Setup guide

Set up Gmail auto-forwarding

Configure a Gmail filter once per project and every email from your main contractor flows into Shield automatically. Five minutes of setup. Lasts forever.

Before you start

You'll need:

Your Shield project forwarding address — find it on the project page (looks like riverside-tower-a8c2@shieldindex.ai).
The domain or email address of the main contractor whose mail you want to capture (for example @hexagon.com).
Admin access to your Gmail account (personal Gmail or Google Workspace).

Step 1 — Add the forwarding address

In Gmail, click the gear icon and open See all settings. Go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

Click Add a forwarding address, paste your Shield project address, and click Next.

Gmail emails a verification code to that address. Shield receives it, captures it as a system email, and you'll see it in your project inbox in Shield within a minute. Copy the code and paste it back into Gmail.

Step 2 — Create the filter

In Gmail settings, go to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab. Click Create a new filter.

In the From field, enter the contractor domain you want to capture:

@hexagon.com

Click Create filter at the bottom right.

Step 3 — Choose the action

On the next screen, tick Forward it to: and select your Shield project address from the dropdown.

Also tick Never send it to Spam — this stops a misfire from Gmail's spam filter silently breaking your evidence trail.

Leave Mark as read unticked unless you want to. Shield receives a copy either way; this controls what you see in Gmail.

Click Create filter.

Step 4 — Send a test email

Ask someone on the contractor side to send a quick "test, please ignore" email to your normal inbox. Or have a colleague at @hexagon.com ping you.

Within 60 seconds you should see it appear in the project email list inside Shield, classified and severity-tagged.

Step 5 — Confirm classification

Open the email in Shield. You'll see the AI classification: severity pill, trigger tags and sentence-level highlights. If the test email said nothing risky, you'll see a green "low" pill — that's correct.

Now repeat steps 2–3 for any other contractor domains that send mail on this project. One filter per domain is fine.

Filtering tips

You can be more specific than just the sender domain. Gmail lets you combine criteria:

from:(@hexagon.com) subject:(Riverside OR "Project R-2025")
from:(@hexagon.com) -subject:(invoice OR finance)
from:(quantity-surveyor@hexagon.com) has:attachment

For a multi-project subcontractor, the safest pattern is one filter per project per contractor domain, each routing to that project's Shield address. Don't combine multiple projects into one filter — the evidence trail needs to be project-clean.

Troubleshooting

Verification code never arrives. Check the project inbox in Shield (not your normal Gmail). Codes can take up to two minutes. If it still doesn't show, ping support@shieldindex.app with your project name and we'll resend.

Emails forward but don't classify. Make sure your Shield subscription is active — classifications pause if a trial expires without conversion.

Forwarding breaks DKIM signatures. True for any email forwarding. Phase 2 of the roadmap (Microsoft Outlook OAuth, currently in progress) preserves the original DKIM chain for buyers who need it — expect a Gmail equivalent later when revenue justifies Google's CASA Tier 2 audit cost.

Stuck? We'll set the filter up with you on a call.

Email support