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Hosted and Remote Mailboxes

Every Email Processing workflow starts with a mailbox. A mailbox is where email enters MSPintegrations, and it is the container that holds the rules and action steps that run when a message arrives.

There are two ways to get email into MSPintegrations, and they differ only in how the message reaches the system:

  • Hosted Mailboxes live on the MSPintegrations mail server. MSPintegrations is the mail server for the domain, so mail arrives by SMTP and processing starts immediately.
  • Remote Mailboxes live on your mail server. MSPintegrations connects to Microsoft 365 or an IMAP server, checks a folder for messages that arrived since the last check, and ingests them.

Once a message is ingested, the two are identical. The same rules, the same expressions, the same action steps, and the same history and replay tools are available regardless of how the message arrived.

At a Glance​

Hosted MailboxRemote Mailbox
Who hosts the mailMSPintegrationsYou (Microsoft 365 or IMAP)
How mail arrivesDelivered by SMTPMSPintegrations polls a folder
Processing delayImmediateUp to two minutes
Setup effortOne step in the consoleConnect a mail service, grant access, then create the mailbox
Address typesStandard, Regular Expression, Domain Catch-allThe remote address, whatever it already is
Address is memorable to customersDepends on the domain you useYes
Can a person audit the mail outside MSPintegrationsNoYes, in the source mailbox
Runs independently of your mail infrastructureYesNo

Hosted Mailboxes​

A Hosted Mailbox is an email address where the domain (the part after the @) is hosted by MSPintegrations. The MX records for that domain point at the MSPintegrations mail servers. When a message arrives, the mail server ingests it and processing begins right away.

Before you can create a Hosted Mailbox you need at least one domain. Click Email2AT (or Email2CW or Email2Halo, depending on your PSA) in the console sidebar, click Hosted Mailboxes, then click Add New Domain. The wizard offers two choices.

Hosted Domain​

A hosted domain is a subdomain on a top-level domain that MSPintegrations already owns and already routes to its mail servers. Enter a subdomain prefix, pick a top-level domain from the list, and click Activate. For example, Acme Computer Corp might create acme.onmspi.net.

There is nothing to configure in DNS. The domain works the moment you activate it.

The tradeoff is control. You cannot modify DNS for a domain that MSPintegrations owns, you cannot route its mail through your own filtering, security, or compliance service first, and you cannot take the domain with you if you stop using MSPintegrations.

Available top-level domains vary

The list of top-level domains in the dropdown depends on your region and deployment. Pick whichever one you prefer from the list your console shows.

Custom Domain​

A custom domain is a domain you own and control. It can be a root domain such as acmecomputer.com or a subdomain such as alerts.acmecomputer.com. Enter the fully qualified domain name, then add the MX records shown in the console to that domain's DNS.

We recommend pointing a subdomain rather than a root domain, because a subdomain keeps your existing mail flow untouched. alerts.acmecomputer.com can route to MSPintegrations while acmecomputer.com continues to route to Microsoft 365.

A custom domain keeps you in control. You can move it if you ever stop using MSPintegrations, and you can route its mail through a filtering, security, or compliance service before it reaches MSPintegrations. To do that, point the MX records at that service and configure the service to deliver onward to MSPintegrations.

A custom domain is also what makes a Hosted Mailbox address memorable. Nobody is going to remember acme.onmspi.net, but plenty of customers register a short domain such as acme123.com specifically for this purpose. Point its MX records at MSPintegrations so that every address on it flows into Email Processing, and point its web records at your remote support tool so that typing acme123.com into a browser starts a remote session. One short domain then covers both "email us" and "let us connect to your machine", and [email protected] is as easy to remember as anything on your primary domain.

DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate, so activate a custom domain before you need it.

Recommended during onboarding

Adding a custom domain during onboarding is a good habit. It costs one DNS change and it means every address you build afterwards sits on a domain you own.

