Content-focused channels in Igloo all have email addresses, and you can use those to send or even automate content into your community. Seeing as we've looked into notifications, it's worth going the other way. We see all kinds of use cases for this with clients, and today I'll introduce the function, go over a few of the use cases, and address the advantages and limitations. 

What? Email?

You can find a Channel's email address through the dropdown next to the Add Content option there. It'll default to the Channel ID and a code for the content type, but you can change that in the channel settings, often to something a bit friendlier. The domain will use the domain of your Igloo, so it will keep with your branding, rather than going to an Igloo-specific email address. 

If you're not seeing email settings there at all, you may need to enable them in the Global Settings area of the Control Panel. They can be turned on by content type, so your Administrators have control over what get can be emailed where. Content creation through email also always respects the permissions of the Channel, so there's never a risk of breaching your access rules or allowing spam into your digital workplace. 

Let's take a look at some use cases. 

Automating Reports

Emailing in content is used in lots of ways, but the most common is automating reports or results into an Igloo. Odds are you use half a dozen different services that output results or information through email, and passing those into your digital workplace is the first step toward having everything in one place, searchable and ready to be consult and collaborate around. Different channels see different uses, but here's a few I've seen: 

• Blogs: importing newsletters, or containing weekly reports from analytics services. 
• Wikis: aggregating updates from news services. 
• Folders: holding automated file reports. 
• Forums: receiving frequent updates from a single service, such as polls, forms, or surveys. 
• Calendars: coordinating events from multiple calendar applications. 
• Microblogs: scheduling birthday announcements, or collating frequent updates from a single serve, like hashtag tracking for events. 

These are just a start. In order to hook up a service to email into your Igloo though, you'll need to either make the email address it comes from a member and handle it like a service account, or have it automatically forwarded through an email account that is a member, and has Write access to that area. 

Q&A

Automating reports is one thing, but email creation can also be used to set up a central hub for Q&A. Set up a friendly email address in a Forum channel, and give members the opportunity to email it in addition to asking questions in the digital workplace. They'll be subscribed when they create a topic, so they'll receive updates on all of the comments, but your subject matter exports have an easy way to answer and manage all of the incoming questions, rather than relying on someone's inbox. 

This can be an incredible tool for building engagement, and give people a way to shift their habits from email to Igloo. You can even create the forums in separate Spaces, making it easy for people working in those Spaces to manage their questions, while giving people the option to use email. 

Ad hoc documentation

Let's be honest, sometimes right now is more important than right. Sometimes things need to get written down immediately. From a laptop or a phone, it needs to get out of someone's head and into words that other people can read and search. Emailing content gives everyone a quick way to get something out that doesn't push them to rely on interfaces, formatting, and style guides, but lets them jam in text so the knowledge is present, and can be edited later. 

There are even ways to structure wikis in Igloo around this philosophy, letting people email into a holding wiki, and editing and shifting articles over to a documentation wiki once they meet the style and information requirements. In the meantime though, people who need that info have access to it through navigation and search. 

It's a bit counterintuitive, but email-enabled content encourages people to stop living out of their inboxes and pushes them toward creating that content in your digital workplace by giving them an interface they know and an easy way of finding the answers they need. 

If you have any other questions about the Igloo platform, workflows, or best practices, you can leave a comment here, or ask a question in the Community area.