# How to automate e-mail processing for proALPHA > Source: https://netray.co/integrations/proalpha-email-automation > Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems. > Section: Integrations ## Short answer Automate e-mail for proALPHA by reading shared inboxes, classifying each message, extracting structured fields, and creating draft transactions through proALPHA's web services or import interfaces. Low-confidence items go to a review queue rather than into the ERP. The build works with Exchange Online, Microsoft 365 or IMAP, and the extraction model can run on-premise. ## System proALPHA ## Capability email-automation ## Intro Customer orders, supplier confirmations and RFQs still arrive by e-mail at most proALPHA sites. Sales administration retypes order lines, purchasing retypes supplier dates, and the shared inbox becomes an informal workflow engine with no status. Automation is realistic when you separate three things: getting the mail, understanding it, and posting it. Understanding is the part language models improve; posting must stay deterministic and follow proALPHA's rules for customers, items, units and prices. Because proALPHA customers are often make-to-order or engineer-to-order, orders arrive with custom specs and drawings. That argues for draft creation with review rather than silent booking. ## Use Cases ### Customer purchase orders to draft sales orders **Description:** Read the PDF or body, match customer and item numbers (including customer part numbers), and create a draft sales order for the order desk to confirm. ### RFQ intake **Description:** Detect requests for quotation, extract items, quantities and delivery dates, and create an inquiry record with attachments stored in document management. ### Supplier order confirmations **Description:** Match a confirmation to the purchase order number, compare dates and prices to the order, and propose an update or flag deviations. ### Supplier invoices from a billing mailbox **Description:** Pull invoice attachments, extract header and lines, match to purchase orders and receipts, and queue exceptions for accounts payable. ### Delivery delay notices **Description:** Detect notices of late shipment, link them to open purchase orders and alert the buyer with the affected production orders. ### Customer change requests **Description:** Recognise requests to change quantity or date on an existing order and route them to the right planner with the order context. ## System Surface - proALPHA web service interfaces for creating sales orders, inquiries and purchase confirmations, subject to release and licence. - Standard import interfaces and EDI or file-based inbound channels, which can accept structured files produced by your extraction step. - Read-only SQL over the OpenEdge database for customer, item, customer part number and supplier master matching. - Document management in proALPHA for attaching the original e-mail and PDF to the created object. - Workflow and task features for routing review items to named users. ## How It Works ### Connect the mailbox **Detail:** Use Microsoft Graph or IMAP with a service account on dedicated shared inboxes. Mark processed messages and never delete originals. ### Classify the message **Detail:** Decide order, RFQ, confirmation, invoice, change request or other. Use a local model or rules and keep a confidence score. ### Extract fields **Detail:** Pull header and line data from body and attachments, using OCR for scanned PDFs. Keep each field linked to its source location. ### Match to master data **Detail:** Resolve customer, item, unit and currency against proALPHA master data, including customer-specific part numbers and unit conversions. ### Validate business rules **Detail:** Check prices against price lists, delivery dates against lead times and credit status, and flag anything outside tolerance. ### Create drafts or queue for review **Detail:** High-confidence items create a draft object through the supported interface; the rest appear in a review screen with the source side by side. ## Example Flows ### Customer PO becomes a draft sales order **Trigger:** A PDF order arrives in the orders mailbox. **Steps:** - System classifies it as a purchase order and extracts lines. - Customer part numbers are mapped to internal items; one line fails to match. - A draft sales order is created with the unmatched line flagged. - The order desk fixes the line, confirms and sends the acknowledgement. **Result:** Retyping drops sharply and the order desk handles only exceptions. ### Supplier confirms with a different date **Trigger:** A confirmation e-mail names an order number and a later delivery. **Steps:** - System finds the purchase order and compares dates and prices. - The later date breaks a production order start, which is looked up. - A task goes to the buyer with the e-mail, order and affected production orders. **Result:** Delays are seen with their consequence, not just as an update. ## On Prem E-mail content often contains pricing and drawings, so many proALPHA customers want extraction inside their network. Run OCR and a locally hosted open-weight model on your own GPU server, reading from Exchange or IMAP over the internal network. The extraction service calls proALPHA's web services internally and stores results in a database you control. If you use Microsoft 365, the mail itself is already in the cloud, but the processed content and model calls need not leave your site. Keep the model's outputs as proposals and make the ERP post only validated drafts. ## Security - Use a service account with access limited to the specific mailboxes. - Treat attachments as untrusted; scan for malware before parsing. - Defend against prompt injection in e-mail text by never letting content choose which action runs. - Retain the original message with the created object for audit. - Restrict the proALPHA integration user to creating drafts, not releasing or invoicing. ## Options ### Intelligent document processing product **Fit:** Good for invoices and standard layouts; check how it posts into proALPHA. **Effort:** Weeks, with per-document fees. ### In-house pipeline with a local model **Fit:** Suits teams with data engineering skills and strict data rules. **Effort:** A first mailbox in a few weeks, with tuning after. ### Partner such as Netray **Fit:** Useful when you want mapping to your customer part numbers, review UI and on-premise models set up together. **Effort:** Pilot on one mailbox and one document type. ## Pitfalls - Auto-posting orders without a review step and creating duplicate orders on resend. - Ignoring customer-specific part numbers and units of measure. - Not deduplicating the same PO sent twice or revised. - Letting free text in the mail alter the processing instructions. - Training the model on the mailbox without redacting personal data. ## Faq ### Can proALPHA create sales orders from e-mail natively? **Answer:** Not as a general feature we know of. Some customers use EDI or a partner add-on for structured orders. For unstructured e-mail and PDFs, a separate extraction layer creates drafts via the web services or import interface. ### How accurate is extraction? **Answer:** It depends on document quality and layout variety. Expect good results on clean PDFs and weaker ones on scans and free text. Use confidence thresholds and measure on your own samples before you decide what auto-drafts. ### Should orders be posted automatically? **Answer:** Create drafts, and auto-confirm only for known customers and low-risk patterns once the error rate is measured. Anything with new items, odd units or price deviations goes to a person. ### Can this run without a cloud AI service? **Answer:** Yes. OCR and an open-weight model can run on your own servers, so e-mail content and attachments stay in your network. Quality depends on model size and tuning, so test on real samples. ### How are duplicates avoided? **Answer:** Store message ID, file hash and customer PO number, and check them before creating a draft. Treat a revised PO as a change request linked to the original, not a new order. ## Search terms proalpha email automation, proalpha order entry from email, automate purchase orders email erp, proalpha rfq automation, email to sales order proalpha, supplier confirmation email erp, proalpha invoice mailbox, ai email processing erp manufacturing, proalpha edi alternative pdf orders, outlook to proalpha integration --- Talk to an engineer: https://netray.co/contact?intent=erp_ai | Machine catalog: https://netray.co/agent/catalog.json