External Email Capture
External Email Capture lets you save email conversations that happen outside of 12twenty (for example, messages sent from Outlook or Gmail) directly to the right student or contact profile.
Instead of manually creating notes, you can forward or Bcc emails to a unique 12twenty inbound address. 12twenty will then match the email to any included recipient addresses in the To or Cc lines and store it as on their profiles as an External email activity.
Typical users are career center staff, employer relations teams, and other admins who email students, alumni, or employer contacts outside of 12twenty
How to Access
Your external email capture email address is available in site settings
Important: The inbound address can’t be customized or regenerated.
How It Works
1) Send or forward your email
From your email client (Outlook, Gmail, etc.), either:
- BCC the inbound address on an email you’re sending, or
- Forward an existing email thread to the inbound address
2) 12twenty validates the sender
- The sender’s email address must match an active admin user in your 12twenty site
- If it doesn’t match, the email is rejected and not stored
3) 12twenty matches recipients to profiles
12twenty looks at To and CC recipients and tries to match them to:
Students (must be Active = Yes)
- Permanent Email Address
- Alternate Email Address
Contacts (any status)
- Primary Email Address
- Alternate Email Address
Matching behavior to know:
- If the email matches multiple students/contacts, the email is saved to each matching profile.
- If the same email address exists on both a student and a contact, the email will be saved to both (12twenty can’t infer intent).
4) The email is saved as an “External” email activity
Saved emails appear in:
- The Emails tab on the matching student profile
- The Emails tab on the matching contact profile
- The Email Activity list page (including External emails on the Sent tab)
Processing expectation: Emails typically appear within 10 minutes of forwarding/BCC’ing (and list results may take up to ~10 minutes to reflect new activity).'
What Gets Saved (and What Doesn’t)
Saved:
- Subject
- Body, stored as HTML (sanitized for security)
- Full forwarded content is expected to be captured (including longer reply chains), depending on what your email provider includes in the forwarded message
Not saved:
- Attachments
- Embedded images
Email Activity Display Details
- Email Type: External (shown anywhere email activity summaries appear)
- Status: External emails display as Delivered once successfully received by the system
- Opens/Clicks: External emails show “--” (tracking isn’t available for messages not sent through 12twenty)
Permissions & Visibility
- Only emails sent from an email address that matches an active admin user in your site will be stored
- Users will only see email activity in 12twenty based on their existing permissions and access to student/contact records
Notes, Considerations & Limitations
- This feature is designed for normal usage patterns and may not reliably support extreme inbound bursts (for example, hundreds of emails per second).
- If a mailbox rule automatically forwards messages, ensure it forwards in a way that preserves the original To/CC recipients, or matching may be incomplete.
- Because attachments are discarded, consider saving critical documents to the appropriate record/library separately.
Troubleshooting: “I forwarded an email, but it’s not showing up”
If an email doesn’t appear after ~10 minutes, check:
- Did you forward/BCC to the correct inbound address shown in your settings?
- Was the sender you used an active admin user in 12twenty?
- If you sent from a different mailbox/alias not tied to your user account, the email will be rejected.
- Were the intended recipients in the email’s To/CC fields?
Instead of manually creating notes, you can add your unique 12twenty inbound address to the Bcc line when replying to or forwarding an email. 12twenty will then match the email to any included recipient addresses in the To or Cc lines and store it as on their profiles as an External email activity. The student or contact's email must be in the To or cc fields.
- Does the recipient email address match what’s on the profile?
- Students: Permanent/Alternate email (Active students only)
- Contacts: Primary/Alternate email (any status)
If the message still isn’t appearing, share the following with your support team:
- The approximate send/forward time
- The sender address used
- The inbound address you sent to
- The To/CC recipient addresses included