Email into SELMA

Email into SELMA gives your SELMA instance its own email address. Send or forward an email to it and SELMA stores the email, saves its attachments as documents, and can use AI to read it and draft the student records it describes. A person always reviews the draft before anything is saved to a student.

It is built for the everyday case of an agent or staff member who has been emailing about a student and wants that conversation, and the paperwork attached to it, in SELMA without re-keying everything.

How it works

1. Someone sends or forwards an email to your instance's address.
2. SELMA checks the email, stores it as a communication and saves its attachments as documents.
3. The email appears under Students > Ingested Emails.
4. A reviewer selects Draft with AI, or SELMA starts the draft automatically for trusted senders. The AI reads the email and its attachments and proposes the records it found.
5. The reviewer checks the draft, resolves anything flagged and confirms it. Only then are student records created or updated.

Getting started

Turning it on

Email into SELMA is switched on by SELMA. Contact SELMA support to enable it for your instance. There are two settings:

In contrast, turning email ingestion off stops new emails being accepted, stops any still waiting to be processed, and hides the feature for everyone.

Once it is enabled, SELMA gives you your ingestion address. It takes the form of: <your-instance>@into.selma.app

So, for example, if your SELMA instance domain is acme.selma.app, then your ingestion email address would be acme@into.selma.app and (for UAT) acme.uat.selma.app would be acme@into.uat.selma.app.

Permissions

Assign these through your roles. By default they are given to the Registrar role.

Sending an email into SELMA

Who can send

Only active SELMA users can send email in: staff, and portal users such as agents.

NB. Send from the same email address you log in to SELMA with. An email from any other address is discarded - it does not appear in SELMA.

Steps

In your email client:

1. Write a new email, or forward the one you want to bring in.
2. Send it to your instance's address, for example acme@into.selma.app.
3. Optionally, tag the address to say what the email is about (note the "+" tag):
   • acme+student@into.selma.app for a student's details
   • acme+application@into.selma.app for an application
4. Attach any documents, such as passport scans, visa letters or forms.
5. Send the email.

Tags are a hint to the AI, not an instruction. If the AI reads the email differently, the draft says so and the reviewer decides.

Tips for good drafts

• One student per email. The AI drafts one student from each email.
• Include the student's email address. It is how SELMA recognises an existing student, and a new student cannot be created without one.
• Name the intake precisely, ideally by its code (for example FEB27-HORT), for an application.
• Name agencies and employers as they appear in SELMA. Organisations are only matched on their exact name or email address.
• Forwarding is fine. Forwarded emails may be marked as unverified (see below), which only means they cannot be drafted automatically.

Attachments

• Every attachment is saved as a document on the email. Potentially harmful files (scripts, .zip files, etc) are refused and noted on the ingestion email.
• The AI reads these types, so they are worth sending in this format where you can:
  • Documents: pdf, csv, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, txt and md, up to 4.5MB each and 5 per email
  • Images: png, jpeg, gif and webp, up to 3.75MB each and 20 per email
  • No more than 13MB in total
  • These limitations are current as at 1 November 2026.
• Other files are still saved as documents. The AI does not take them into consideration, however.
• Emails with detected viruses are blocked outright and never reaches your SELMA instance.

Verified and unverified senders

SELMA checks whether the sender's email domain confirms the email really came from them (a check called DMARC). Each email is marked Verified sender or Unverified sender.

Unverified emails are still accepted because forwarding, and email domains without DMARC set up, often fail this check even when the email is genuine. They are shown with a clear warning, and a reviewer can still draft or reject them. If your own staff's emails always show as unverified, your IT team can set up DMARC for your email domain.

Viewing ingested emails

Go to Students > Ingested Emails. The number beside the menu item counts emails that did not come through cleanly and drafts waiting for a reviewer. The number is updated every 5 minutes, but a new email appears in the ingested email list straight away.

The grid/table shows various important information like when each email was received, who it is from, its subject, etc. Use the column manager to customise what columns are shown - such as the tag hint, delivery checks, etc. Advanced search allow fine-tuned searching, along with saving searches for quick access to your most common search parameters. Failed and quarantined emails are highlighted clearly.

Open an email to see:

• the AI review card, where drafts are made and confirmed
• who sent it, when, to which address and tag, and whether the sender was verified
• the message (cleaned)
• the attachments, with view, delete and add (more) actions
• the ingestion status and any notes
• the delivery checks: spam, virus, SPF, DKIM and DMARC

View Original shows the email as it arrived. It is cleaned before display, but links and images are still the sender's own, so treat them as you would in any email.

Email statuses

An email may also carry notes, for example when its message was too large to process in full, its recipient list was too long to store in full, or an attachment could not be retrieved or was refused. An email with no notes came through intact.

