Configure Email success and failure responses
Use Email Response on an Email Handler Payload to control the plain-text reply sent after processing an incoming email. The settings apply to every Email Service on that Payload.
Success replies are optional. Failure replies use a safe default when the configured value is blank or unavailable; detailed errors remain on the Job.
Configure the reply
Open the Email Handler Payload and select Email Response at the end of the Actions sequence.
Select Edit in the Email Response section.
Enable Send a success reply if successful processing should send a reply.
Set the success body using a static value or another supported Value Source.
Set the failure body. Use text that remains useful if an early Action fails.
Save the settings.
For a mapped reply, choose Payload Data and select the Action and String value to use. A value produced by a Target that never ran cannot be included after an earlier failure. The default failure message covers blank or unavailable failure mappings.
Replies are plain text. Do not depend on HTML formatting in the body.
Choose a Value Source for each body; keep failure text useful when processing stops early.
Understand multiple-service behaviour
An email can match more than one configured service. A success reply is sent only when all matching services enable success replies and resolve to the same body.
If failed Payloads resolve to different failure bodies, Payloads uses the default failure message. Keep related services' reply policies consistent if they can match the same email.
For success replies, Payloads uses the incoming email's Reply-To address when available, otherwise its sender address. Failure handling returns the configured message to Salesforce's inbound-email service; verify the actual failure notification and destination through the configured service.
Verify processing and delivery
Send a test email from a controlled mailbox through the actual Email Service. Check the resulting Job, Email Action data, Target results and Email Response details, then confirm delivery in the receiving mailbox.
A recorded response body alone does not prove delivery. Check any send error as well as the processing result. Replaying saved Job data is not a substitute for testing the real inbound email and reply path.
Select Email Response on the Job to inspect these outputs:
Output | Meaning |
| Whether processing succeeded across the matching Email Services. |
| Whether a non-blank response body was resolved. |
| The resolved success or failure text. |
| Whether Payloads attempted to send a separate success email. Failure handling returns its result to Salesforce instead. |
| Whether that send attempt completed without a reported error. |
The Job records successful processing and an accepted send attempt. Confirm receipt in the destination mailbox separately.
For a controlled failure test, use a disposable record and deliberately invalid input. In this example, an email body longer than the Account Name limit caused the Target and Job to fail. No Account was created, and Email Response recorded the configured failure text with success: false, sendAttempted: false and sendAccepted: null.
Email Response can show Completed while the Job is Failed: the response was recorded without a separate send error. Check the Job status and the success output to assess processing.
Confirm failure notification delivery separately through your actual mail route. A mailing list or forwarding alias can change that route. A recorded failure response does not establish that a notification reached the sender.
Keep failure text appropriate for the sender. Use the Job for internal diagnostics rather than mapping technical exception detail into an external reply.