DingTalk Email: A Timeless Way of Working

DingTalk, the team collaboration and enterprise digitalization platform under Alibaba, offers a wide range of powerful tools, including attendance management, approvals, documents, calendars, video conferencing, and an AI assistant. Among these features, DingTalk Mail stands out as a key product designed to help organizations and individuals work more agilely and creatively.

You may wonder: "We already have DingTalk for chatting—why do we still need email?"

The answer is simple: Different industries have different ways of working. Even in today's world of widespread instant messaging, formal business communication remains essential.

Now, let's dive into the world of DingTalk Mail!

✦ Advantages of "Email" vs. "Chat Messages"

Advantage 1: Easier archiving and retrieval of content

In business operations, companies often send various documents and contracts to partners and clients. If these are sent via chat, they must be downloaded locally for archiving—and it can be difficult to quickly locate them later.

When emails are used, they can be easily archived within DingTalk Mail. You can create custom folders based on email content for organized categorization, and these emails remain searchable even years later. Moreover, emails carry legal validity.

Advantage 2: Emails are more formal and professional

Messages in chat can easily get buried amid other conversations, making it harder to ensure that important information from superiors is properly conveyed. Additionally, chat text editors lack the advanced formatting options found in traditional email editors, limiting the ability to convey information in a serious and precise manner.

In most cases, companies choose email for communicating important internal announcements or finalizing business agreements. The formal structure and polished format of an email convey organizational messages and business intentions with greater seriousness than chat texts. This not only enhances the perceived authority of the sender but also provides legal assurance. Furthermore, emails are easier to view and search in a list, reducing the risk of missing or overlooking important messages.

Advantage 3: Cross-border communication is more convenient and seamless

Chat tools are limited by their platforms, allowing seamless communication only between users on the same platform. However, when communicating across borders, parties may not use the same communication tool.

Email communication is the only truly barrier-free option worldwide, aside from phone calls. As long as the recipient has an email address, you can send and receive emails in real time, regardless of the platform being used. There are no restrictions.

Moreover, an email address carries clear corporate branding and information, which builds trust with overseas recipients. This makes email the ideal tool for official business collaborations and exchanges.

✦ Why Choose "DingTalk Mail"?

Chat tools are limited by their platforms, allowing seamless communication only between users on the same platform. However, when communicating across borders, parties may not use the same communication tool.

Email communication is the only truly barrier-free option worldwide, aside from phone calls. As long as the recipient has an email address, you can send and receive emails in real time, with no restrictions.

At the same time, an email address carries distinct corporate characteristics and information, which helps build trust with overseas recipients. This makes email the most suitable tool for official business collaborations and exchanges. DingTalk combines IM communication, collaborative office features, and email functionality to deliver a new level of innovation.

1. Seamlessly integrated with DingTalk—secure and convenient

In the past, businesses typically accessed their corporate email through web portals, native mobile email apps, or third-party clients. Each method had its own advantages and drawbacks:

1. Multiple accounts, hard to remember: When using web portals or third-party clients, users often forget their login passwords.

2. Delayed notifications, low efficiency: Users may not receive real-time alerts for new emails, requiring them to switch between different clients to check their inbox—a time-consuming process.

3. Data security concerns: Third-party clients store data locally, increasing the risk of corporate data leaks.

DingTalk Mail is a native feature of the DingTalk app, offering both security and power.

1. Convenient login: You can log in to DingTalk using your mobile number and access your email without needing to remember a password. Under DingTalk's secure infrastructure, you can choose from multiple authentication methods, including SMS verification codes, login passwords, scanning old devices, or biometric authentication.

2. Timely notifications: DingTalk boasts robust notification capabilities. New emails can trigger alerts via message assistants, red dot notifications, or global push notifications (you can also disable notifications if desired).

3. Data security: DingTalk manages all information and data at the enterprise level, eliminating concerns about data leaks and ensuring stronger security.

2. Outstanding AI-powered writing capabilities

Sometimes, drafting or responding to an email can be a real headache. DingTalk Mail has fully integrated an AI assistant to solve this problem.