Hosted Mailbox Address Types​

When you create a Hosted Mailbox, Address Type controls how MSPintegrations interprets the prefix, which is the part before the @ sign. There are three choices.

Address TypeWhat the prefix isExample addressUse it for
StandardA fixed, literal string[email protected]Almost everything. Any normal, fixed address.
Regular ExpressionA pattern that matches many prefixes[email protected]Dynamic addresses where the prefix carries data, such as a ticket number or a device ID.
Domain Catch-allAnything not matched by another mailboxany address on the domainA safety net so mail sent to a typo or a retired address still gets processed.

Standard is by far the most common choice. Use the other two only when the part before the @ needs to vary.

Standard​

Enter the literal prefix you want, such as support, alerts, 3cx, or unifi-alerts. The console lowercases the prefix and strips characters that are not valid in an email address.

Regular Expression​

Enter a complete regular expression in the Prefix Regular Expression field. MSPintegrations matches the pattern against the prefix of each inbound address on that domain.

Three things to know before you write one:

  • Include the delimiters and any flags. The field takes a complete expression, not a bare pattern. Write /^support-[0-9]+$/i, not support-[0-9]+.
  • Anchor the pattern unless you mean not to. An unanchored pattern matches anywhere in the prefix, so /support/ also matches nosupporthere. Add ^ and $ when you want the whole prefix to match.
  • Do not let two patterns overlap. If more than one Regular Expression mailbox on the same domain matches an address, which one processes the message is not guaranteed. Write patterns that are mutually exclusive.

The mailbox editor includes a Fill: Autotask Ticket Number shortcut that inserts a pattern matching the Autotask ticket number format:

/T20[0-9]{6}\.[0-9]{4}(\.[0-9]{3})?/i

That pattern is the basis of the most valuable use of this address type. It gives every ticket in your PSA its own working email address.

A direct email address for every ticket

Create a Regular Expression mailbox whose pattern matches your PSA's ticket number format, then add a rule that extracts the ticket number from the recipient address and posts the message body as a note on that ticket.

Every ticket now has a live address, such as [email protected]. When a vendor asks where to send updates for their case, give them the address containing your ticket number. Their replies land on the right ticket automatically, and you never have to convince the vendor to keep your ticket number in the subject line.

The same idea works for any identifier your systems already use, such as a configuration item ID or an asset tag.

Domain Catch-all​

A Domain Catch-all mailbox has no prefix field. It processes any message sent to the domain that no other mailbox on that domain matched.

Create at most one Domain Catch-all mailbox per domain. It is useful as a safety net: it catches typos, retired addresses, and addresses a third-party system was configured with before you built the matching mailbox. Give it a rule that creates a low-priority ticket or sends a notification so you find out that mail is arriving somewhere unexpected.

How MSPintegrations Chooses a Mailbox​

Exactly one mailbox processes each inbound message. MSPintegrations narrows to the mailboxes attached to the recipient's domain, then picks a winner in this order:

  1. Standard, if a mailbox has that exact prefix.
  2. Regular Expression, if a pattern matches the prefix.
  3. Domain Catch-all, if one exists on that domain.

Because Standard wins, you can safely add a Domain Catch-all to a domain that already has Standard mailboxes. Mail to support@ still goes to the support mailbox, and only unmatched mail falls through to the catch-all.

Remote Mailboxes​

A Remote Mailbox reads mail from a mailbox that lives somewhere else. MSPintegrations connects to your mail service, checks a folder on a cycle of roughly 60 to 120 seconds, and ingests any message that has arrived since the last check.

Use a Remote Mailbox when the address has to stay where it is. The most common case is a published address such as [email protected]. Your customers already send mail there, the MX records for that domain point at your mail host, and you cannot point them at MSPintegrations without moving your whole mail flow.

Connection Types​

Connection TypeNotes
Microsoft Office 365 ConnectionRecommended. Uses the Microsoft API, and authenticates either as a Microsoft user or as an Enterprise App. See Delegated User or Enterprise App.
IMAP ServerSupply the server address, port, SSL or STARTTLS setting, username, and password.