Drafting with AI

Starting a draft

1. Open the email.
2. Optionally, select Add extra details and type anything the AI should know, up to 2,000 characters. For example: "The intake is FEB27-HORT".
3. Select Draft with AI.
4. The AI status shows Processing while it runs. You can navigate away and come back later to view the resulting draft. The draft appears on the card when it is done.

Any processed email can be drafted, including one from an unverified sender. Quarantined and failed emails cannot.

Canned text

If you often type the same guidance (for example, "This agent writes dates month first"), save it as canned text. Use the Canned text picker beside the extra details box to insert a saved entry below what is already typed, save the current text under a name, or remove an entry. Canned text is shared with everyone in your account, so should be generic to fit your business processes/common practices.

Automatic drafting

When automatic AI processing is on, an email is drafted on arrival only when all of these are true:

• the AI service and automatic AI processing are both on for your account
• the sender is verified
• the spam and virus checks both passed
• the email was processed without any notes
• the sender holds the /ai/email-ingestion/auto-process permission
• the email has no draft yet

Anything else waits for a reviewer to select Draft with AI. An automatic draft still has to be reviewed and confirmed by a person.

What the AI reads

• The email's subject, sender and message, and any extra details a reviewer added.
• The attachments it can read (see Attachments).
• Your account's active lookup values, such as titles, genders and visa types, so it picks real options rather than free text.
• For applications, your open intakes and active application templates.

Staff and organisations are never listed to the AI. What the email says is matched against your records afterwards, so an unclear name matches nothing rather than the wrong record.

Daily allowance

Each SELMA instance has a daily allowance of AI requests (50 by default) - shared between all SELMA's AI features and resets each day. Once depleted, Draft with AI is refused until the next day. Contact SELMA support to change your allowance.

Reviewing a draft

The AI review card shows:

• a banner saying whether confirming will be Creating New Student or Updating Existing Student, with a link to the student(s)
• the classification (Student, Application, Enrolment or Other) and the AI's Confidence - its own estimate of how right it is, which informs your review but never blocks it
• a summary of the email
• Planned Actions: one step for each record the draft would create or update, with its status, the details the AI extracted, and any Missing Details
• Conflicts Detected, where the email disagrees with what is already in SELMA
• Possible existing students that look like the same person
• notes about what confirming will actually do, such as organisations it will create and the agency it will set
• the AI run history: when each run happened, who started it and how it went

New or existing student

• If the student's primary email matches one existing student, the draft updates that student. Empty fields are filled in. Where both sides hold different values, choose Keep Current or Use Extracted for each one. Keep Current is selected by default.
• If several students share the email address, the draft needs attention until the students are merged.
• If the email address belongs to a SELMA user, a student cannot be created from the draft. Use the standard new student form instead.
• A match on a secondary email address, on name and date of birth, or (in New Zealand) on National Student Number is shown as a possible existing student. SELMA never picks one of these for you.

Draft statuses

Step statuses

A completed step shows what happened: Created, Updated, Linked or Already on record.

Fixing a draft

• Needs Attention: open Add extra details, type the missing details (for example, the student's date of birth or the intake code) and select Re-run AI.
• Manual Processing: if the AI has misread the email, add details and select Re-run AI. Otherwise, process the email by hand.
• AI Failed: read the reason on the card, then select Re-run AI.
• Attachments added since the last run: the card says how many. Select Re-run AI to include them.

Confirming

1. Choose Keep Current or Use Extracted for every conflict.
2. Read the notes above the confirm button, for example the organisations confirming will create, the agency it will set (which decides commission), or that an application's fees will be raised as invoice lines.
3. Select the confirm button. It names the student, for example Create Jane Doe, Update Jane Doe or Create Jane Doe and their application.

The student is saved first. If that fails, nothing else runs and the draft goes back to Ready to Review. The other steps then run one by one, and one failing does not stop the rest. The email and its documents are linked to the student, and to the application when one is created.

After confirming

• Confirmed: every step is settled and the draft is final.
• Partially Confirmed: for each unfinished step, select Retry step or Reject step. You can also add details, select Re-run AI and then Run Remaining Steps. Steps that already completed are never run twice.

Rejecting a draft

Select Reject and optionally give a reason. A whole draft can only be rejected before any of its steps has completed. After that, reject the remaining steps one by one. The student step cannot be rejected on its own, because the other steps depend on it.

Adding and deleting attachments

Reviewers can add documents that arrived separately, or a scan taken later, so the next AI run reads them:

1. Open the ingested email.
2. Select Add Attachments.
3. Drop in the files and select Upload.
4. Select Re-run AI to include them in the draft.

Only files the AI can read are accepted, with the limits in Attachments. The button is unavailable once the draft has been confirmed (add documents on the student instead), while a run or confirm is in progress, and when the email already holds as many documents and images as the AI reads.

To delete an attachment (for example, an e-signature that travelled along the email chain), select Delete attachment and confirm. Once a confirmed draft has added the document to a student, it is managed from the student instead.

