The Email connector lets you perform insert, delete, update, and read operations on IMAP database.
Before you begin
Before using the Email connector, do the following tasks:
- In your Google Cloud project:
- Grant the roles/connectors.admin IAM role to the user configuring the connector.
- Grant the following IAM roles to the service account that you want to use for the connector:
roles/secretmanager.viewer
roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor
A service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs. If you don't have a service account, you must create a service account. For more information, see Creating a service account.
- Enable the following services:
secretmanager.googleapis.com
(Secret Manager API)connectors.googleapis.com
(Connectors API)
To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.
If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.
Configure the connector
Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:
- In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.
- Click + Create new to open the Create Connection page.
- In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
- Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.
For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.
- Click Next.
- Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.
- In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
- Connector: Select Email from the drop down list of available Connectors.
- Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
- In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.
Connection names must meet the following criteria:
- Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
- Letters must be lower-case.
- Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
- Connection names cannot exceed 63 characters.
- (Optional) Description: Enter a description for the connection.
- Optionally, enable Cloud logging,
and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to
Error
. - Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
-
Protocol: The type of email server to connect to. Valid values are
IMAP
andPOP
. - Verbosity Level: This field determines the amount of detail that you want to include in the log file. Valid values range from 1 to 5. A higher verbosity level logs all the communication details including the request, response, and SSL certificates.
- Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
- Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
- Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.
A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.
- Use proxy: Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection and configure the following values:
-
Proxy Auth Scheme: Select the authentication type to authenticate with the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
- Basic: Basic HTTP authentication.
- Digest: Digest HTTP authentication.
- Proxy User: A user name to be used to authenticate with the proxy server.
- Proxy Password: The Secret manager secret of the user's password.
-
Proxy SSL Type: The SSL type to use when connecting to the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
- Auto: Default setting. If the URL is an HTTPS URL, then the Tunnel option is used. If the URL is an HTTP URL, then the NEVER option is used.
- Always: The connection is always SSL enabled.
- Never: The connection is not SSL enabled.
- Tunnel: The connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy.
- In the Proxy Server section, enter details of the proxy server.
- Click + Add destination.
- Select a Destination Type.
- Host address: Specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
If you want to establish a private connection to your backend system, do the following:
- Create a PSC service attachment.
- Create an endpoint attachment and then enter the details of the endpoint attachment in the Host address field.
- Host address: Specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
- Optionally, click + Add label to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
- Click Next.
- In the Destinations section, enter details of the name or address of the mail server that you want to connect to. The server supports both IMAP or POP protocols.
- Destination Type: Select a Destination Type. For example, enter the host address and the port number. For example, host address is
outlook.office365.com
and port is993
.- Select Host address from the list to specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
- If you want to establish a private connection to your backend systems, select Endpoint attachment from the list, and then select the required endpoint attachment from the Endpoint Attachment list.
If you want to establish a public connection to your backend systems with additional security, you can consider configuring static outbound IP addresses for your connections, and then configure your firewall rules to allowlist only the specific static IP addresses.
- If you want to send email, add the SMTP server details in the SMTPServer section by clicking +Add destination. Then, do the following:
- Enter the host address and the port number. For example, host address is
smtp-mail.outlook.com
and port is587
.
- Enter the host address and the port number. For example, host address is
- Click Next.
- Destination Type: Select a Destination Type. For example, enter the host address and the port number. For example, host address is
-
In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
- Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.
The following authentication types are supported by the Email connection:
- Username and password
- Click Next.
To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.
- Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.
- Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
- Click Create.
Configure authentication
Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.
-
Username and password
- Username: The user of the Email account used to authenticate.
- Password: Secret Manager Secret containing the password of the email account used to authenticate.
Entities, operations, and actions
All the Integration Connectors provide a layer of abstraction for the objects of the connected application. You can access an application's objects only through this abstraction. The abstraction is exposed to you as entities, operations, and actions.
- Entity: An entity can be thought of as an object, or a collection of properties, in the
connected application or service. The definition of an entity differs from a connector to a
connector. For example, in a database connector, tables are the entities, in a
file server connector, folders are the entities, and in a messaging system connector,
queues are the entities.