Do not use the IMAP option to reach Microsoft 365. Microsoft is actively deprecating IMAP access. Use a Microsoft 365 connection instead.

Configuration​

FieldWhat it does
Mailbox to OpenWith a Microsoft user or IMAP connection, leave blank to read the signed-in account's own mailbox, or set it to read another mailbox that account has been granted access to. With an Enterprise App, this is required, because the app has no mailbox of its own.
PathThe folder to watch. INBOX is the default, but any folder works. Watching Sent Items is a common way to journal outbound mail into your PSA.
DestinationOptional. The folder MSPintegrations moves each message to after processing it.
Use a service account or an Enterprise App to reach a shared mailbox

Connecting an employee's own account is fine when MSPintegrations monitors that same employee's own mailbox. Journaling a technician's sent items is a common and reasonable setup.

Connecting one employee's account in order to reach a different mailbox, such as a shared support@ address, is what we strongly advise against. It works, but that shared mailbox now depends on one individual: when they leave, change their password, or lose their license, polling stops. For any mailbox that is not the connected account's own, use one of these instead:

  • A dedicated service account. Create a service account in your Microsoft tenant, give it the least expensive Exchange-enabled license, and share the mailboxes you want MSPintegrations to read with that account. Microsoft can take several minutes to propagate a new mailbox permission, so grant access before you create the Remote Mailbox.
  • An Enterprise App. Register an application in Microsoft Entra ID and connect it with a tenant ID, application ID, and client secret. This needs no mailbox license and no interactive sign-in, so there is no consent to break, but you do need to rotate the client secret before it expires.

Either way, connect once and point each Remote Mailbox at the mailbox it should open. See Delegated User or Enterprise App for the full comparison.

What Happens to Messages After Ingest​

If you leave Destination blank, MSPintegrations does not change the message. It stays in the folder and stays unread.

If you set Destination, MSPintegrations moves each processed message to that folder. This is worth doing, because it turns the source mailbox into a live status board: anything still sitting in the inbox has not been processed yet, and anything in the destination folder has. When you are troubleshooting, that answers the first question immediately.

Choosing Between Them​

Both types can handle any kind of mail. The recommendations below are what we do, not a technical limit.

Use a Hosted Mailbox when:

  • A system sends the mail, not a person. Monitoring tools, backup software, network hardware, and vendor notification systems all fall here. The address is hard-coded once and no human ever types it.
  • You want the integration to keep working when your own mail infrastructure does not. An alert about a Microsoft 365 outage should not have to travel through Microsoft 365 to reach you.
  • You need a Regular Expression or Domain Catch-all address. Only Hosted Mailboxes support those types.
  • You want the fastest path. There is no polling delay.
  • You want a published, memorable address and you are willing to put it on a custom domain whose mail routes to MSPintegrations.

Use a Remote Mailbox when:

  • The address has to live on a domain whose mail already routes somewhere else. support@, help@, and sales@ on your primary domain need to keep landing in Microsoft 365, so MSPintegrations reads them from there instead.
  • You want to be able to open the mailbox and see the raw mail yourself.

Prefer a Remote Mailbox over forwarding. If mail has to hit your mail server first, you can either forward it to a Hosted Mailbox or let MSPintegrations poll it. Both work. We recommend polling, because forwarding is a blind handoff: your mail host sends the message and has no way to confirm MSPintegrations received it. When a message goes missing, a forward leaves you very little to trace. A Remote Mailbox leaves the original message sitting in a folder you can inspect.

Create one mailbox per integration. Rather than pointing ten monitoring tools at a single mailbox and sorting them out with expressions, give each tool its own Hosted Mailbox. The rules in that mailbox only ever deal with one system's message format, so expressions stay simple, history is already filtered by source, and changing one integration cannot break another. For a tool that sends paired alerts, that means one mailbox for that tool with an "up" rule and a "down" rule.

Next Steps​