Email Integration Overview and FAQ

The Bullhorn email integration lets you view emails exchanged with Candidates, Contacts, and Leads directly from their record in Bullhorn. This article explains how email tracking works, what it covers, and how to manage it for your team.

For a summary of features available for your specific email setup, see our Email Setup Suggestion Guide.

How Email Tracking Works

Bullhorn tracks emails passively in real time. Only emails exchanged after your company sets up the email integration will appear in Bullhorn. Tracking continues automatically until the integration is deactivated.

Tracking covers both inbound and outbound external emails. External means emails between a Bullhorn user and someone outside your company, not a coworker who shares your email domain. Tracking is all-or-nothing: all emails sent to or received from a user's primary email or reply address will track to their respective records in Bullhorn.

Bear in mind that gaps in your Bullhorn email history can occur if:

  • Your email service experiences an interruption

  • You switch email service providers without setting up email tracking before the changeover

Which Emails Track to Which Records

For an email to appear on a record, it must be exchanged between someone at your company and an external person.

A few things to know:

  • Multiple email addresses: You can add up to three email addresses per record — any correspondence to or from those addresses will appear on that record.

  • Duplicate email addresses: Emails can only track to one record at a time. If a candidate and a contact share the same email address, the email will track to whichever record was created first.

  • Internal emails: Emails between coworkers are not normally tracked unless an external person is also included. You can see emails your coworkers exchange with people in your database, but not internal-only correspondence.

  • Mass mailings: Bullhorn does not track metrics for mass emails. If you need to report on marketing campaign effectiveness, we recommend working with a third-party Marketplace Partner.

Email Tracking and the Bullhorn for Email Gadget

These are two related but distinct things:

  • Email tracking makes emails appear on records within Bullhorn.

  • The Bullhorn for Email Gadget lets you take action on those emails (adding notes or tasks, parsing resumes and job descriptions, and creating new records) directly from within Gmail or Outlook. Email tracking must be set up first for the Gadget to work.

Some customers with older email systems may use the Activity Center instead of the Gadget. The Activity Center offers similar functionality, but doesn't support taking action on internal emails. We recommend upgrading your email host to support the Gadget where possible, as it allows you to work more naturally from within your own inbox.

Managing Multiple Email Addresses

If you're responsible for more than one inbox, we recommend forwarding all addresses into a single inbox to use with your Bullhorn account.

If you share a common email address with coworkers (for example, a shared contactus@ inbox), only one Bullhorn user can have that address associated with their account. Other users with access to the shared inbox would need to forward emails from it to their own address to make them available in Bullhorn.

Contact Bullhorn Support if you'd like to set up multiple email addresses for a single Bullhorn account.

Email Privacy and Security

Bullhorn gives you several options for managing email privacy. Contact Bullhorn Support to discuss what's available for your setup.

FAQ

Can I track my personal email account?

No, Bullhorn can only track emails for addresses your company owns. Free email providers such as gmail.com or outlook.com cannot be used with Bullhorn email tracking.

What should I do if a candidate becomes a contact in my database?

When a candidate is hired and converted to a contact, add their new work email address to the contact record to keep candidate and contact correspondence separate. If they don't have a separate work email, decide which record you'd like emails to appear on and only add the address to that record. You can also link the candidate and contact records to easily toggle between them — see Linking Candidates and Contacts for more details.

What do I do if my email doesn't seem to be tracking?

See Troubleshooting Email Tracking for help diagnosing common issues.