Email Orders: Let Customers Order by Email and Get a Draft Automatically

Some customers will never use EDI or an API — they just send an email. Give them your dedicated order inbox address, and Docklify reads the email and its attachments, asks for anything missing in the same thread, and prepares a draft order for your review.

Email ordering is for customers who order the way they always have: by writing an email. Instead of your team re-typing those emails into orders, the customer sends the order to your dedicated inbox address (for example yourname@ai.docklify.com). The email assistant reads the message and its attachments, checks the sender against your allow list, and turns it into a draft sales order. If something needed is missing — a phone number, a quantity — it replies in the same email thread and asks, in plain words, for exactly what is missing. You review everything under OMS → Email Orders before anything takes effect.

Step 1: Turn on your order inbox address#

Go to Admin → AI Assistant and click “Enable email ordering”. Your dedicated address appears right there — share it with the customers who should order by email. You can switch the address off at any time; while it is off, incoming order emails are not processed.

You can also rename the part before the @ — for example, to match your company name. In the AI Assistant settings, choose “Rename address”. The first rename can be done any time; after that, you can rename once every 30 days, and the settings show the next date a rename is possible. Renaming never loses mail: every name you have used before keeps receiving mail for your organization for good. The settings list all your previous names with the dates they were used, each marked “Still receiving”. A few names are reserved by the system and cannot be used.

Step 2: Build the sender allow list#

Only emails from senders on your allow list are turned into orders — anything else is logged and shown to you, never silently processed. In the same Admin → AI Assistant settings, add each sender and bind it to the right customer (the orders belong to that customer). Adding a single email address sends a confirmation email to that address: the entry takes effect only after the owner clicks the confirmation link, which proves the mailbox is really theirs. Adding a whole domain is possible too, but domain entries are reviewed by the Docklify platform team before they take effect. One exception: public email domains (Gmail, QQ Mail, Outlook and the like) cannot be added as a whole domain — anyone can sign up for one — so add those addresses one by one. For each entry you also choose a trust level: “Draft only” or “May take effect automatically” (see Step 5).

Step 3: What your customers should put in the email#

• Who receives it: recipient name and a phone number the courier can call.
• Where it goes: street address, city, postal code (state and country when not obvious).
• What to ship: one line per item, with your item code (SKU) if they know it, plus the quantity — “SKU-RED-MUG × 12”.
• Attachments are welcome: a PDF, Word or Excel order sheet, or a photo of a paper order — the assistant reads those too.

Step 4: If something is missing, the assistant asks — in the same thread#

When the email is missing something required, your customer gets a reply in the same thread listing, in plain words, exactly what is missing and an example of the format — for instance “Recipient phone, e.g. Phone: 909-555-0100” or “Quantity for line 2”. They just reply with the missing pieces; there is no need to send a new order. After three rounds the case is handed to your team instead of asking forever, and you will find it under Email Orders marked as needing a person.

Step 5: Review and confirm under Email Orders — and choose how much is automatic#

Every email order lands in OMS → Email Orders. Open one and you will see the full conversation on the left — the original email, the assistant’s replies, the customer’s follow-ups, each with its attachments — and the recognized order content on the right. Fields the assistant is unsure about are marked so you can double-check them, and unusually large quantities are flagged in red (a warning, not a block). If an item could not be matched to a product, pick the right product right there: the assistant remembers that match for that customer, so the same wording works automatically next time. Then confirm to put the order into effect, or reject to close the case. In Admin → AI Assistant you also set the ability level: Off, Draft only, or Automatic. What actually happens is the lower of that setting and the sender’s trust level — so a sender you only trust with drafts never gets automatic treatment, even if the ability is set to Automatic.

Your customer always hears back. When an order is created, the confirmation email includes the order number, a recap of the items and delivery details, and how to check on it. If processing itself runs into a system problem, the customer automatically gets a short note saying the email was received and a person is following up — and the case shows under Email Orders as a system error with the reason on its detail page. The assistant retries on its own for a while; you can also open the case and click Reprocess to try again right away. Nothing is processed silently, and nothing disappears without a trace.

Docklify features used in this article#

• AI Assistant settings (Admin → AI Assistant): your inbox address, the sender allow list, and ability levels.
• Email Orders (OMS → Email Orders): the list and the review screen for every email order case.
• Sales Orders (OMS → Sales Orders): the draft the assistant prepares becomes a normal order once you confirm it.