Adding Outlook e-mails to interactions

In SyteLine, interactions are used to keep track of information about any encounters with a customer, vendor, prospect, or sales contact; for example, e-mails, phone calls, and faxes.

You can add incoming and outgoing Outlook e-mails to the SyteLine Customer Interactions, Vendor Interactions, Prospect Interactions, and Sales Contact Interactions forms. When you open a received or sent email, the SyteLine add-in form is displayed below the reading pane when you open the message in Outlook.

The next several steps detail how to add a message to the SyteLine Customer Interactions form. This is an example that can be used to understand how you can also add a message to the Vendor Interactions, Prospect Interactions, and Sales Contact Interactions forms.

You can attach the message to an existing interaction, or create a new interaction. To add the message to the SyteLine Customer Interactions form:
  • To attach the message to an existing interaction, first select a customer, then search for an existing interaction. You can provide other details if needed. When you select a customer, the customer number, ship-to number, and customer name are displayed. The Outlook add-in locates the existing interaction using the reference number (for example, Customer, Vendor) and the email subject.
  • To create a new interaction, select Create New Interaction. The additional fields Choose Topic and Description display. If you select a topic from the available list, the Description contains the e-mail subject. Alternately you can write your own description..

    Note: In this example, the add-in tries to set a default value for the Customer field based on the sender’s e-mail address. If the e-mail address matches either a Primary Contact or Secondary Contact e-mail address in the SyteLine Customers form, then the matching customer name is placed in this field.

When you are sending an e-mail, the add-in tries to provide a default value by matching the first address on the To line with a primary or secondary contact e-mail address in the SyteLine Customers form. If no match is found, the add-in looks through the Customer contact table. If multiple matches are found, the add-in will pick the first record. An asterik(*) will suffix the customer label to indicate that there are multiple matches.

  1. Use the Search button to find a Ship-To name for the customer.
  2. Select a follow-up date, or keep the default of today’s date.
  3. Click Submit. You will see a prompt confirming that the message was attached to the interaction.

    The resulting attachment in the SyteLine Customer Interactions form looks like this:



    These fields from the Outlook e-mail are included in the interaction:
    Outlook field SyteLine field
    Incoming e-mail or Sent item Incoming (selected for incoming e-mail; not selected for sent item)
    N/A Type (E-mail)
    Create date/time (sent e-mail) Contact date/time
    From From
    To To
    Cc Cc
    Follow Up Follow-Up Date
    Subject Subject (80 characters)
    Message Message
    Customer (from add-in form) Customer
    Ship-To (from add-in form) Ship-To
    Contact Id (retrieved from email id match) Contact Id
    Salesperson Salesperson

    If the Outlook e-mail is formatted using HTML, or if it contains special characters or formatting, the formatting may not be compatible with SyteLine note formatting. In that case, the special formatting is ignored, and additional spacing may appear in the interaction record.