How to avoid Microsoft Graph API throttling for Exchange Online mailboxes

You may notice throttling errors in Front when connecting directly to an Exchange Online User or Shared Mailbox, as we send requests through the Microsoft Graph API to ingest incoming emails. If your message volume becomes too high, we will start hitting the API rate limit in place by Microsoft. 

As a workaround, you can connect the inbox as a Front distribution list channel and configure a mail flow rule in your Exchange admin center. By redirecting messages to Front with mail flow rules, messages will be sent using SMTP, as opposed to the Graph API. With this setup you’ll avoid throttling issues and keep your inbox running smoothly in Front.

Step 1

For existing Exchange Online User or Shared Mailboxes connected to Front, follow these steps to delete your old channels from your inboxes.

❗Important reminders:

• Save your drafts: Save any drafts in an external document prior to removing the channel. When a channel is deleted, all drafts associated with the channel will be deleted and cannot be recovered.

• Do not delete your inbox: Make sure you do not delete the inbox if you want to retain its message history in Front. By only deleting the channel you'll retain the inbox's conversation history, including comments, tags, assignments, etc. If you delete the inbox itself, then message history will be deleted and cannot be recovered.

Step 2

For User or Shared Mailboxes that haven’t been connected to Front yet, ensure that the email address is created in your Exchange admin center. We will be connecting this email address as a distribution list in Front to take advantage of SMTP and avoid sending requests through the Graph API.

Step 3

Follow the steps in this article to create a distribution list channel. Copy the forwarding address generated by Front.

Important to know:

• In your Exchange admin center: Ensure that the user who authenticates the channel has Send as permissions on the User or Shared Mailbox (Part 1, Step 5).

• In Front:

  • In the Email address field, enter the email address for your User or Shared Mailbox.

  • In the Inbox field, select the inbox you’d like these messages to flow into. 

  • To ensure replies to existing conversations continue to thread together, connect the distribution list channel to the same inbox as your original channel.

Step 4

In Outlook or the Exchange admin center, create a mail flow rule for your User or Shared Mailbox that automatically redirects all incoming customer emails to the forwarding address provided in the previous step within Front.

All messages still come from the email address associated with your Exchange Online User or Shared Mailbox - they won’t see any changes or new addresses.