How OpenAssistant Works with Email

OpenAssistant can work with your email to coordinate conversations, review messages, draft replies, send emails, and complete tasks.

There are two main ways your assistant can work with email:

You do not need to grant inbox access to use OpenAssistant over email.

The simplest way to work with your assistant over email is to include it on a conversation and give it a direct request. For example:

Hi Andy — let’s find 30 minutes next week. Maya, please coordinate a time that works for both of us.

Your assistant can follow the conversation, communicate with the participants, and complete the requested task using the context available in the thread.

This is useful when you want your assistant to:

For scheduling tasks, your assistant also needs the appropriate calendar permissions to check availability and create or update events.

Inbox access is optional and must be explicitly authorized.

When you connect your inbox and grant email permissions, your assistant can help with broader email tasks, including:

For example:

Review the unread customer emails from today. Group related messages, list urgent items first, and draft replies for my review.

Connecting your inbox does not mean your assistant automatically takes action on everything it sees. Give your assistant clear instructions about what you want it to do, which messages or time period matter, and whether you want it to summarize, draft, or take action.

Depending on your setup, OpenAssistant can communicate using its own assistant email address or your connected email account.

A system assistant uses its preconfigured OpenAssistant identity. Custom assistants can have their own OpenAssistant-hosted email address or, when properly configured, an email address on your organization's domain.

When assigning an email task, you can specify how you want the assistant to communicate. For example:

Your assistant's ability to send messages depends on the permissions and approval settings you have configured.

OpenAssistant gives you control over how closely you remain involved in conversations your assistant manages.

Depending on your settings, you can remain included on communications, stay included only on existing conversations, or allow your assistant to manage conversations more independently.

You can also control whether you are included using CC or BCC.

These settings are separate from your assistant's autonomy and approval settings. For a complete explanation, see Supervision and Visibility Settings.

There are two ways to review email activity in OpenAssistant.

For email related to a specific request, open the task from your in-progress or completed work. You'll see the messages and actions associated with that task.

For a broader view, open your assistant's Inbox in the OpenAssistant dashboard. The Inbox shows email threads available to your assistant and conversations it is participating in.

OpenAssistant can only access connected services and data permitted by the permissions you grant.

A few things to keep in mind:

Confirm that inbox permission has been granted.

If you don't want to grant broader inbox access, you can instead forward a message to your assistant or include it on the specific conversation you want it to work with.

Open the related task to review its message history, or check the assistant's Inbox for broader email activity.

Your supervision and visibility settings may also affect where you see messages.

Make sure your calendar is connected with the permissions required to read availability and create or update events.

It also helps to give your assistant the participants, meeting duration, and a useful time window.

If the task is waiting for clarification or approval, you'll see that status in the OpenAssistant dashboard.

If you think you've encountered a bug, contact OpenAssistant support at [email protected] and include:

Providing these details will help us investigate the issue more quickly.