How to import incoming emails from many accounts to leads / opportunities?

[Stefan_Broda]

Hi all,

we are just in the process of setting up SugarCRM Community edition for us and one of the key features that are critical for us is to have SugarCRM look into our IMAP email boxes and automatically import all emails that are relevant to contacts in CRM.

With relevant I mean that the email address an email is coming from or is sent to matches the email of a contact or lead. If this contact is assigned to an opportunity, then the email should automatically appear there. In case the contact is assigned to many opportunities, then its fine. Doesn't need to appear.

Manually selecting each email that is sent and received and assigning it individually to a lead is NOT ACCEPTABLE. This will never be done.

I read a number of articles so far that describe how to import email manually. This Post seems to have the same problem as we do. Also, this post, that post seem to have the same issue.

So again, scenario: We have different people who sometimes work and communicate on the same opportunity. We would like all emails related to that opportunity (based on the unique relationship of email to opportunity) to show up here.

Thanks a lot for any help, thoughts, etc.

Cheers,
Stefan

[roblaus]

This is a typical workflow issue that imo can't be solved out of the box.

Sugar imports emails based on account settings e.g. everything that's coming into a particular inbox (set up as group account) is imported automatically and will be assigned to an entity provided the email address matches. This works fine and will give you all emails to a particular address in one (?) place (works for leads, accounts and targets as well).

The next step isn't there yet because now one needs to check whether the entity the email relates to is related to an opportunity. If it's just one then relate the email to the opportunity, if there are none or more than one then do nothing.

Fairly straightforward I'd say, shouldn't be a big deal. Only problem: You need to have a very good spam filter on your server or you use an email account which is more or less unknown to the public.

[selfmade64856]

Hi,

Sorry do be a nuisance but I am not sure if the last response was a "How to Guide" or merely an affirmation of the possibility. I believe that I am attempting to do the same thing as the original poster so am on the right post. For clarification purposes here is what I am attempting to do;

I would like to be able to have sugarcrm automatically IMPORT emails from a gmail account and associate them AUTOMATICALLY with a lead, contact, opportunity, case, target, etc.... I find that having to manually associate each email with a lead, target, etc...to be very time consuming and know that there has to be an easier way to accomplish this goal of automatic importation and association via the email address that is being used.

Is there a step-by step of how to configure a workflow as such?

I have a group email account set-up but as the emails come in they are not getting associated with any of the lead, contact, opportunity, case, target, etc.... and here you stated that "everything that's coming into a particular inbox (set up as group account) is imported automatically and will be assigned to an entity provided the email address matches." I am not seeing this happen. The emails just sit in the inbox until I import them.

Your input is always invaluable to us "need to knows" and is extremely appreciated.

Courtney L Bostdorff

[Chris_C]

Excellent topic - thanks to the original poster for getting the discussion going.

Here is a module from May 2011 for Sugar 6.0 or 6.1 (probably compatible with 6.2 - 6.4 also) that automatically archives emails intelligently based on email address in the header of the email, and works with all email servers. It imports automatically every X minutes, and says it imports only the emails that it hasn't already imported.
SugarForge: Agora Mail: Project Info

There are many other intelligent, auto-associating, no user input required, email import modules on SugarForge, with varying capabilities and compatible with various mail server software - Exchange, Domino, Novell Groupwise, Zarafa, Open-Xchange, etc.
SugarForge: Software Map

Does this one - Agora - appear to meet your needs? Install it, and try it out. Post back and tell us what you liked and didn't like. Tell us what you're looking for that it can't do - if anything.

[selfmade64856]

Excellent topic - thanks to the original poster for getting the discussion going.

Does this one - Agora - appear to meet your needs? Install it, and try it out. Post back and tell us what you liked and didn't like. Tell us what you're looking for that it can't do - if anything.

Hi Chris. It seems that Agora isn't compatible with the earliest release of Sugar 6.3.1 so I am not able to tell you how well it works Sorry Sounds like a great tool though.

[Chris_C]

Hi Chris. It seems that Agora isn't compatible with the earliest release of Sugar 6.3.1 so I am not able to tell you how well it works Sorry Sounds like a great tool though.

I went to the SugarForge page again, clicked the Reviews and Developer tabs, and I see that Simon the developer has a reputation for being a very good and fast worker.

Perhaps - could you contact him thru his site or email - which is listed there - and ask him to update it for 6.3 or 6.4?

I bet he would get it done shortly.

Let u know!

[kir]

I sent letter from project page to Simon asking him about future upgrade Agora Mail to 6.3 - 6.4. Gave him a link to this post. Hope he will visit us and explain what, how and when

[krauth]

I sent letter from project page to Simon asking him about future upgrade Agora Mail to 6.3 - 6.4. Gave him a link to this post. Hope he will visit us and explain what, how and when

We are using 6.3.0 and I got Agora working.

You need pack the manifest I attached into the agora.zip...

It installs, and the mail import works, but it doesn't show up in the admin interface the way it should.

There is a problem with attachments and teams too...

I tried to contact the developer multiple times - no answer...

[Chris_C]

We are using 6.3.0 and I got Agora working.

You need pack the manifest I attached into the agora.zip...

It installs, and the mail import works, but it doesn't show up in the admin interface the way it should.

There is a problem with attachments and teams too...

I tried to contact the developer multiple times - no answer...

You mention Teams. What flavor of Sugar are you using: CE, Pro, Enterprise, Ultimate ?

EDIT:
1) The module's installer manifest file (for version 0.2 - the latest release) says it will install and run on CE, Pro, and Enterprise, BUT...

2) The Agora Mail product page at Prognosoft contradicts that - it says the Agora Mail module runs with Sugar CE only.
From http://prognosoft.biz/agora_mail/ :

If your company runs the Professional or Enterprise edition, stay tuned for the commercially licensed module in the near future. We will publish it once the free edition is out of the Beta phase.

3) The SugarForge page also says Agora Mail's in Beta.

4) Version is 0.2. Normally a dead giveaway that it's still in Beta - since the Official first release is typically 1.0.

5) Even so - the manifest could be right - Agora Mail COULD be supposed to work with CE, Pro and Enterprise - the best person to ask would be Simon - or a Sugar developer to have a glance at the code - it's not very much - 400 lines.

[krauth]

You mention Teams. What flavor of Sugar are you using.. CE, Pro, Enterprise, etc... ?

Using Pro - but we are in the first stage of implementing this... so not much experience (yet).

It looks like the problem is that a email-inbox has a team_set that only has the owner of the box as a team. This team is not the team I need to be able to see the attachment - I need the team_set of the object the e-mail is associated with...