How to Set Up a Ticket System with Email Replies (SMTP and Inbound Email)

SupportHQ's ticket system lets you track and resolve customer issues with a full email thread, priority levels, assignees, and status tracking. Tickets work out of the box without email — but when you connect SMTP, agents can send replies directly to customers' inboxes and receive responses back.

Tickets Without Email

Even without SMTP configured, the ticket system is fully functional:

• Create tickets manually from the dashboard
• Tickets are created automatically when a visitor requests an agent and none are online (agent unavailable fallback)
• Customers can create and view tickets from your public help center ticket portal
• Assign tickets to team members, set priorities, track status
• Write replies and notes in the ticket thread
• AI-powered reply suggestions

The only thing missing without SMTP: replies stay in the dashboard and aren't emailed to the customer. If that's fine for your workflow, you don't need to configure email at all.

The Tickets Dashboard

Navigate to Tickets in the sidebar to see all your support tickets.

Ticket List

The list shows all tickets with five columns:

• Subject — the ticket title with the contact email below it
• Status — color-coded dot and label
• Priority — colored badge (Low, Medium, High, Urgent)
• Assignee — the team member assigned, or "—" if unassigned
• Created — when the ticket was opened

Filtering

Filter tickets by status using the buttons at the top — each shows a count:

• All — every ticket
• Open — new, unworked tickets
• In Progress — actively being handled
• Pending — waiting on the customer or a third party
• Resolved — issue fixed, awaiting confirmation
• Closed — done and archived

You can also filter by priority using the dropdown (Urgent, High, Medium, Low).

Creating a Ticket

Click Create Ticket to open the creation modal:

• Subject (required) — a brief summary of the issue
• Description — more detail about the problem
• Priority — Low, Medium (default), High, or Urgent
• Assignee — assign to a team member immediately, or leave unassigned
• Contact Name — the customer's name
• Contact Email — the customer's email (required for sending email replies)

Ticket Detail View

Click any ticket to open the detail view with two sections:

Left Sidebar — Metadata

The sidebar shows and lets you update:

• Status — dropdown to change between Open, In Progress, Pending, Resolved, Closed
• Priority — dropdown to change between Low, Medium, High, Urgent
• Assignee — reassign to a different team member
• Contact info — name and email
• Description — the original ticket description
• Tags — labels for categorization
• Timestamps — created, resolved, and linked conversation (if applicable)
• Delete — permanently removes the ticket and all replies (with confirmation)

Right Side — Email Thread and Reply Composer

The main area shows the conversation thread. Each message is styled differently:

• Inbound (from customer) — blue background, left-aligned
• Outbound (from agent) — purple background, right-aligned

Attachments are shown inline — images display as previews, files show as download links with name and size.

Replying

The reply composer at the bottom lets you:

• Write your reply in the textarea (Cmd+Enter or Ctrl+Enter to send)
• Attach files (up to 5 — images, PDFs, Word docs, text files, CSVs, spreadsheets)
• Use AI Suggest to get a draft reply based on the conversation context

When you send a reply:

• The reply is saved to the ticket thread immediately
• If the ticket was Open, it auto-updates to In Progress and assigns to you
• If SMTP is configured and the ticket has a contact email, the reply is also emailed to the customer
• If SMTP is not configured, the reply is saved but not emailed — you'll see an "emailSkipped" indicator

Configuring SMTP for Email

To send ticket replies as emails to customers, you need to connect your own SMTP server. Navigate to Settings → Email.

Why BYOS (Bring Your Own SMTP)?

SupportHQ uses your SMTP server so emails come from your domain (e.g., support@yourcompany.com) instead of a generic SupportHQ address. This builds trust with customers and keeps your brand consistent.

SMTP Server Settings

Common SMTP Providers

Sender Identity

After entering your SMTP details, configure the sender address:

• From Email — the email address customers see as the sender (e.g., support@yourcompany.com)
• From Name — the display name next to the email (e.g., "Acme Support")

Customers will see emails from "Acme Support <support@yourcompany.com>".

Test Your Connection

After saving, click Test Connection to verify your SMTP settings work. The test sends a verification email through your configured server. If it fails, double-check your host, port, credentials, and whether your email provider requires an app-specific password.

How Email Threading Works

Once SMTP is configured, here's the full email flow:

1. Agent sends a reply — the reply is emailed to the customer using RFC 2822 threading headers (Message-ID, In-Reply-To, References). This means the email shows up in the customer's inbox as a proper thread, not separate messages.
2. Customer replies to the email — their reply goes to a special routing address (ticket+{id}@yourdomain). Your inbound email provider (SendGrid, Mailgun, etc.) forwards it to the SupportHQ webhook.
3. SupportHQ matches the reply — using four matching strategies:
   • The routing address pattern (ticket+{id}@domain)
   • The In-Reply-To header matching the ticket thread ID
   • The In-Reply-To header matching a previous reply's message ID
   • The References header chain
4. Reply appears in the ticket — the customer's response is added as an inbound message in the ticket thread, with any attachments preserved.
5. Ticket reopens if needed — if the ticket was Resolved or Closed, a customer reply automatically reopens it to Open.

Setting Up Inbound Email

For customer email replies to flow back into tickets, you need to configure your email provider to forward inbound emails to the SupportHQ webhook:

POST https://yourdomain.com/api/tickets/inbound-email

The webhook accepts JSON, form-data, and multipart payloads — compatible with SendGrid Inbound Parse, Mailgun Routes, and custom forwarding setups. Optional HMAC-SHA256 signature verification is supported for security.

Ticket Lifecycle

Customer replies automatically reopen Resolved or Closed tickets back to Open.

Tips

• Add contact emails — tickets without a contact email can't send email replies. Always include one when creating tickets manually.
• Use Gmail app passwords — if using Gmail SMTP, create an App Password in your Google Account security settings. Regular passwords won't work with 2FA enabled.
• SendGrid is great for transactional email — if you don't have a dedicated SMTP provider, SendGrid's free tier handles ticket emails well.
• Use AI Suggest — click the AI button in the reply composer to get a draft reply. It reads the full conversation and ticket context to suggest a relevant response.
• Assign tickets to the right person — use the assignee dropdown to route tickets to specialists. Unassigned tickets are visible to everyone.
• Don't forget inbound email — SMTP lets you send emails out. You also need inbound email forwarding configured for customer replies to come back in.