What SELMA can create or update

NZ or Australian compliance details are only drafted for the region your instance is set up for.

Fields the AI can fill (as at 1 November 2026)

Fields with a list of options (such as Gender or Visa Type) only accept one of your account's active options. A value the AI cannot match is left empty and shows as a missing detail.

Passports, visas and insurance

• A new number is added to the student.
• A record identical to one the student already holds is skipped as Already on record.
• Empty fields on a matching record are filled in.
• If the email disagrees with a value already on a matching record, the step fails with a note. Update the record on the student screen, or reject the step.

Contacts and organisations

The people and organisations acting for the student, such as a parent, an emergency contact, an agency or an employer, become steps of their own. Each one is linked to the student, using an existing record where there is one.

• Contacts are matched across your account by email address. An email address that matches nobody creates a new contact. Only a contact with no email address at all is matched by name, and then only among the student's own contacts. If several contacts share the email address, the step needs attention until the duplicates are resolved.
• Organisations are matched by exact name or exact email address, ignoring only spaces at the start and end. Anything else creates a new organisation, and the confirm note lists every organisation it will create before you confirm.
• An agency links as the student's agency and an employer as their employer, whatever relationship the email describes, because commission and the employer screens rely on those links.
• Existing records are protected. A matched contact's email address and contact type, and a matched organisation's name and type, are never changed, because other students may share them. Where the email gives a different value, the step notes it. Any other difference on a matched record needs your Keep Current or Use Extracted choice.
• Nothing you set up is demoted. A link is only made primary when the student has no current primary of that kind. Contacts and organisations are never set to be copied on the student's communications - these require intentional setups.
• A link the student already holds is skipped. A link that has ended does not count, so the contact or organisation is linked again.
• The student themselves, and your own staff, are never added as contacts.

Account Manager

The student's Account Manager is set from the first of these that applies:

1. the staff member the email names
2. the sender, when they are a verified staff member of your account
3. whoever confirms the draft

The card shows which will be used before you confirm. On an update to an existing student, only an Account Manager the email names is applied, so a choice someone already made is never overwritten. An application's Account Manager follows the same rules.

Applications

An email classified as an application gets one extra step, run after the student and their other records.

• Intake: matched against your open intakes by exact code, then exact name, then name together with the programme. A start date settles a tie. If the intake is unclear, the step needs attention: add the intake code as extra details and select Re-run AI.
• Application template: matched by name, otherwise your default template is used.
• Start and end dates: from the email, otherwise from the intake.
• Agency and employer: the ones the email names, otherwise the student's primary agency and current employer. They are never taken from who sent the email.
• Components and fees: the intake's required components are added, and the intake's fees are raised as invoice lines, exactly as when you create an application on screen. Add elective components afterwards, if needed.
• Duplicates: if the student already has an application for that intake, the step is skipped and the email is filed against the existing application. Existing applications are never changed.

Troubleshooting

An email does not appear

Work through these in order:

1. Was it sent from the user's SELMA login email address? This is the most common cause. Emails from any other address, including a personal address, are discarded.
2. Was it sent to the right address? Check it against the ingestion address SELMA gave you.
3. Did it fail the spam or virus check, or did the sender's domain reject it under DMARC? Those emails never reach SELMA.
4. Did it arrive moments ago? It may still be processing.
5. Is email ingestion switched on for your account? We can help check this for you.

Attachments are missing

Check the email's status and notes. Either the virus check did not pass (the email is Quarantined), a file type was refused, or an attachment could not be retrieved.

Draft with AI is unavailable

• The email has not been processed successfully: only Processed emails can be drafted.
• The AI service is switched off for your account.
• You do not hold /communication/ingestion/process.
• Your account has used its daily AI allowance. Try again tomorrow.

A step failed or needs attention

Read the note on the step:

• Several contacts (or organisations) already use this email address (or name): merge or tidy up the duplicates in SELMA, then retry the step.
• Required details are missing: add them as extra details and select Re-run AI.
• A passport, visa or insurance value differs: update the record on the student, or reject the step.

An upload was refused

The upload window says why: the AI cannot read that file type, the file is larger than the AI reads, or the email has no room left for that kind of file or in total.

Current limitations

• Although this one is intentional, still worth highlighting - only active SELMA users can send emails in, from their login email address.
• Applications can be created but not updated
• Only one record (student or application) per email.

Privacy and security

• Nothing is saved to a student without a person's confirmation. Automatic drafting stops at the draft.
• Email content is treated as untrusted. It is cleaned before display so nothing in it can run in your browser, and the AI's output is checked as well.
• The AI runs in Australia. Emails are processed by AI models hosted in Australia. The AI service does not keep the content after processing it - 'Zero Data Retention' is in place.
• Access is permission based. Only users with the view permission can see ingested emails, and only those with the process permission can process the ingested emails.