However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support or have any entities, in which case the
Entities
list will be empty. - Operation: An operation is the activity that you can perform on an entity. You can perform
any of the following operations on an entity:
Selecting an entity from the available list, generates a list of operations available for the entity. For a detailed description of the operations, see the Connectors task's entity operations. However, if a connector doesn't support any of the entity operations, such unsupported operations aren't listed in the
Operations
list. - Action: An action is a first class function that is made available to the integration
through the connector interface. An action lets you make changes to an entity or entities, and
vary from connector to connector. Normally, an action will have some input parameters, and an output
parameter. However, it is possible
that a connector doesn't support any action, in which case the
Actions
list will be empty.
System limitations
The Email connector can process 1 transaction per second, per node, and throttles any transactions beyond this limit. By default, Integration Connectors allocates 2 nodes (for better availability) for a connection.
For information on the limits applicable to Integration Connectors, see Limits.
Actions
This section lists the actions supported by the connector. To understand how to configure the actions, see Action examples.
MoveEmails action
Input parameters of the MoveEmails action
Parameter name | Data type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Description | String | Yes | The mailbox where the message will be moved. |
Mailbox | String | Yes | The mailbox where the message is currently located. |
Id | String | Yes | This inputs indicates the set of messages to operate on. It may consist of a single message id, a range of messages specified by two message numbers separated by ':' (e.g. '1:5'), and/or individual message numbers separated by ',' (e.g. '1:5,7,10'). |
For example on how to configure the MoveEmails
action,
see Action examples.
SendMailMessages action
Input parameters of the SendMailMessages action
Parameter name | Data type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
BCC | String | No | The semicolon-separated list of names and email addresses of the BCCed recipients. |
Priority | String | No | Priority of the mail message. |
Sensitivity | String | No | Sensitivity of the mail message. |
Attachment | String | Yes | Semicolon-separated list of the attachment file names (with path if reading from a file) included in the message. |
MessageBody | String | Yes | The message body. |
AttachmentData | String | Yes | Semicolon-separated list of the base-64-encoded attachment data included in the message. (You must still specify the filename in Attachments. |
InlineImage | String | Yes | Semicolon-separated list of the inline image identifiers (cids) to be included in the message. |
DeliveryNotification | String | No | Email address to send a delivery notification to. |
InlineImageData | String | Yes | Semicolon-separated list of the base-64-encoded image data to be included in the message. |
CC | String | No | The semicolon-separated list of names and email addresses of the CCed recipients. |
InlineImageContent | String | No | The content as InputStream to be uploaded. |
From | String | No | The email address of the sender. |
To | String | No | The semicolon-separated list of names and email addresses of the recipients. |
Subject | String | Yes | The subject of the mail message. |
AttachmentContent | String | No | The content as InputStream to be uploaded. |
Charset | String | No | The character set to use in the message. |
ReadReceipt | String | No | Email address to send a read receipt to. |
IsHTML | String | No | Whether the email is HTML or plain text. |
Importance | String | No | Importance of the mail message. |
For example on how to configure the SendMailMessages
action,
see Action examples.
SetLabels action
Input parameters of the SetLabels action
Parameter name | Data type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
OperationType | String | Yes | This indicates weather the specified labels should be added,removed or replace existing labels list. |
Mailbox | String | Yes | The Gmail mailbox where the message is located. |
Id | String | Yes | This inputs indicates the set of messages to operate on. It may consist of a single message id, a range of messages specified by two message numbers separated by ':' (e.g. '1:5'), and/or individual message numbers separated by ',' (e.g. '1:5,7,10'). |
Label | String | Yes | List of labels to be set to the message specified by the MessageSet property. This input should be set to a comma separate list of labels. |
For example on how to configure the SetLabels
action,
see Action examples.
SetFlag action
Input parameters of the SetFlag action
Parameter name | Data type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
OperationType | String | Yes | This indicates weather the specified flags should be added,removed or replace existing flags list. |
Mailbox | String | Yes | The mailbox where the message is located. |
Id | String | Yes | This inputs indicates the set of messages to operate on. It may consist of a single message id, a range of messages specified by two message numbers separated by ':' (e.g. '1:5'), and/or individual message numbers separated by ',' (e.g. '1:5,7,10'). |
Flags | String | Yes | Sets the specified flags to the message specified by message set. (e.g., Seen, Deleted, Draft,flagged). Flags should be specified as comma separated list(e.g. Seen,Deleted,flagged) |
For example on how to configure the SetFlag
action,
see Action examples.
