Communications

Email-to-ticket conversion

Turn resident emails into tracked tickets so nothing gets lost in the inbox. Herald's AI categorizes incoming email, and one click opens a ticket pre-filled from it.

Last updated September 25, 2026

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 status that moves from New to 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. The ticket button appears on Inquiry and Complaint emails, and only when the sender’s address matches a member of your community and Herald is reasonably confident in the category. Payment and Invoice emails get Apply Payment and Expense buttons instead, because they are not ticket-shaped.

The button is labeled with the ticket type Herald guesses from the email’s words:

  • Mentions of a fence, paint, roof, shed, deck, or other change to a home → ARC Ticket
  • A Complaint email, or words like noise, parking, trash, or barking → Complaint Ticket
  • Anything else → General Ticket

2. Open the email and click the ticket button

Open the email in the inbox and click the ticket button. The Create Ticket window opens with the original email shown for context and the fields pre-filled: the ticket type, the description (Herald’s summary of the email, or its body), the sender’s name and email, the linked member, and their address. Change the type if the guess is wrong (General Inquiry, Complaint, ARC Request, or Neighborhood Request), adjust anything else, and click Create Ticket.

The ticket takes the email’s subject as its title and its received date as the date reported, and it records who created it from which sender. The email is marked Handled and shows a Ticket Created tag, so it leaves the pending list.

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”

If the email is still pending, open it and click the ticket button. If you already marked it handled, use Restore to Inbox first, then convert it. The email’s summary becomes the ticket’s description.

”The AI categorized something wrong”

There is no way to change an email’s category. If the ticket button is missing because the email was filed as Other or Payment, or because the sender’s address doesn’t match a member, create the ticket from Requests with New Ticket instead, and mark the email Handled.

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

Most will. That’s fine - the 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