Email… Just Say Yes?

I know this is not exactly the big picture response that you are looking for, but it bugs me that I can’t create a subscription and have it go to selected users. You need to send them to members of a Role, so I end up creating dummy Roles just to manage the Subscription Recipients.

I can also see where it would be nice to send an email subscription to a list of email addresses which are not registered QB users.

I’m sure that you would want to have some limits on the number of email addresses, so that it does turn into a spam engine.

I’m thinking of situations where we might have a legitimate email list of data in a table, that we want to email each week, such as a list of clearance inventory which is changing each day – in our case freshly re-imported each day from our enterprise system.

Mark Shnier

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Second the comment about not being able to send a subscription to users.

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Great questions!

* Do you have information in an email conversation you want to get in to QuickBase? Where would you store it in your QuickBase? In customer records? Projects or Tasks? Somewhere else?

Yes, in customer records as records of the conversations.

* Do you send email from QuickBase to folks without QuickBase access? Do you want those emails or the responses to them tracked? If so, why?

Yes, otherwise, need to keep the records in another location such as Outlook folders.

* When you send notifications or reminders, or email a view or form, what (typically) do you want people to do with those emails? Are they truly informational, calls to action?

Would be VERY useful if the recipient could receive a form, enter data in the reply e-mail which is then entered and saved in QuickBase record.

* How else are you interacting with email that could be managed by QuickBase?

Ability to create and save form letters which can then be selected and e-mailed. Also, to attach documents.

Thanks for asking!

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We are eager to track email, not just as responses to outbound solicitations but also for unsolicited requests from our web site or from existing customers logging trouble tickets or providing input/suggestions.

One thing we need to be able to do is to disable HTML in the email messages. Most of our clients email systems don’t handle it properly so they have to wade through pages of HTML tags before they see the message (and more often than not throw out the email because all they see is “junk” at first). I know that option exists for triggered emails but not for reminders.

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I had a client the other day tell me that one feature (maybe the only feature…) they like in Microsoft’s CRM Dynamics 3.0 is the ability to pop an email into the system directly from Outlook. A lot of back-and-forth takes place in emails and it needs to be documented. Click a tool bar button, bring up a form, direct it to the appropriate app in QB, store the document in the system.

Also, MS CRM 3.0, I believe, has a way to track action items within these mails that are somehow stored in the system? It wasn’t explained to me well and the product hadn’t been implemented yet, so I am not sure exactly what it does. It may not even exist yet, but is instead is a concept proposed by the vendor. I’d love to hear more about this if anyone knows what I am talking about.

Also, I agree with Mark and David’s suggestion above. Both are needed features.

Thanks and keep up the great work!

Thom

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I logged this case a couple weeks ago around the ability to set up email groups as drop down options when sending emails:

– [JUL-05-06 dmccormick] ————–
Gloria,

Groups cannot be used as a ‘user’ when sending email at this time. We’ll look at it in the context of a potential enhancement for a future release.

Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate it.

QuickBase Support

– [JUN-30-06 gabaek] ————–
Is there a way to set up the groups so that it comes up as an option for users to select when emailing from the application? For example, I added group A & group B as users in the application. Why doesn’t it show up as “user” to select when emailing?

Also, it would be great if we could have an ability to CC or indicate other dist to a particular email that was sent for information purposes. Otherwise, storing in a separate section for activity logs for users to look up would be very helpful.

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Everyone, thank you very much for your comments. They are very helpful. I think there are many ways we can improve QuickBase’s working with email over the next several releases… Let me ask some of you a couple of more targeted follow ups…

Thom — You mentioned Outlook integration. Do you need an actual button in Outlook, or would being able to transitioning emails to QuickBase differently (such as forwarding to an address, for example) be sufficient?

David — What types of forms are you thinking of sending? What actions would the user take? Would you need them to log in to QuickBase? Have special permissions?

Mark, Spence, and Gloria, your feedback has been heard. Thanks for the suggestions.

Mike — Did you see Jana’s earlier blog entry about embedding a form on your website for logging tickets or capturing feedback? It’s at http://quickbase.typepad.com/blog/2006/06/email_just_say_.html
You might be able to do what you need using our wizard.

