Handling group email account unusable

[pehoma]

Hello, we have installed ESPO (version 7.1.9) and are basically satisfied. Unfortunately, it seems that the group email function is absolutely worthless(Apologies to the developers for having to say this so clearly and directly. Perhaps there was a reason to develop the function as it is, but we do not recognize that reason.) .

We understand a group email to mean not only that everyone imports the incoming emails for themselves, but that the group can work together on the mailbox. This requires that when an email is read, it is marked as read for everyone in the team. Likewise, if the email is moved to another folder, it must be moved to this folder for all users. We are very surprised that this does not work as this is a basic functionality of all CRM systems on the market. This should definitely and urgently be changed. In the current version, the group email function is absolutely worthless from our point of view. In this form, the entire ESPO system is absolutely unusable for us.
If the developers do not see it this way and do not change it in the coming update, please send me offers from programmers who can adapt this functionality accordingly. Otherwise, we will unfortunately have to discard ESPO and look for another system. This is a pity, as we have just bought the Avance Pack and are quite satisfied with it.

[victor]

Hello, @pehoma
Unfortunately, the absolute synchronization of Email (Group Email Accounts), which you would like to have, is not possible in EspoCRM now. But the work of the team can be organized through "Cases". The idea is to work as a team not with a letter, but with a case, that can be created automatically when a letter is received. In Case, you can configure both automatic and manual settings of responsible persons. More details https://docs.espocrm.com/administrat...#email-to-case. You can also work with case in Stream

[pehoma]

Hello Slava, thanks for the reply.
With this description I can understand the programming.

However, it does not help us very much. We don't want a case to be created for every incoming email. I will also explain why. On the one hand, we receive a lot of SPAM and advertising emails, and on the other hand, our customers often reply to emails that they once received from us with a completely different topic. We are a consulting firm.

Would it be complicated to reprogram the email handling? what would such a thing cost?

By the way, we have found a small error. It is so that two users can work on the same record at the same time. This shouldn't be possible, should it? When one user is in a record and editing it, all others should have read-only access at that moment.

[yuri]

> as this is a basic functionality of all CRM systems on the market

Could you provide proofs for this?

> This requires that when an email is read, it is marked as read for everyone in the team

I don't think so. If my colleague has read an email, I need to read it too. If it's marked as read I will miss the email. We've been using group email accounts as it is for 8 years, so we can't call it "absolutely worthless" as it does job for us.

Your post sounds very manipulative to me. Maybe it's better choosing another product.

[pehoma]

Hello Yuri.
For example in Vtiger, SugarCRM, SuiteCRM, Bitrix24, just to mention a few.

The read status is really not so important as it makes sense in the way you described it. Bit it should for sure posible to mark an email as resolved, or treated, or another status, which will be updated for all users. Also if the email is moved by one employee to another folder. This is what I mean essential.

In our office there are 14 people in one Team working with the same email account. We could not use the group email function, because the other 13 team members don't know that I already answered or deleted or treated the email.

I know that this is something which is handled in every office in a different way. I know for some companies it will be okay in the way it is, but out of my 23 years experience I know also that a lot of companies will have the same problem like we have.

[yuri]

I think these systems give a direct access to IMAP mailboxes. This is not an approach we'd like to have, regular users should NOT have access to IMAP of the group email account. I was working with and contributed to SugarCRM for years and remember they didn't have such a comprehensive email functionality as Espo has. They just had an email client giving access to IMAP. Espo is very different when it comes to emails.

Vtiger and SuiteCRM are forks of SugarCRM. Bitrix24 -- no comments. The statement about "all CRMs on the marked" is not true. It's a same manipulation I see occasionally and it does not work on me.

In our business, we use the "Create Task" functionality, creating a task from the email (top-right menu). When the task is resolved, the green status is visible on the right panel of the email. Of course, we also use Cases.

From the next version it will be possible to create custom fields for email entity. You can create a custom status field, place it on the list and the detail view and use it to determine whether an email is resolved. See https://github.com/espocrm/espocrm/issues/2366

Personally, I don't like approach when an email is considered as a central business entity. I'd use cases and/or tasks.

[yuri]

> This shouldn't be possible, should it? When one user is in a record and editing it, all others should have read-only access at that moment.

This is disabled by default for most of entities. To enable it for a specific entity type: Administration > Entity Manager > choose needed entity type > Edit > Check Optimistic Concurrency Control > Save.

[pehoma]

Thanks, we will edit these entities.

[pehoma]

We've tried it, but it's still possible that two users can edit a record at the same time. Maybe we do something wrong, but I changed the entity in the way you described it.

[yuri]

It's by design. Blocking the edit form is not a best practice. They still can change different fields. In this case there is no conflict. The modal dialog will appear only if they edit and save the same field(s). The second user will get a dialog window proposing choosing from a few options, or continue editing. https://docs.espocrm.com/user-guide/...rency-control/

Note that the current version has a bug that this feature might not be working when inline-edit is used (you edit a field with a pencil, not a whole record). The bug is already fixed for the next version.

[yuri]

> our customers often reply to emails that they once received from us with a completely different topic.

Replying on email does not create a new case. It will attach a reply-email to the case and copy the email text to the stream of the case.

[pehoma]

Hello Yuri. Thanks for your reply. Exactly this would be the problem. A client replies to the last email he received, which was for example 9 month ago. But it's not a reply ton this case it is a new question. But many of our customers do this in that way. So the new email would not create a case, it will be assigned to an old, already closed case.

[yuri]

As the case if still followed by an assigned user they will receive a notification that a new email came. You can also setup some workflow rule that will re-open or re-assign case in such situations.