Reply to or forward an email message interaction

AI-generated summary

Genesys Cloud enables agents to manage comprehensive email interactions through its Conversations roster, supporting reply, reply-all, and forward functionality with flexible configuration options. Agents can respond to senders, reply to all recipients, or forward messages to new email addresses by typing directly or selecting from suggested contacts. The system respects custom reply-to addresses specified by original senders, uses the first address by default when multiple are specified, and validates email entries up to providing warnings for invalid addresses that can be edited or removed. Email responses support inline images, attachments, text formatting, optional email history appending, and automatic signature inclusion to prevent duplication. Administrators can configure additional features including the ability to change the From address and display division information for external contacts. Agents require specific permissions (Conversation > Email > Accept/Create/Forward/Send and Routing > Agent > OnQueue) to perform these actions, and organizational policies may restrict Send button availability based on email response requirements. Configuration determines whether single or multiple actions per email are allowed. The default configuration enables a single action per email, concluding the interaction after one response. When multiple actions are enabled by administrators, agents can send multiple replies by repeating response steps and forward emails to other departments while notifying customers of pending responses. Each email sent before wrap-up counts as a separate session with individual handle times, allowing administrators to track distinct interactions separately. The platform displays compacted message threads with the last message expanded, allowing agents to expand or compact individual messages as needed. Email interactions remain in an agent's Conversation roster until the agent clicks Disconnect to end the interaction and complete after-contact work, at which point the interaction is removed from the active roster. The system includes feedback mechanisms for users to report article accuracy and helpfulness, with access to related resources covering agent interactions, ACD emails, canned responses, email interaction workflows, and email routing management

PrerequisitesClick to expand

How you reply to an email interaction depends on the email configuration for your contact center.

The default configuration is for a single action per email interaction. When you receive an email and you respond to it, the interaction is over.

To allow you to take multiple actions on a single email interaction, your admin can enable multiple actions per email interaction. Maybe you want to forward the email to another department to handle and you want to let the customer know that another department will respond with an answer. For more information, see the Add email addresses to the domain section of Use the organization’s email domain name.

Note: For more information about how to reconnect and reply to a closed email interaction, see

Reply to or forward an email message interaction (single action)Click to expand

From the Conversations roster, select the email interaction you want to respond to.
Perform one of the following steps:
- To reply to the sender, click Reply.
- If multiple parties received the email message and you want to respond to all parties, click Reply All.
- To forward the message, click Forward, type the email address of the person that you want to forward the email to, and press Enter. Alternatively, begin to type a name and select the intended external contact from the list of suggestions.
  Notes:
  - If the sender of the original message specified a custom reply-to address, Genesys Cloud uses this address when you reply.
  - Genesys Cloud supports one reply-to address. If the sender specified more than one reply-to address, then Genesys Cloud uses the first one when you reply.
  - If available the division information appears for external contacts in the list of suggestions.
  - If you enter an invalid email address, Genesys Cloud displays a warning.
  - To remove an email address, beside the email address, click Remove X.
  - To edit an email address, click the email and make the required changes.
  - An email address can have up to 255 characters.
(Optional) If your admin enables the ability to change the From address, to change the From address, click From and select the appropriate address.
Note: If you do not select a From address, Genesys Cloud uses the default address.
(Optional) If your admin configures email history as optional, then to include the previous messages of an email thread, click Show Message History. For more information, see Use the organization’s email domain name.
Type a response. You can also add inline images or attachments. For more information about formatting the text in your response, see Format text in an email message.
Note: If your admin has enabled Genesys Cloud to append email signatures when you send a message, to avoid duplicates, do not manually add a signature to your outgoing email interactions. For more information, see Use the organization's email domain name.
Click Send.
Note: If your organization has its own policy for sending email responses, the Send button may be unavailable.
Complete any after contact work.
The interaction leaves your Conversations roster.

Reply to or forward an email message interaction (multiple actions)Click to expand

From the Conversations roster, select the email interaction you want to act on.
Note: Genesys Cloud displays a compacted list of the message headers in the thread with the last message expanded. To expand or compact a message, click the message header.
Perform one of the following steps:
- To reply to the sender, click Reply.
- If multiple parties received the email message and you want to respond to all parties, click Reply All.
- To forward the message, click Forward, type the email address of the person that you want to forward the email to, and press Enter. Alternatively, begin to type a name and select the intended external contact from the list of suggestions.
  Notes:
  - If the sender of the original message specified a custom reply-to address, Genesys Cloud uses this address when you reply.
  - Genesys Cloud supports one reply-to address. If the sender specified more than one reply-to address, then Genesys Cloud uses the first one when you reply.
  - If available the division information appears for external contacts in the list of suggestions.
  - If you enter an invalid email address, Genesys Cloud displays a warning.
  - To remove an email address, beside the email address, click Remove X.
  - To edit an email address, click the email and make the required changes.
  - An email address can have up to 255 characters.
(Optional) If your admin enables the ability to change the From address, to change the From address, click From and select the appropriate address. For more information, see Create and configure queues.
Note: If you do not select a From address, Genesys Cloud uses the default address.
(Optional) If your admin configures email history as optional, to include the previous messages of an email thread, click Show Message History. For more information, see Use the organization’s email domain name.
Type a response. You can also add inline images or attachments. For more information about formatting the text in your response, see Format text in an email message.
Note: If your admin has enabled Genesys Cloud to append email signatures when you send a message, to avoid duplicates, do not manually add a signature to your outgoing email interactions. For more information, see Use the organization's email domain name.
Click Send. The interaction remains in your Conversation roster.
Note: If your organization has its own policy for sending email responses, the Send button may be unavailable.
(Optional) To send more replies, repeat steps 2–5.To end the interaction, click Disconnect.
Complete any after contact work.
The interaction leaves your Conversations roster.

Note: If your admin enables , each email that an agent sends before they wrap up the interaction counts as a separate session with its own handle time. For example: An agent sends an initial response to an inbound email message, and the handle time is 10 minutes. If the agent then forwards the message to another participant, the timer starts over, and the handle time for this section is 2 minutes.

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