Please keep the feedback coming. This has been great! Thank you!

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Some proposals:
1.) usefull option could be possibility to send E-mail as copy for information to someone
2.) automated E-mail notification (when something is changed)- simplified “AAA changed from BBB to CCC” could be more obvious if not only “CCC” was writen in bold characters but “AAA” and “BBB” too or colored characters.

Ivan

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Hi Gloria,

I think forwarding to an email address would work just as well, if not better. It would also keep the feature “client agnostic”, which is another aspect of Quickbase I have always appreciated.

Short answer: yes!

Thanks!

-Thom

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Having Quickbase turn our email’s into manageable actions would be AWESOME.

Why don’t you Parse the email; grab any relevant data; and let the user map the data to Quickbase fields (e.g. the date of the email; sender’s email address; reply address; message subject; message body text; save any attachment files; for html email either store the html body or convert it to plain text).

Users could forward their emails to an address, e.g. {myusername}@quickparse.com to start the process.

Once the email is automatically parsed, store it as an “InBox” Task and let the Quickbase user decide what to do with the email. Options may include: associating it with another Task, a Project, a Customer Record. Allowing the User to set up and save automatic filtering rules would also be great. For example, I may want all emails for a certain sender to always go to their Customer Record; or all emails with the words “Sample Request” in the Subject could spawn a fulfillment Task with a certain priority. An auto-filter like this would be a great productivity tool.

I did a quick Google and found a few urls that may be handy for your designers and developers:

http://www.emailarchitect.net/webapp/popcom/sdk/
http://www.cypressnet.com/Products/msgparse/msgparse.htm

Please put me on your beta test list for this feature. I love it!

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Continuing my thoughts from above: In addition to sorting and filing inbound mail, the “Mail Inbox” Task screen should also allow a user to respond via email and even create new emails with attachments, etc. All the correspondance from an email chain should be written to “mail mini-blog”. Allow me to add any new emails I receive onto an exisitng mail blog, etc. Allow the user to assign tags to the email to be able to later search and find the email. Also add a way for me to edit the mail blog to clean it up if needed. The parser could record To, From, cc, bcc, date, time and content.

If you implement this new email functionality really well, I believe I would stop using my other email app and just use my Quickbase account for all my correspondence.

Life would be much easier and more productive!

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The Financial Times ran the following story last week:

Microsoft’s Ozzie declares end to PC era
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e381965a-1dbe-11db-bf06-0000779e2340.html

I believe email has also reached the end of its era. Quickbase users will quickly evolve to the point where their dashboard’s are their Homepages and urgent messages will be conveyed by IM or Text Messaging and routine updates will be handled by RSS feeds and Blogs.

Email is archaic – it’s too slow and too management intensive for the Web 2.0 world!

You need to build Quickbase to enable a faster messaging pace (while also managing emails from our Luddite friends and associates).

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I’d really love to see the email reminders feature enhanced so that:
- you can send reminders to any email address
- you can customize the subject and message body using fields from Quickbase
- you can set the time of day the messages go out
- you can choose text or html
- you can easily embed a specific form or view in the body

Many of these features are available with email notifications, but not reminders.

Here’s an example of why I need this: I have a lobbying calendar application that tracks all of lobbyists and the various filing deadlines for campaign finance reports. I want reminders to go out 10 days before, 3 days before, and day of the deadline. I want the reminders to go out to the lobbyist and cc up to three other people whose email addresses I have stored in Quickbase. I want the reminders to go out only for reports that our attorney has not checked off as being received. I want the email to show the recipients the details of which report is due.

As currently the reminders can go to registered users only, it’s very limiting. I have over 100 people who need to get these emails and so I have to purchase additional user packs and then get them all to register. They don’t need to use Quickbase themselves, they just need to get the email and do their reports.

Also it seems like the body of the email reminder sends all the default fields. I’d like the ability to customize which fields (based on a view or form) go out in the email. There are some fields I want to by default show up in a view for our attorney, but not show up in the emails to everyone.