When you open DingTalk to write a new email or reply to an existing one, simply type a forward slash "/" to quickly summon the AI assistant. Enter keywords and your requirements, and the AI will draft an email for you. You can then fine-tune the email based on your specific business needs. Alternatively, if you've already written an email, the AI can help polish it for you.

The AI assistant supports multiple languages, making it especially useful for the foreign trade industry. With AI, you can create emails in foreign languages that are humorous, witty, or formal and professional—along with many other AI-driven capabilities waiting to be explored.

3. Deeply integrated with DingTalk's collaborative office products

The essence of collaboration lies in enabling smooth information flow between people and tasks—and this is an area where DingTalk Mail excels.

1. Email + Contacts:

In traditional email systems, administrators must log into a separate domain management console to edit department structures, contacts, and email groups. Adding or removing employees requires manual updates to the contact list and corresponding email addresses, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. When users access email through third-party clients, they rely on the CardDAV protocol to synchronize their contact lists locally, increasing the risk of data leaks. DingTalk Mail builds on these traditional approaches by linking with DingTalk's contact system. Its unique departmental and group email features allow dynamic member updates, making it easier to search for and find contacts. When an employee joins the company, a work email can be automatically generated based on their name's pinyin (e.g., zhangsan@mail.com). When an employee leaves, their email data can be handed over with a single click.

2. Email + Calendar:

Another key function of email is managing schedules. You can use DingTalk Calendar or video conferencing to create events or online meetings, then add email contacts as participants. Schedule invitations will be sent via DingTalk Mail. Similarly, external clients can send schedule invitations directly to your DingTalk Mail, and these events will automatically sync to your DingTalk Calendar, ensuring you never miss an important appointment.

3. Email + Documents:

An important email often requires multiple rounds of editing, revision, and formatting. DingTalk Docs is the perfect companion for this task. DingTalk Docs supports Markdown formatting and allows multiple users to edit documents simultaneously. Once editing is complete, you can send the document to email contacts with a single click, and it can also sync to chat. In addition to online documents, DingTalk Mail supports sending Dingpan documents as online attachments, meeting the needs of sharing large files.

4. Precise spam detection

Using a corporate email reflects a company's strong business standing—and this makes such accounts highly attractive to spammers and scammers, who attempt to exploit them through marketing ads, phishing emails, and other illicit activities.

DingTalk Mail's anti-spam capabilities leverage big data to track the domains and servers behind spam emails, while analyzing the content characteristics of spam messages to accurately block unwanted emails.

Administrators can also customize features such as email blacklists, hyperlink whitelists, and spam quarantine zones to minimize the impact of misclassified emails on business operations.

5. Data security

Security is the foundation of any business, and DingTalk Mail builds a robust business firewall across three key areas: access security, data security, and compliance security.

1. Flexible and controlled permissions:

Administrators can follow the "principle of least privilege," granting third-party software access only to necessary personnel and setting specific email collection scopes for third-party apps to prevent data leaks.

2. Emergency recall capability:

In an emergency, administrators can recall emails sent within the organization.

3. Peace of mind for administrators:

For routine email operations, administrators can use logging and auditing features to investigate suspicious activity. The email archiving feature also provides administrators with a convenient and compliant solution for storing and retrieving email records.

✦ Conclusion

DingTalk Mail continues to evolve, adding new features and expanding its use cases. To simplify the complex process of setting up a corporate email—including domain registration, filing, CNAME configuration, and MX settings—DingTalk Mail is partnering with Alibaba Cloud. When you purchase DingTalk Mail, you can receive a free email domain of your choice, helping you enhance your company's brand image. For more information, please refer to the original article for details.

DomTech is DingTalk's official service provider in Macau, dedicated to providing DingTalk services to a wide range of customers. If you'd like to learn more about how to use the DingTalk platform, feel free to contact our online customer service or reach us by phone at +852 95970612 or by email at cs@dingtalk-macau.com. Our skilled development and operations teams bring extensive market experience, ensuring that we can provide you with professional DingTalk solutions and services!