Email Services

Email Services provides the following capabilities:

•	Automatically emailing out Ticket Actions, System Alerts, Calendar Reminders, Sales & Job Quote Follow ups and History Note Follow ups

•	Automatically receiving correspondence emails and auto assigning them to Customers or Suppliers (also checks all contacts) based on the originating email address

-	this allows for email Forwarding and Blind Copying (BCC) and is smart enough to check if the email was forwarded from an employee and then determine who the originating source was.

-	If the email address was not recognised it will be logged as unassigned and can be assigned through the Operations Centre.

•	Automatically receive reply emails from Ticket Actions, System Alerts, Calendar Reminders, Sales & Job Quote Follow ups and History Note Follow ups emails and do the following:

-	An employee can complete or flag as done the following (Ticket Actions, Calendar Reminders, Sales & Job Quote Follow ups and History Note Follow ups) by replying with the word DONE at the beginning of the email subject –more detail later.

-	An employee can also email files (photos, PDF’, documents etc...) and have them automatically appended to a Job Order/Quote, Sales Order/Quote or Ticket

-	An employee can also email notes and have them automatically created as History Notes and linked to a Job Order/Quote, Sales Order/Quote or Ticket

•	An employee can ask for database information via an Email Query. The information will be emailed back embedded in the body of the email (the body is formatted in Html)

•	An employee can request and process a form/spreadsheet via email (Email Form). This basically means that data entry activities like: Service Sheets, Quotes, Orders, Time sheets etc... can be setup using spreadsheets and then emailed back to Ostendo for automatic processing.

•	Automatic emailing of a Sales Delivery Advice, defined against the Customer

Setting up Email Services

Email services uses Queue services to schedule the automatic polling of "receiving from", and "sending to", email addresses.

The first thing to do is setup the defaults for your outgoing and incoming email accounts in the Queue Settings screen

Next, you need to decide how you want to handle Outgoing Emails and Incoming Emails.

Outgoing Emails:

You need to define what activities you would like to have automatically emailed out and then create a Queue Schedule record for the Auto Emailing function to run at pre-determined intervals.

With Auto Emailing, you could send out emails automatically for each of the following activities: Calendar Reminders, Ticket Actions, History Note Follow-ups, Quote Follow-ups, System Alerts, and Sales Delivery Advice Notifications. See Auto Emails for more details.

Once you have defined what activities will generate automatic emails to be sent out, you will need to create a Queue Schedule record to specify the frequency you wish to send out Auto Emails.

Incoming Emails:

Receiving incoming emails can be automated via the Queue Schedule. You can receive from either POP3 or IMAP accounts.

These emails are automatically logged into an Ostendo table (EMAILLOG).

Attachments are stored based on the Attachment Path defined in Queue Settings. Subfolder names can also be defined in the Queue Schedule record.

Incoming Emails can be divided into three types. An email account needs to be set up for each of these types:

To Be Assigned: This is usually correspondence email that are to be automatically linked to Customers and/or Suppliers via the originating email address, or manually assigned within the Operations Centre. If your emails are forwarded to the To-Be-Assigned email address, then Ostendo will automatically link the email to the respective Customer or Supplier.

-	Data Only: This address is where data is being emailed in for further processing (e.g.EDI, E-Commerce Orders, Remote Data Synchronisation, etc.). These applications require a specific script written that will process the data accordingly.

-	Response: This type of incoming email requires a response which could be automated, such as Queries, Request for Quote, Submission of Service Spreadsheet or Timesheets for processing, etc. This is described further in the sections below.

To automate the handling of incoming emails, you should first use the Email Addresses panel to define the email address for each of the three types of email.

You should then define a Queue Schedule record for each of these email accounts to specify the frequency of receiving such emails.

Response Emails:

•	Responding to Quote or Note Follow-ups, Calendar Reminders and Ticket Actions (DONE ):

When a User receives an email with a Follow-up, Reminder or Action from Ostendo, he/she can let the system know that it has been actioned by simply replying to the email and appending the word DONE to the beginning of the email subject

Example: User receives an email reminder to follow-up on a specific Sales Quote. The subject of the email could read something like:

{SQ#14661936} Ostendo Quote Follow Up for Customer: [XYZ Limited] Quote No: [S301306])

The User can indicate that a follow up is to be done by simply appending DONE to the beginning of the Subject making sure that a space is included between the word DONE and the rest of the subject

(i.e. DONE {SQ#14661936} Ostendo Quote Follow Up for Customer: [XYZ Limited] Quote No: [S301306])

If action notes are required when completing an action, they can be added into the body of the reply, terminated by typing the character ']' twice (i.e. ]]). Ostendo will then update the Call Ticket or Calendar Reminder accordingly.

•	Adding Files to Jobs, Sales and Tickets (FILE ):

Users can email files (i.e.Photos, PDF's, etc...) and have Ostendo automatically link it to the specified JOB, SALES, or TICKET.

The subject needs to start with the word FILE (followed by a space) and then followed by either JOB, SALES or TICKET with the character # (hash) either side of the Order Number or Ticket ID (e.g. FILE JOB#125000#).

If notes are required for the linked file they can be added into the body of the reply, terminated by typing the character ']' twice (i.e. ]])

•	Adding History Notes to Jobs, Sales and Tickets (NOTE ):

Users can email in History Notes by simply formatting the email subject based on the following.

The subject needs to start with the word NOTE (followed by a space) and then followed by either JOB, SALES or TICKET with the character # (hash) either side of the Order Number or Ticket ID (e.g. NOTE TICKET#78990#).

The actual History Note is added into the body of the reply, terminated by typing the character ']' twice (i.e. ]]).

Ostendo will automatically generate the History Note and link it to the respective JOB, SALES, or TICKET.

•	Running a Query and returning the Results as an Email (QUERY ):

Users can request information from Ostendo by using pre-defined Email Queries. Results are automatically formatted and returned within the body of the email.

When sending in an Email Query, the subject needs to start with the word QUERY (followed by a space) and then followed by the pre-defined Query name with the character # (hash) either side of the Key Value (e.g. QUERY JobInfo#125000#).

•	Requesting a Form (Spreadsheet) (REQUEST ):

Users can request a pre-formatted Form (Spreadsheet) and have that automatically emailed back with specific cells pre-filled if defined that way.

The subject needs to start with the word REQUEST (followed by a space) and then followed by the pre-defined Form name with an optional character # (hash) either side of the Key Value (only if needed) (e.g. REQUEST ServiceSheet#125000#).

•	Processing a Form (Spreadsheet) (PROCESS ):

Users can email in a pre-formatted Form (Spreadsheet) and have the data automatically inserted into Ostendo.

The subject needs to start with the word PROCESS (followed by a space) and then followed by the pre-defined Form name (i.e. PROCESS ServiceSheet).