Get Next Email overview

Managing large volumes of incoming customer emails is a persistent operational challenge for service organizations. Without intelligent prioritization, users who process incoming emails spend time scanning queues, selecting tasks manually, and making judgment calls about which request to handle next. These practices slow resolution times and create inconsistent customer experiences.

Get Next Email addresses this challenge by applying standard Get Next Work functionality to email interactions. Instead of manually selecting an email from a queue, the user selects Get Next Email, and the system automatically presents the highest-priority email interaction. This pull-based approach removes the guesswork from task selection, prevents users from choosing simpler tasks first, and helps organizations maintain consistent, priority-driven service delivery.

The feature applies a three-level prioritization algorithm to rank email interactions in the Work Queue:

1. Urgency: The primary factor, which reflects the assigned urgency score of the email triage case, sorted from highest to lowest.
2. Deadline: The deadline timestamp of the case, used when urgency scores are equal, sorted from earliest to latest.
3. Update Timestamp: The date and time of the most recent update, used when both urgency and deadline are equal, sorted from oldest to newest.

This logic helps time-sensitive customer requests surface immediately, regardless of when they arrived.

When an email arrives through a configured listener, for example, MSGraph for Outlook or a Gmail Application Programming Interface (API), the system creates an Email Triage Case in the Work Queue designated for incoming emails. The case is assigned an urgency score based on defined business rules, and a deadline is calculated from the Service-Level Agreement (SLA) rule associated with the Case Type.

When a user selects Get Next Email in the application portal, the system evaluates all eligible cases in the Work Queue, applies the three-level prioritization algorithm, and opens the highest-priority email interaction directly in the appropriate portal. In Pega Customer Service, customer service representatives (CSRs) use the Interaction Portal. In Pega Platform, email case workers use the Email Manager Portal. The user does not browse or select manually; the system surfaces the next appropriate task based on the configured routing logic. When multiple Work Queues are configured on the operator record, the system evaluates them in the order they are listed.

By default, the system checks the operator's personal Worklist first and moves to the incoming email Work Queue only when the Worklist is empty. You can change this behavior in the operator record by enabling Get From Work Queues First, which causes the system to check the Work Queue before the Worklist.

The routing logic, operator settings, and Work Queue configuration use the same work assignment rules in both Pega Customer Service and Pega Platform applications. Organizations that already use Get Next Work for other Case Types can apply familiar configuration patterns to email interactions in both applications.

The way users access the Get Next Email feature depends on the portal architecture:

• Constellation UI: After completing all immediate assignments in a case, the Get Next Work button appears on a banner within the Case View. In Pega Customer Service, users access it in the Interaction Portal. In Pega Platform, users access it in the Email Manager Portal.
• Traditional UI: Users access the Get Next Work button on a landing page, for example, Home or My Work.
• Hybrid applications: The Get Next Work button can be configured in both the Case View and on landing pages.

In all architectures, the feature consistently retrieves and opens the highest-priority email interaction from the Work Queue.