Let AI help run your support inbox
Your assistant turns customer email into cards on a Support board, keeps each request owned and on-status, and prepares draft replies. Your team reviews the drafts and decides what gets sent.
- No code
- Works in Claude, ChatGPT and other connected assistants
- A person sends every reply
How it works
- Email arrivesA customer writes to your support address, and it lands in the connected Gmail inbox.
- AI triages itThe assistant makes a card on your Support board, linked to the email, and points out anything urgent.
- Your team owns itCards get an owner and move through your lists, from Unassigned to Resolved.
- A person sendsFor routine questions the assistant leaves a draft reply in Gmail. Someone reviews it and presses send.
You stay in control. Everything the assistant does shows on the board, just as if a teammate had done it. Sending email is a separate permission that starts switched off when you connect, so the assistant can prepare replies but not send them.
Before you start
- A Sortd Business plan (or higher). AI assistant connections aren't available on other plans.
- A Support board. The Sortd support template gives you the lists this guide uses: Unassigned, Open, Pending, Waiting on Customer, Waiting on 3rd Party, Resolved and Closed. Using your own list names is fine — just change them in the prompts.
- Support email in the connected mailbox. The assistant works with the Gmail inbox of the person who connects it, so connect from the account that receives your support email.
- Your assistant connected to Sortd. Connect your AI takes a couple of minutes. On the sign-in screen, keep the permissions for reading email and boards, changing cards and custom fields, and writing drafts ticked. This guide needs none of the Send email and delete permissions.
Technical detail: the permissions (scopes) this guide uses
boards.read, lists.read, tasks.read, tasks.write to read and update the board · customfields.read to set the Topic field (plus customfields.write if the assistant creates it) · email.metadata.read to find mail · email.body.read to read a question before drafting · drafts.write for draft replies · ai.classify for Sortd's urgency and sentiment read, which also depends on your plan's AI features. No send scope (email.reply, email.send) is needed. Every tool and its scope is listed in the MCP tool reference.
Set it up with your assistant
Each step is a message to your assistant. Copy it as it is, or change the board, list and people names to match yours. Check the result before going on to the next step.
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Let it look at your board
Start here so the assistant uses your real list and field names, not guesses.
Say to your assistantLook at my Support board. What lists and fields does it have, who are its members, and what's currently in Unassigned?What happens: The assistant reads the board, so from now on "move it to Waiting" means your Waiting on Customer list.
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Triage recent customer email
The core move: customer email becomes owned, visible work. For the first run, ask about a recent time window.
Say to your assistantFind customer emails in my inbox from the last two days that aren't on the Support board yet. If one is a follow-up to an existing card, add it to that card. Otherwise make it a card on Support / Unassigned, set its Topic to Billing, Bug or Question, and tell me which ones look urgent or upset.What happens: Each email becomes a card linked to its thread. Urgency and sentiment come from Sortd's own AI read of the thread — the same signals the app shows. If your board has no Topic field yet, ask: "Add a Topic tag field to the Support board with the options Billing, Bug and Question."
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Assign owners
Ownership stops two people answering the same customer.
Say to your assistantOn the Support board, assign Billing cards in Unassigned to Sam and Bug cards to Priya, and move those cards to Open. Leave the rest in Unassigned.What happens: Cards get owners exactly as if you'd dragged them, and teammates see the change in Gmail and on mobile. People must be members of the board to be assigned.
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Prepare draft replies
For routine cases, let the assistant write the first version.
Say to your assistantFor each card in Support / Open that's a simple question, read the customer's email and draft a friendly reply. Don't send anything — leave the drafts in Gmail for review.What happens: Draft replies appear in Gmail on the right threads. Nothing is sent — a person opens each draft, edits it if needed, and sends it.
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Keep the board up to date
The end-of-day sweep nobody enjoys doing by hand.
Say to your assistantOn the Support board, find cards in Waiting on Customer where the customer has replied since, and move them back to Open. Then list anything in Unassigned that's older than a day.What happens: The assistant checks each card's email thread for new replies and moves the cards, so the board matches reality again.
Run it on a schedule
Once the steps work when you ask, schedule them. From now on, "check for new mail" picks up everything that arrived since the assistant last checked.
Every hour on weekdays, check for new mail. Make each new customer request a card on Support / Unassigned with its Topic set, tell me about anything urgent, and draft replies for the simple questions. Don't send anything.Claude (Cowork scheduled tasks) and ChatGPT (scheduled tasks) can both run this. Timings, tips and more recipes: Schedule workflows.
If something's not right
Start with this check. It changes nothing and tells you what the assistant can see and do.
Check my Sortd connection without changing anything: who am I signed in as, which Sortd permissions do you have, is my mailbox connected, and which boards can you see?The assistant doesn't seem to know about Sortd
The connector may be switched off for this chat. Turn Sortd on in the chat's tools or connectors menu, or reconnect by following Connect your AI.
It says your plan doesn't support connections
AI assistant connections need the Business plan or higher. Ask your Sortd workspace admin to upgrade, then connect again.
It says it can't create drafts, read emails or set the Topic
That permission wasn't ticked when you connected. Run the quick check to see what's missing, then reconnect Sortd from your assistant's connector settings. The sign-in screen opens on your earlier choices — tick the missing permission and select Allow selected.
"Check for new mail" found nothing the first time
That's expected. The first check sets a starting point and returns nothing; later checks return what arrived since. Use the search prompt in step 2 to cover mail that already arrived.
It used the wrong list or person
Repeat step 1 and use the names exactly as they appear on your board. Only board members can be assigned.
It can't tell what's urgent
Sortd's urgency and sentiment read depends on your plan's AI features. Without it, the assistant can still judge urgency from the email itself — ask it to explain its reasoning.
What to do next
For developers and agents: the tools behind each step
Each prompt maps onto tools on the hosted MCP server (https://api.sortd.com/mcp). Names are from the MCP tool reference; the same operations are in the REST API.
| Step | Typical tools |
|---|---|
| 1. Look at the board | list_boards, list_board_lists, list_board_custom_fields, list_board_members, list_tasks |
| 2. Triage | search_email_threads, list_tasks (by thread_id), suggest_tasks_for_email → add_thread_to_task, create_task_from_email, update_task (custom_fields), classify_email / get_ai_job |
| 3. Assign | assign_task, move_task |
| 4. Drafts | get_email_thread (include_messages), create_email_draft |
| 5. Keep up to date | list_tasks, get_email_thread, move_task |
| Schedule | get_new_email — a per-connection cursor; the first call initialises it and returns an empty batch |
| Quick check | whoami, get_mailbox, list_boards |