Microsoft Outlook AI email assistant with contact support from Monday and Airtable

Microsoft Outlook AI Email Assistant

Prerequisites

1. Microsoft 365 Login Credentials

• Provide your Office 365 credentials to connect Outlook.

2. Monday.com

• Generate an API token and have a board with your contact details.

3. Airtable

• Obtain an API key (or personal access token) and set up a base to store:
  • Contacts (populated by the Monday.com sync).
  • Rules & Categories (used by the AI Email Assistant).
• Use this Airtable base as the template: Airtable AI Email Assistant Template. Define your own rules, categories, and delete rules.

4. OpenAI API Key

• Sign up for OpenAI if you don’t already have an account.
• Generate a new API key at OpenAI API Keys.

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What the System Does

1. Daily Contact Sync (Monday.com → Airtable)

• Runs once a day to pull the latest contacts from Monday.com and store or update them in Airtable.

2. AI Email Categorisation & Prioritisation

• Fetches Outlook emails with filters.
• Cleans and processes email content.
• Matches emails with known contacts from Airtable.
• Uses an AI agent to classify, categorise, and prioritise emails.
• Updates Outlook categories and importance based on AI results.
• Runs in parallel with Airtable rules & categories retrieval for real-time decision-making.

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Workflow 1: Daily Contact Sync (Monday.com → Airtable)

Purpose

Keep Airtable’s Contacts table up to date by pulling new or updated contact data from Monday.com daily.

Steps

1. Schedule Trigger

   • Runs at a set interval (daily) to initiate contact syncing.

2. Monday.com: Get Contacts

   • Reads the specified board/columns from Monday.com where you store contact details.

3. Airtable - Contacts

   • Upserts (adds or updates) the fetched Monday.com data into Airtable’s Contacts table.
   • Ensures daily updates reflect changes from Monday.com.

Result

A consolidated contact list in Airtable, ready for AI email categorisation.

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Workflow 2: Categorise & Prioritise Outlook Emails

Purpose

Fetches Outlook emails, cleans and processes their content, matches senders with known contacts, and uses AI to categorise and prioritise them.

Steps

1. Get Outlook Emails with Filters

• Trigger: Either scheduled (Check Mail Schedule Trigger) or manual (Test Workflow).
• Outlook Filters:
  • Not flagged (flag/flagStatus == 'notFlagged').
  • Not categorised (not categories/any()).

🔹 Result: A batch of fresh, unprocessed emails ready for processing.

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2. Sanitise Email

• Convert to Markdown: Strips HTML tags and normalises formatting.
• Email Messages Processing: Allows manual removal of signatures, disclaimers, or extra content.

🔹 Result: A clean, AI-friendly email for categorisation.

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3. Match Contact

• Loop Over Emails: Iterates over each email.
• Contact Lookup: Checks Airtable’s Contacts table (updated daily).
• Merge Data: Enriches emails with known client, supplier, or internal team info.

🔹 Result: Enhanced email context for AI processing.

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4. AI Agent to Categorise & Prioritise

• Retrieve Rules & Categories
  • Reads Rules, Categories, and Delete Rules from Airtable in parallel.
• AI: Analyse Email (Tools Agent)
  • Uses email text, sender info, and rules to build a structured AI prompt.
• OpenAI Chat Model
  • Processes the AI prompt and outputs:
    • Category
    • Subcategory (optional)
    • Priority level
    • Short rationale
• Structured Output Parser
  • Ensures AI response is valid JSON format.

🔹 Result:
Each email is labelled, categorised, and prioritised with AI-driven logic.

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5. Set Outlook Category & Importance

• Set Category: Updates Outlook with the assigned category.
• Check Priority Conditions (If Node):
  • If Action Required or from a VIP, mark as High Priority.
• Set Importance: Updates the email's importance flag in Outlook.

🔹 Result:
Outlook is updated with categories & importance based on AI recommendations.

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Parallel Processing: Retrieve Rules & Categories

• Runs alongside the email categorisation workflow.
• Ensures Airtable-based rules are available before AI processing.

Steps

1. Airtable: Get Rules & Categories
   • Fetches Rules, Categories, and Delete Rules from Airtable.
2. Delete Rules (Optional)
   • If a delete rule matches, the email is removed.

🔹 Result:
A dynamic, updatable rule system ensuring emails are handled properly.

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Final Outcome

• Daily Contact Sync keeps contacts up to date.
• AI-driven email workflow ensures smart categorisation.
• Outlook automatically updated with AI-generated categories and importance.

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This automated system saves time, ensures efficient inbox management, and allows for customisable rules via Airtable.