• Customize the body — Use HTML and styling to make emails easy to scan and professional.
• Test before enabling — Always run a test to ensure SMTP works and templates render correctly.
• Consider AI filters — If you only care about negative feedback, an AI Filter can reduce inbox noise.

Troubleshooting