Set Up CAD Email Integration

Command Established can automatically create incidents from your CAD (Computer-Aided Dispatch) system's email notifications. When your dispatch center sends a CAD email, the system parses the message and creates a fully populated incident record — no manual data entry required.

How It Works

Your CAD system sends dispatch emails to a unique email address assigned to your department. Command Established receives the email, uses AI to extract structured data (incident number, address, type, responding units, narrative, etc.), and creates or updates the corresponding incident. If a second email arrives for the same incident number, the existing incident is updated rather than duplicated.

Each department gets its own email address generated from a secret key, so only your CAD system can create incidents in your department.

Requirements

You must be a department admin to configure CAD email integration.
The Incidents module must be enabled for your department. CAD emails are received regardless, but incidents will not be created unless the module is active. You can check this under Settings > Modules.
Your CAD system must be able to send dispatch notifications via email. Most modern CAD systems support this — check with your dispatch center or CAD vendor.

Step 1: Generate an Email Secret

Go to Settings in your department.
Select the CAD tab.
Under CAD Email Addresses, click Generate New Secret.
A new email address will appear in the format: cad-inbound+xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@email.commandestablished.com
Click the copy icon next to the address to copy it to your clipboard.

Important: Keep this email address confidential. Anyone who knows it can create incidents in your department.

You can have up to 2 active email addresses at a time. This allows you to rotate secrets without downtime — generate a new one, update your CAD system, then delete the old one.

Step 2: Configure Your CAD System

Provide the generated email address to your dispatch center or CAD administrator. They will need to add it as a notification recipient in your CAD system.

The exact steps depend on your CAD vendor, but the general process is:

Contact your dispatch center and let them know you want CAD dispatch emails forwarded to a specific email address.
Provide the email address you copied in Step 1.
Request that all dispatch notifications (toneouts, incident updates, and incident closures) be sent to this address.

Some CAD systems allow you to configure email recipients directly. Others require a dispatch administrator to set it up. If you're unsure, reach out to your CAD vendor for instructions on adding an email notification recipient.

Step 3: Select Your CAD System Type (Optional)

Some CAD systems require additional configuration details to improve parsing accuracy. Select your system type and fill in any fields that appear.

On the CAD settings tab, find CAD System Type.
Select your system from the dropdown. If your system isn't listed, leave it set to Generic — the AI parser handles a wide variety of CAD email formats automatically.
If additional fields appear after selecting a system type (such as an agency code), fill them in and click Save. These details help the parser correctly identify your department's incidents and units in multi-agency emails.

Step 4: Verify the Integration

After your CAD system is configured to send emails:

Wait for a real dispatch. When your department is toned out, a CAD email will be sent to your Command Established address.
Go to the CAD settings tab and check Recent CAD Emails at the bottom of the page. You should see the email listed within a few minutes of dispatch.
Click on the email row to view the raw email body and confirm it was received correctly.
Navigate to your Incidents page to verify that a new incident was created with the correct details (address, type, responding units, etc.).

If the incident data doesn't look right, you can click the reparse button next to the email in the Recent CAD Emails table to reprocess it.

Rotating Secrets

If you need to change your email address — for example, if it was accidentally shared — you can rotate your secret without missing any dispatches:

Click Generate New Secret to create a second email address.
Update your CAD system to send to the new address.
After confirming the new address is working, click the trash icon next to the old address to delete it.

Reparsing Emails

The Recent CAD Emails section shows all emails received in the last 7 days. If an incident wasn't created correctly or was missing data, you can reparse individual emails or all emails at once:

Single email: Click the refresh icon on the email's row.
All emails: Click the Reparse All button at the top of the table.

Reparsing re-runs the AI parser on the original email and updates the linked incident with any newly extracted data.

Troubleshooting

No emails are showing up in Recent CAD Emails

Confirm with your dispatch center that the email address is correctly configured and that a dispatch has been sent since setup.
Double-check that you copied the full email address, including the cad-inbound+ prefix and the @email.commandestablished.com domain.
Emails typically appear within 1-2 minutes of being sent. If nothing appears after several dispatches, contact support.

Emails are received but no incident is created

Click the email row in Recent CAD Emails to view the body. If the email content doesn't contain dispatch information (e.g., it's a test email or system notification), the parser may intentionally skip it.
Try clicking the reparse button to reprocess the email.
If your CAD system uses an unusual format, contact support so we can improve parsing for your system.

Incident data is missing or incorrect

The AI parser extracts what it can from the email content. Some CAD systems include more detail than others.
Try reparsing the email — parsing accuracy improves over time as the system learns new formats.
Check that the correct CAD System Type is selected in your settings.
If you consistently see incorrect data, contact support with an example email so we can tune parsing for your CAD format.

I accidentally shared the email address

Generate a new secret immediately by clicking Generate New Secret.
Update your CAD system to use the new address.
Delete the compromised address by clicking its trash icon.

Can I use this with multiple CAD systems?

You can generate up to 2 email addresses, and each one receives emails independently. If your department receives dispatches from two different CAD systems, you can give each system its own address.

Need Help Getting Set Up?

If you run into any issues or would like a hand configuring your CAD integration, reach out to our support team — we're happy to walk you through it.

If your department shares a dispatch center across multiple agencies and receives CAD updates for all of them, you may need customized email handling to filter incidents correctly. Contact us to discuss custom CAD email integration for your setup.