With the above enhancements, my application would be a very powerful tool to help our attorney track multiple deadlines and people and know what he needs to file when. The reminders function is great because no one needs to constantly check the calendar, they just go out.

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I would like to know how do I send e-mails of any report to NON-Quickbase users.. this is the way I used to send my proposals to my customers but some time from now it has not been possible.

Thanks!
Isabel.

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Do you have information in an email conversation you want to get in to QuickBase? Good question and hopefully point to interesting enhancements. Just say the post, so I hope I’m not too late.

Below I am not talking about a CRM system, but a support system: help desk, defect/enhancement issues, knowledge base:

* Do you have information in an email conversation you want to get in to QuickBase?Where would you store it in your QuickBase? In customer records? Projects or Tasks? Somewhere else?
–> Too often our customers send us a problem or question via e-mail rather than file a Help Desk request. It is easier for them. I now have to cut and paste the e-mail into the Help Desk system.

But sometimes — too often — we don’t do this. Instead we make it worse by just responding to the e-mail. We lose all track of the issue and if it is passed from one support person to another, the new person doesn’t know what’s happened.

I’d love to find some way to automate this. Maybe give them a special e-mail address to use. Their return e-mail address would identify them to QuickBase, the subject and text I could put into a “summary” and “description” field and any attachment attach to the record.

Do you send email from QuickBase to folks without QuickBase access?
–> No.
Do you want those emails or the responses to them tracked? If so, why?
Do you need to track communication between team members?
– Yes
Between team members and customers?
–> yes
Salespeople and prospects? Others?
–> No.

* When you send notifications or reminders, or email a view or form, what (typically) do you want people to do with those emails? Are they truly informational, calls to action?
–> Usually they are informational. If we are asking for a response, there is a link to QB and they need to click it, log in, and enter. The better approach would be to allow them to simply “reply.” Then grab the reply text. If I had control of what the “reply” e-mail address was I could use different addresses and have the returned e-mail handled differently depending on which reply address was used.
Can Outlook have a button IN THE TEXT OF THE EMAIL that would trigger a reply e-mail? If so, I could have buttons that would be, say “CLOSE” or “REPLY REQUESTED” etc.

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I posted a lenghy comment. But it disappeared. e-mail me, Phil, if you want a repeat.

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I found this blog regarding email and QuickBase, and see that was started 2 years ago. I’m new to QuickBase and have been asked to develop a project managment application, part of which people want to have copies of emails saved within the QuickBase app. These emails are sent or received via Outlook. I would think a good way to submit an email into a QuickBase app / project, would be to be able to forward or cc messages to a certain email address and include in the message title some application & project identifier. That email would be routed somehow to QuickBase and it would know what application/table and related table (project) it belonged to.

Anyway, I’m primarily wondering if anything has evolved since this blog started 2 years ago? Are there any QuickBase apps that demonstrate how to document (keep copies of) email messages for a project management or CRM application?

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Lisa Clarke Reply:
July 25th, 2009 at 8:39 am

@Rick Shearer,

This thread started to becone very promisin but it appears to be dead now. A pity as the CRM application has great promise. I’d like to store inbound and outbound emails from an external application (Outlook) within the CRM. Any news appreciated.

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How does one export data to excel with CRM? Is it possible? If so what steps do I need to take. Any help would be appreciated. If I'm at the wrong place, please direct me. Thanks. Arlene

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well friend Please forward this message to your email list and/or post on your website, blog, Facebook page. We need your help. Feel free to use the Just Say!

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how can I look up someones email address without having to sign up and pay?

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Phil Reply:
November 4th, 2011 at 1:33 pm

I’m not sure what you are asking here. If you are a QuickBase user, you can talk to your account administrator.  If you are not a QuickBase user, what email address are you looking up?

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I realize this is a very old post. I have been using QB ever since this post and I am saddened that the idea of compiling a modern email client or at least allowing a full blown integration with GoogleApps never made it off the launch pad.

Hey all you QB users – shout out a big PLUS 1 if you’re thirsting for a modern email solution for QuickBase!

Add-On developers – no takers?

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