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The Front and Dovetail logos side by side

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Overview

The Front integration imports archived conversations from your Front inboxes into Dovetail. A conversation is imported once it’s archived in Front. Each inbox you select becomes a dataset. A workspace admin creates the Front source once for the whole workspace, and channels then add its inboxes. Learn more about Sources →

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Before you start

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In Dovetail

  • A workspace admin creates the source. Other users can request it.
  • The credentials you connect with are shared by the whole workspace. See Shared credentials for how to choose an account.

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In Front

  • A Front admin account. Front requires the person who authorizes an app such as Dovetail to be a Front admin.
  • The inboxes you want to import. The source can import from the inboxes Front makes available to the Dovetail app, such as your company’s shared inboxes.

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Create the Front source

1

Open Sources and select Front

In the sidebar, select Sources, then select Front.
2

Connect Front

Select Continue. You’re taken to Front to sign in and approve access.
3

Choose inboxes and an import period

In Select inboxes to import from, choose one or more inboxes, or All inboxes. Then choose an Import period. See Import period.
4

Choose who can use the source

Choose who can use the source, then select Next. See Create a source.
5

Create the source

Choose whether to auto-redact sensitive information in the source’s data, then select Create source. The first import starts right away. See Redact data from sources.

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Authentication and permissions

Front connects with OAuth, and only a Front admin can authorize the Dovetail app. The app has Front’s shared resources access, which covers shared inboxes and the conversations, messages, and tags in them. Dovetail only reads data from Front. It doesn’t send, change, or archive anything in Front. The source runs on the Front account of the user who connects it. To change the account or credentials, see Reconnect a source.

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Datasets

Each Front inbox you select becomes a dataset, and each inbox imports on its own. Each channel that uses the source chooses which of its inboxes to add. To add more inboxes later, open the source and select Add inbox. See Add datasets.

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What gets imported

Each archived Front conversation becomes one data point, with the conversation’s messages attached as its conversation thread.

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Always imported

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Imported when present

To rename these fields or change their types, see Source fields.

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Not imported

  • Conversations that aren’t archived, and conversations with no messages.
  • Messages after the first 20 in a conversation.
  • Internal comments between teammates. Dovetail reads a conversation’s messages only.
  • Attachments on messages.
  • Custom fields on other Front records, such as contacts and accounts.

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Customer emails

This data includes customer email addresses, so Dovetail can link data points to contacts. See Create contacts from source data. Dovetail uses each sender’s Front handle as their email address. Senders whose handle isn’t an email address aren’t linked to contacts.

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Sync behavior

The first import starts when the source is created. After that, the source syncs about every hour. See Manage a source.
  • Archived conversations only. A conversation is imported once it’s archived in Front.
  • Message dates. The import period, and each later sync, match conversations by the dates of their messages, not by the date they were archived.
  • Late archiving. A conversation archived more than about two days after its latest message may not be imported.

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Troubleshooting

An inbox doesn’t appear in the picker. The picker lists only the inboxes Front makes available to the Dovetail app. Check that the inbox still exists in Front. A conversation is missing. Check that the conversation is archived in Front, that it’s in an inbox the source imports, and that its messages fall within the import period. A conversation archived more than about two days after its latest message may be missed. For other causes, see Troubleshoot sources. The source can’t read some Front conversations. The teammate who owns the inbox has turned off API access in Front. Ask them to turn it back on. Front isn’t available when I set up a channel. See Troubleshoot sources.

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Revoke access in Front

To revoke Dovetail’s access, a Front admin can remove the Dovetail app in Front’s company settings. After that, the source can’t sync until it’s reconnected. Data the source has already imported stays in Dovetail. To pause or delete the source in Dovetail, see Manage a source. To take its data out of one channel, see Channel setup.

Sources

What a source is, and how its data reaches channels.

Channel setup

Add the source’s inboxes to a channel, or remove them.

Manage a source

Check a source’s status, sync it, pause it, reconnect it, or add inboxes.

Voice of customer

Centralize feedback, make sense of it, and close the loop.