How To: Read data from an email account

Sometimes it is necessary to read data into PhixFlow streams from an email account. For example, if orders are always sent to a specified email address in the same format, it can be an easy way to automate their entry into a database or process them.

To do this, you will need to:

1. Configure an email polling service.
2. Configure a file collector to gather details of the email message (the body) and any attached files.

Set up service to poll an email account for new messages

Full details for this configuration and found in emailAccount, but in this article we will cover some common examples.

Step-by-step guide

1. Click on Admin->Manage Email Accounts and add a new inbound account
2. Click Test Configuration to ensure the settings are correct and then check the Enabled check-box save any changes. (See examples below for POP3 and IMAP)
3. Click on Admin->System Configuration->System Directories and make a note of the location of the Import file location e.g. C:\opt\phixflow\data\import. Collected email message will appear in folders beneath this directory.
4. Send a test email to the account with a data file attached. (Note: If you want to process the message body then sending plain text rather than HTML messages is easier)
5. Navigate to the folder named "in" within the Import directory and then open the folder that is named with today's date
6. Within this folder here will be a folder for each message, named with a GUID. Open this folder to view the attachment

Example Settings using POP3

With POP3 just the main Inbox is polled for messages 

Example Settings using IMAP / Office 365

With the IMAP protocol, a subfolder can be specified

Set up file collector to load email messages and/or attachments

Full details for this configuration and found in fileCollector, but in this article we will go through a typical set up which should cover most cases.

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