Examples
Action examples
Example - Move an email
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
MoveEmails
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "Destination": "Inbox", "Mailbox": "Archive", "Id": "1" }
If the action is successful, the
MoveEmails
task's connectorOutputPayload
response
parameter will have a value similar to the following:
[{ "Success": "true", "rss:title": "Message(s) moved successfully." }]
Example - Send an email
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
SendMailMessages
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "MessageBody": "This mail is generated by using action sendmailmessage for outlook server.", "To": "test97@gmail.com", "Subject": "Outlook SMTP\n server." }
If the action is successful, the
SendMailMessages
task's connectorOutputPayload
response
parameter will have a value similar to the following:
[{ "MessageId": "4797386f18288a7441c5317a459b8340e857@outlook.com" }]
Example - Send mail with attachment
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
SendMailMessages
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "MessageBody": "This mail is generated by using action sendmailmessage for outlook server.", "To": "test97@gmail.com", "Subject": "Outlook SMTP PDF Mail.", "Attachment": "Testing.pdf", "AttachmentData": "JVBERi0xLjQKJcOkw7zDtsOfCjIgMCBvYmoKPDwvTGVuz1xj6j3/gb09Wma83/dLbs7L9N03T/dHh6ArlrRiZdCU98lR5A3h9FD ...[too long to view on UI. Please download the log to view the full content.] }
If the action is successful, the
SendMailMessages
task's connectorOutputPayload
response
parameter will have a value similar to the following:
[{ "MessageId": "1e96993a6053845c65ee44e6b4153d585e@outlook.com" }]
Example - Set labels
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
SetLabels
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "Labels": "GoogleCloud_Testing", "OperationType": "ADD", "Mailbox": "Inbox", "Id": "1" }
If the action is successful, the
SetLabels
task's connectorOutputPayload
response
parameter will have a value similar to the following:
[{ "Success": "true", "rss:title": "Message labels set correctly." }]
Example - Set flag
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
SetFlag
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "Mailbox": "Sent", "Id": "1", "Flags": "Draft", "OperationType": "ADD" }
If the action is successful, the
SetFlag
task's connectorOutputPayload
response
parameter will have a value similar to the following:
[{ "Success": "true", "rss:title": "Message flags set correctly." }]
Example - Set flag to particular mail
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
SetFlag
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "Mailbox": "Sent", "Id": "1", "Flags": "Flagged", "OperationType": "ADD" }
If the action is successful, the
SetFlag
task's connectorOutputPayload
response
parameter will have a value similar to the following:
[{ "Success": "true", "rss:title": "Message flags set correctly." }]
Entity operation examples
This section shows how to perform some of the entity operations in this connector.
Example - List all emails
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Inbox
from theEntity
list. - Select the
LIST
operation, and then click Done. - Optionally, in Task Input section of the Connectors task, you can filter your result set by specifying a filter clause. Specify the filter clause value always within the single quotes (').
Example - Get a single email
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Inbox
from theEntity
list. - Select the
GET
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click EntityId and
then enter
1
in the Default Value field.Here,
1
is a unique record ID in theInbox
entity.
Example - Delete an email
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Inbox
from theEntity
list. - Select the
DELETE
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click entityId and
then enter
1
in the Default Value field.
Use terraform to create connections
You can use the Terraform resource to create a new connection.To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.
To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.
When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:
Parameter name | Data type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
protocol | STRING | True | The type of email server to connect to. |
proxy_enabled | BOOLEAN | False | Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection. |
proxy_auth_scheme | ENUM | False | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: BASIC, DIGEST, NONE |
proxy_user | STRING | False | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
proxy_password | SECRET | False | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
proxy_ssltype | ENUM | False | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: AUTO, ALWAYS, NEVER, TUNNEL |
Use the Email connection in an integration
After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.
- To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
- To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.
Get help from the Google Cloud community
You can post your questions and discuss this connector in the Google Cloud community at Cloud Forums.What's next
- Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
- Understand how to monitor connector usage.
- Understand how to view connector logs.