Incoming email from the groupware

If emails are synchronized with the CRM from your groupware, their type, incoming or outgoing email, is recognized by whether they are in the inbox or in another folder of the groupware. If an email is in the inbox, it is classified as an “Incoming” email. If you have selected several emails in the email client, your input applies to all selected emails. The received status is noted for incoming emails, and the sent status for outgoing emails. Regardless of this status, you can write a note (comment) for each email.

Attention

Attention: If you want to check in an email from the groupware a second time without read access to a process (without knowing that synchronization has already taken place), you will receive the message: "An error occurred during synchronization! No read access granted to the record “*****” in “Email correspondence”!" This is not an error, but a correct message.

Note: When checking in emails, the variable PSA_IMP_EMA_OUT_INT_CON = y (default) specifies that an email whose sender is an internal person is always classified as an outgoing email. This rule only applies automatically if at least one recipient is an external person. This ensures that an email that is forwarded in the Groupware by an internal recipient to another internal staff member (e.g. for checking it in) will not be wrongly classified as outgoing but as incoming.

Marking emails in the Groupware as already checked in to the CRM 

In the Groupware (Outlook), the "JustRelate CRM" category (color) is set automatically for emails that are checked-in to the CRM to be able to identify these emails.

The category is created if it doesn’t exist. Using the variable PSA_SYN_EMA_SET_CAT, you can switch this feature off.

Email detection when checking in

When an email is checked in, the CRM checks whether the email is already present in the system. Identical emails are checked with the help of the message ID and the thread index:

  • New field PSA_CPD.THR_IDX,
  • The thread index from Outlook is transferred to the CRM,
  • If THR_IDX is set and not equal to the thread index, then this must be a different email.

You can deactivate this server feature  by means of the variable PSA_SFR_CPD_THR_IDX_CHK.

Synchronizing Groupware emails with the CRM

Received emails are assigned to the addressee (usually the user themselves) when they are checked in and synchronized from the groupware. If the sender already exists as a contact in the CRM, the e-mail is assigned to them as a correspondence activity. Recipients of this e-mail are included in the recipient list of the correspondence if they are already recorded in the CRM database. If this is not the case, the unknown recipients must be captured in the CRM.

After the import, the system searches for open cases to which at least one of the external contacts or their company is assigned. If such cases are found, a selection dialog appears in which these data records are displayed. However, you can also search for and assign other data records.

Info

Admin: This feature can be deactivated for open cases with the environment variable PSA_IMP_EMA_CHC_PRO (value not equal to y).

Checking in under different Outlook versions

The text of an email of type RTF sent or received in Outlook is converted to TXT format when synchronized to the CRM under Outlook 2000. Under Outlook 2003, every e-mail synchronized to the CRM becomes an HTM email. This behavior is independent of the Outlook setting "Edit e-mail with Microsoft Word".

The types HTM and TXT are properly synchronized in Outlook 2000, as is the type HTM in Outlook 2003.

  • The Outlook interface cannot read RTF which must therefore be converted.
  • Since Outlook 2003, all emails are in the format HTM internally. Hence, all emails synchronized by Outlook are in the same format.

Opening an already synchronized email or activity from Outlook

The Outlook add-in has an Open function that JustRelate CRM uses to check whether the email in question has already been checked in to the CRM. This function can be used in an extended way.

If this function does not find a checked-in email in the CRM, after confirming the message "The email was not found in the CRM. Should the assigned contacts be opened?“ with ”Yes", the CRM contact form is opened, and all contacts of the email (sender, recipient, CC, BCC recipient) are loaded.

This extension is not limited to emails, but also works with all other activities that have recipients.

Important note: Sending emails to internal contacts

Due to the "peculiarities" of Microsoft Groupware, it is recommended that an email to internal contacts who also work with the CRM is initially created there and also sent from there. Otherwise, an email sent from the groupware to internal contacts via the "Send and synchronize" add-in may be checked in again, as the message ID is only known to the recipient, but not to the sender.

An email sent via Outlook in the “Sent objects” folder does not have a message ID and is therefore not uniquely identifiable. However, when synchronizing with the CRM, the EntryID of the Outlook object is also sent for this scenario and used as the message ID in the CRM. This becomes problematic if the Outlook email was moved to another Outlook folder before synchronization with the CRM, as Outlook may change the EntryID in this case.