How to use DoneDone to manage your customer support email

A few years back, we launched Public Issues (Wait! Have you seen the NEW DoneDone customer support features?) to extend DoneDone beyond just an internal issue tracker. With Public Issues, anyone can email issues to your project via a custom address. It's one of our most popular features to-date.It's even more useful when you can route your existing support address into DoneDone. In this post, I want to show you how simple it is to turn your existing customer support address into a front door for resolving issues and getting back to customers all within one centralized place.

Step 1: Setting up your project

First, create a new project where you'd like all emails from your support address to go. Then, go to the Public Issues Settings panel in the project. Here, you'll find the custom email address that anyone can send emails to. Copy the custom email address above for the next step.

Your project's custom public issues email address

Step 2: Forwarding emails into DoneDone

Let's assume you have a support address like support@mycompany.com. Your next step is to forward all emails sent to this address over to the custom email address above. Most common email hosting providers offer a forwarding option. Just search for "How to forward emails with [your email provider]" on Google.Let's walk through Gmail as a common example.

• Inside of Gmail, click the Options icon on the upper-right, then select "Settings".
• From there, go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
• Then click the button "Add a forwarding address" and type in the custom project email address.

Setting up a forwarding address inside of GmailWith Gmail (and most trustworthy hosting providers), an email will be sent to the forwarding address containing a verification link. This lets the provider know that you have access to the forwarding address and aren't trying to ruin an unsuspecting person's inbox.The email will now forward to your DoneDone project. Here's what the Gmail forwarding verification email looks like inside of DoneDone:

Most email providers will send a verification email which will log as an issue in DoneDone.

• Click the link to confirm the forwarding address. Then, go back to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
• Under the forwarding section, click "Enable Forwarding" and select the project email address from the dropdown.
• Finally, click "Save" to complete the Gmail forwarding process.

Step 3: Configuring your Outgoing Email Settings

At this point, your customer support address should forward all emails directly into DoneDone. Let's head back to the Public Issues Settings panel to configure how emails will be sent from DoneDone any time you reply back to the submitter on an issue.

• From Name: This is the name that your customers will see when they receive responses from you. You may want to update this to be something like "Support" or "HelpDesk". If left blank, DoneDone will populate this with the user's first and last name.
• From Address: You'll probably want this to be the customer support address that you set up forwarding for in Step 2. This way, customers receive emails from the same address they're sending inquires into. If so, also add an SPF record for DoneDone in your domain's DNS settings. This lets the world know that emails from DoneDone can use your email address as the "From" address. It helps ensure that replies back to the customer don't get blocked.
• Forwarder Addresses: If you have other addresses forwarding to your public issues address, add them in this section.
• Email Signature: Finally, you may want to customize your replies to the customer with an email signature.

Just like that, you can now use DoneDone as a better email manager for your customer support address. Happy supporting!