# Email Guide

How email works across the CBM applications - overview and reference.

# How Email Works

*Cleveland Business Mentors application suite - current as of July 21, 2026*

Every email the system sends or receives goes through CBM's own Google Workspace (Gmail). The application never runs its own mail server, so deliverability, security, and retention are Google's - and every message, inbound or outbound, also exists in a real Gmail mailbox that staff can open directly if ever needed.

There are **two sending identities**, and knowing which one applies is the key to understanding the whole system:

| Identity | Used for | Who sees replies |
|---|---|---|
| **The mentor's own mailbox** (e.g. jane.smith@cbmentors.org) | Relationship mail: mentors writing to their clients, partners, and funders | The mentor, in their own mailbox and in the app |
| **"Cleveland Business Mentors"** (info@cbmentors.org) | Organizational mail: responses to website inquiries, staff notices, and the CRM's own automated messages | The Marketing Admin team, in the shared queue and the info@ inbox |

The rule of thumb: **mail from a person comes from that person; mail from the organization comes from Cleveland Business Mentors.**

## 1. The public website forms

The five intake forms (client intake, volunteer, request for information, partner, sponsor) create records in the CRM when submitted. They do **not** send the submitter a confirmation email - a deliberate choice. When a response is warranted, staff send it personally from Submission Admin (below), so the first email a prospect receives from CBM is a real answer, not an autoresponder.

## 2. Submission Admin - the organizational inbox

Submission Admin is where form submissions and inbound email meet.

- **Inbound:** the system checks the info@cbmentors.org inbox every five minutes. Each new email thread appears in the queue as a held item. Staff either **Approve** it (creating the same CRM records a website information request would) or **Discard** it (spam leaves no trace in the CRM). Automated bounce notices and threads CBM itself started are filtered out automatically.
- **Outbound:** replies from Submission Admin are sent as **Cleveland Business Mentors**, with no personal signature. Because each conversation is anchored to its submission, every admin sees the same complete thread - who replied, what was said, and when - regardless of who handled it.
- **Follow-up at a glance:** each open item shows whether CBM owes a reply ("reply owed") or is waiting on the submitter. If a reply could not be delivered - a mistyped address, for example - the item is flagged in red ("delivery failed") and the conversation shows the mail system's reason. A failed delivery is never silent.

## 3. Mentor tools - Client, Partner, and Funder Management

Mail between a mentor and the people they serve is personal, and the system keeps it that way.

- **Sending:** every compose window in these tools - replying in a record's Communications tab, or clicking any email address in the app - sends from the **mentor's own** @cbmentors.org mailbox, with their personal signature added automatically.
- **Receiving:** the system continuously reads each mentor's CBM mailbox and files correspondence with their clients, partners, and funders onto the matching record in the CRM - cleaned of signatures and quoted reply chains, with the original always one click away in Gmail. Only correspondence with people on the mentor's *active* records is captured; internal staff-to-staff mail and marketing/automated mail are excluded.
- **My Email** gives each mentor a single inbox view of these conversations across every record they manage, with unread and awaiting-reply markers.
- Every message sent from the app is also recorded in the CRM on the recipient's contact history, so the CRM remains the complete record.

## 4. Mentor-to-mentor email

When one mentor emails another - a co-mentor, or a colleague - the message always goes out from **the sending mentor's own** @cbmentors.org mailbox, never from Cleveland Business Mentors. Peer discussion is personal mail.

What differs is **whether the CRM keeps a copy**, and that depends on where the message is written:

- **Written from a client record** (the Communications tab of an engagement, partner, or funder): the message is filed on that record, exactly like a message to the client. Writing from the record is the deliberate signal that the discussion belongs to it - for example, co-mentors coordinating about their shared client.
- **Written anywhere else** (Gmail directly, or a compose window not tied to a record): internal mail between @cbmentors.org addresses is **not** captured into the CRM at all. Private peer conversation stays in Gmail.

The rule of thumb for mentors: *if the discussion is about a client and should be part of the client's history, write it from the client's record; otherwise use Gmail and it stays between you.*

## 5. Staff administration tools - Client Administration and Mentor Administration

Notices sent from the staff tools - for example, the assignment notice a mentor receives when a new client is assigned - go out as **Cleveland Business Mentors**. These are organizational messages, not personal correspondence. Replies to them arrive in the info@ inbox, which the Marketing Admin team monitors.

## 6. Meeting invitations

When a mentor schedules a session, the calendar invitation comes from **Google Calendar** on the mentor's behalf - it is a calendar event, not an app email. Clients are invited at their own addresses; CBM members are always invited at their @cbmentors.org address, never a personal one, so nobody receives a duplicate copy of their own meeting.

## 7. The CRM's own automated email

Messages EspoCRM generates itself - the welcome email when a new mentor login is created, password-reset links - are sent from **info@cbmentors.org** ("Cleveland Business Mentors"). The old espo@ address has been retired from outgoing mail.

## 8. System monitoring

Operational alerts (delivery backlogs, integration problems) go to **admin@cbmentors.org** and come from admin@ - internal plumbing, deliberately kept off the customer-facing info@ identity.

## Who sees what

- **A mentor** sees the email conversations on their own records, and their My Email inbox. They never see another mentor's correspondence or the organizational queue.
- **The Marketing Admin team** works the Submission Admin queue and watches the info@ inbox. They see every organizational conversation, but not mentors' relationship mail.
- **Everything sent from the app is also in Gmail** - a mentor's sends in their own Sent folder, the organization's in the info@ account - so nothing depends on the application to be readable.