Email Integration

shaz77_2

Hi All,

I always assumed email integration was something big companies used to automatically archive to the relevant file documents sent in via email by a customer.

Is this completely wrong and is there anyway on a personal level I could test it out on my own Gmail account (Yes I'm a geek)

Thanks a lot.

grumpycrab

While I've never heard of "email integration" I think want you want is covered by Gmail labels and filters (under Settings).

S0litaire

"Email integration" works the other way.
programs connect to an email system to send and receive things.

Example: A company might have a Customer Relationship Management program, It uses integration so they can send a price list pdf document to all customers from within the program, so they don't need to manually create and send every email.

You are thinking about "filters" where you can sort your incoming email in to specific groups depending on the sender or content of the Email.

shaz77_2

I used to work for an insurance company and perhaps we used the wrong terminology. However I could send an email with the client's policy number a set format following the policy number which would result in my email going to their file on content Manager.

So what your saying is in order to send a document via email integration, one does not even have to be within an email account?

S0litaire

The program you used at the company to send the email plugged into the company’s own email server. So when you sent an email to a client it was in your "sent" folder as well as the program saving a copy in the clients file.

You were using a "CRM" system (Customer relationship management program) at work. It links and records correspondence between the company and the customer as well as other information about their business with the company.

Not a standard Email client like Outlook.

InsideInsurance

Integration simply means there is some form of, in theory, seamless linking between two or more systems. The links can flow in one or both directions and it doesnt stop it being integration.

It is certainly not the preserve of large corporations, it is not the most difficult thing to do to write your own small application that will either send emails by hooking into an SMTP server or by pulling emails down from a POP/IMAP server and then doing something to it subject to the sender/ recipient/ content etc

I previously wrote a simple helpdesk application which would present the chains of open tickets, an email could be sent from within the ticket and it'd automatically go to the noted parties and include the ticket number etc automatically and if any emails were sent in with a known ticket number in the subject it was automatically added to the ticket and the ticket highlighted as having new info.

As said, there are obviously commercial (and open source) programmes you can buy/ get that has this sort of functionality built in but I wanted to test my programme skills so built my own