The Agent Hub automatically processes incoming emails and responds to them using AI — directly from Xentral. To give it access to your messages, you connect your existing mailbox to the Agent Hub via a forwarding rule. Your existing email addresses and your mail infrastructure remain completely unchanged. Here you will learn how to set up the email connection, how to create blocking rules to pre-filter incoming emails, and which permissions you need.
With the Agent Hub, you can have incoming emails automatically processed and answered. For this, each Agent Hub instance has its own email address, to which you forward messages from your existing mailbox.
The setup takes place directly in your existing mail system, for example in Gmail or Microsoft 365. You do not need to migrate or reconfigure any existing mailbox. Your existing email addresses remain as usual. New messages are additionally forwarded to the Agent Hub.
This method is also common in many ticketing, helpdesk, and AI systems.
Tip
Start with a clearly defined use case and a single email address.
Good options are, for example:
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Return requests
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Support inquiries
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Orders
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Supplier inquiries
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Internal service mailboxes
Example:
returns@company.com → forward to your Agent Hub address
or
support@company.com → forward to your Agent Hub address
This way you can test the Agent Hub specifically for one concrete process and expand it step by step later.
Each Agent Hub instance has its own email address. You forward messages from your existing mailbox to this address.
Example:
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Your existing address: support@company.com
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Agent Hub address: d8d3ba5z-c770-4f59-8781-f39rvdf8ea63@xentral.help
When a customer writes to support@company.com, the message is automatically forwarded to the Agent Hub and processed there.
You can decide which messages are forwarded. Either you forward all emails of an address, or only specific messages, for example based on sender, subject, or recipient address.
For the Agent Hub to process your incoming emails, you set up a forwarding rule to the Agent Hub address in your mail system. You decide yourself whether all emails of an address are forwarded or only specific ones — for example based on sender, subject, or recipient address:
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orders only
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invoices only
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specific senders only
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specific subject lines only
In Microsoft 365 or Outlook you can also create rules that automatically forward incoming messages to the Agent Hub. This works, for example, via Outlook rules, inbox rules, or the Exchange Admin Center.
Steps:
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Open the settings of your email provider.
In Gmail or Google Workspace, navigate to Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
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Add the Agent Hub email address as a forwarding address.
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Activate automatic forwarding.
For outgoing emails, you set up a sending account in Xentral. This defines which mailbox replies are sent from and which sender address is visible. You can find the settings in the Agent Hub under Settings > Email Connection. The Send me an email area there also displays the forwarding address of your instance:
Field |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Sender account |
Select the Xentral email account the Agent Hub uses to send messages. The available accounts correspond to the email accounts stored in Xentral. |
|
BCC address (optional) |
All emails sent by the agent are also delivered as BCC to this address. Useful for internal documentation or quality control. |
The process is then:
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A customer writes to your existing email address, for example support@company.com.
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The email is automatically forwarded to the Agent Hub.
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The Agent Hub processes the message.
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The reply is sent via the sending account set up in Xentral.
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If the customer replies again, the reply goes back to your existing email address and is forwarded to the Agent Hub again.
Tip
Use the same email address for incoming and outgoing messages, so that customer replies automatically return to the Agent Hub via the same forwarding rule. If the incoming address and the sender account are different, both addresses must have a forwarding rule to the Agent Hub.
This keeps the entire conversation connected.
All incoming and outgoing messages are automatically documented in Xentral COM. This means earlier messages, replies, and attachments are directly available in the respective context.
Note
Notes for administrators and key users:
The Agent Hub works with a forwarding architecture and not with direct IMAP or Exchange synchronization.
This means:
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No direct connection to your mailbox is established.
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No historical emails are synchronized.
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Only new messages forwarded to the Agent Hub address are processed.
Forwarding works with almost all common email providers, including:
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Google Workspace / Gmail
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Microsoft 365 / Exchange
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Classic IMAP mail servers
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Hosting providers with mail rules
This makes it easy to integrate the Agent Hub into existing mail infrastructures.
Via the Blocking rules tab in Settings, you create deterministic filters that discard or route incoming emails before AI processing — similar to a blacklist. This prevents, for example, spam or newsletters from being processed as tasks.
Steps:
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Click on Add rule.
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Fill in the fields in the form.
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Click on Add entry.
The fields in detail:
Field |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Check email field |
The email field to be checked: From (sender) or Subject. |
|
Matching type |
Defines how the value is compared: Exact match, Contains, Ends with, or Regex pattern. |
|
Value |
The value against which the selected email field is checked, e.g. "spam" or "@domain.com". |
|
Description (optional) |
Internal description of the rule. |
|
Rule active |
Activate the option so that the rule is applied. |
All created rules are displayed in a table with the columns Type, Value, Description, and Actions. Via the actions you can edit or delete a rule.
Note
Example: You want emails with the subject "SPAM" to be discarded before AI processing. Create a rule with email field "Subject", matching type "Contains", and value "SPAM". All incoming emails whose subject contains this value are then filtered out before AI processing.
To use the Agent Hub, you need certain permissions in Xentral.
There are two options:
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Administrator access: If your user account has administrator rights, all required permissions are automatically in place.
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Individual permissions: If you are not an administrator, the following rights must be set:
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Addresses → permission "list"
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Orders → permission "list"
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Delivery notes → permission "list"
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Items → permission "list"
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Analytics Platform → permission "all"
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Important
All listed permissions must be active at the same time.