Email-to-ticket conversion

When a resident emails the board, the message often deserves to be a tracked ticket — a complaint, an ARC submission, a maintenance issue. Rather than asking them to re-submit through the formal flow (they won’t), you turn that email into a ticket from inside the inbox. One click, no re-keying.

Why bother

A few reasons converting emails to tickets beats leaving them in the inbox:

• Status tracking — tickets have a lifecycle (New → In Progress → Resolved / Closed). Emails don’t.
• Reporting — you can pull “all open complaints” easily. Counting open emails is painful.
• Audit trail — tickets link to the property, fine, ARC approval, etc. Emails are harder to connect.
• Resident visibility — residents see their tickets in their portal. Email is just inbox detritus.

How it works

1. AI categorizes every email as it arrives

Every incoming email in your Email Inbox is auto-categorized by Herald’s AI. The category appears as a pill on the email row, and the inbox header shows category filters: All Types, Payment, Invoice, Inquiry, Complaint, Other.

The category is a hint, not a decision — it tells you this looks like a complaint, but you still decide whether to convert it. Most categories naturally suggest a ticket type:

• Complaint → typically becomes a Complaint ticket
• Inquiry about a property change → typically becomes an ARC request
• Inquiry about a neighborhood matter → typically becomes a Neighborhood ticket
• Payment / Invoice → usually stays in the inbox (not ticket-shaped)
• Other → admin’s call

If the AI categorizes something wrong, override it manually. The AI improves with corrections over time.

2. Open the email and click Create Ticket

Open any email in the inbox. The detail view has a Create Ticket button. Clicking it opens the conversion modal with the email’s subject and body pre-filled, so you’re not re-keying anything. Pick the ticket type, adjust the title if you want, and save.

The original email is preserved as the first message in the ticket thread, so the full context travels with the ticket.

3. The resident gets a reply you control

Converting an email to a ticket doesn’t auto-reply. You write the reply you want — either as the first response inside the ticket thread, or as an inline note explaining what happens next. Reply behavior follows your normal ticket flow, not a separate auto-reply system.

Common situations

”An email should have been a ticket but I left it sitting”

Open the email in your inbox, click Create Ticket, and convert it. Nothing’s lost — the original email becomes the first message in the new ticket thread.

”The AI categorized something wrong”

Open the email and change the category manually. The AI learns from corrections over time.

”Residents are using email instead of the formal request flow”

Most will. That’s fine — the Create Ticket button bridges the gap. Don’t force them to learn the formal flow if email works for them.

”I converted an email by mistake”

Open the resulting ticket and close it (status → Closed) with a brief reason. Reply to the resident from email normally. There’s no undo button, but a closed ticket with context preserved is harmless.

Where to go next

• The unified email inbox — the inbox itself, including filters and reply tools
• The four request types — what ticket types are available
• Herald Chat — AI bot in the resident portal that answers questions before they become emails