TM Email Limitations

Hi. We use outlook for our email and most of our counsels have created subfolders to organise their messages. We recently went life with our TM deployment and we intend to have everybody manage their emails from TM. TM is setup to use the default MAPI account (outlook) found on the machine. However we have some issues that are discouraging our counsels, who have quite mastered the use of outlook and its flexibility, from using TM mails. These are: 1. TM only grabs the mails in the inbox and leaves the subfolders' content 2. The signature setup under TM EMAIL options doesnot allow for any formatting 3. The content of sent folder is not brought into TM Anybody knows how we can address this limitations?

If you are on TM8 or above and have the Outlook integration enabled, you can TMConnect any e-mail from any Outlook mail folder. There are also settings in the Options to prompt the user to save "sent" Outlook e-mails to Time Matters (as well as contacts, events, and todos).

The Time Matters inbox will only show you the email in the users Outlook inbox. One option that Karen Easton mentioned is to TM Connect the emails from Outlook into Time Matters.  Another option would be to copy/move the emails from each Outlook folder into your main Outlook inbox this way the Outlook emails will show up in the TM inbox. If you decide to move or copy the emails from the folders to the inbox my recommendation would be to copy/move the contents of one folder at a time. When you are done saving those emails as a TM email then copy/move the contents of the next folder.
As for the sent folder items I recommend perfoming a TM connect on those emails.

I will be more to the point than the others. You should continue to use Outlook to send/receive emails. Emails that need to be saved, you can TM Save them and a copy will be saved into Time Matters. You can save more than one email at a time by highlighting them before pressing TM Connect.

So in short:

1. TM Connect works in any folder
2. As you are using Outlook your signatures are created there
3. When you send an email, you can have Outlook prompt you to save to TM. In Outlook - Tools -options - Time Matters Tab.

Your staff will be much happier with you in the long run.

Matt

You've received good advice. I would like to offer a counter opinion to Matt Stone's post - Matt has been a good friend and colleague of mine for a long time, and he is one of the most knowledgeable TM Consultants you'll find. But, while we agree on a lot of things, we disagree on his "everything but TM internal email stance" that he posts here every now and again. 1. We often recommend that new TM users continue to use Outlook. It makes sense for a number of reasons, but mostly because the end user doesn't have to make a change to their existing practices. And, many of our clients (maybe even most) use Outlook these days. But, ... 2. If you stick with Outlook as your main Inbox, you have to at least setup a "hybrid" approach whereby the end user can "send" email from Time Matters. The ability to send emails from Power Views, Form fields, and to send documents found in the TM DMS using a simple right click is far too valuable a feature to give up. And to accomplish this from Outlook takes too many steps. This simply means that users using Outlook as their primary Inbox (to send and receive email and then connect it to TM) have to be able to send email from TM using an SMTP server. We do not recommend MAPI to do this. While it is easier to setup, we have experienced emails being sent without attachments far too often to trust it. 3. Properly configured, the Internal TM email works great for firms of all sizes, and it has some major advantages over Outlook. I believe it has to be configured to hit an internal POP server for the best results. And you don't get some of the fancy features like wallpaper, fancy signatures, etc. But, I don't like those anyway and wish people wouldn't send me emails with that in them. If you need that type of thing Outlook is your only option. 4. No time to go into all the configuration issues, but it includes at least the following: - Understanding the basics of keeping your Inbox empty: E-mail Overload paper - http://www.otb-consulting.com/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_details/gid,4/Itemid,175/ - this system can be done in both TM Email and Outlook connecting to TM, but in my experience is likely to be followed more inside TM email. - Using the feature available in TM9 that let's you store attachments outside of the TM database (caveat: we need a few more years of use before we are certain that dumping tens of thousands of files, many gigabytes in size, in a single folder will continue to work optimally); or using a 3rd party tool like TMTools - http://www.otb-consulting.com/content/view/136/241/ (disclaimer: we sell this product); or have really good attachment protocols in place. By the way, a firm has to have similar protocols in place to handle attachments in Outlook/Exchange, OL just isn't as touchy about it, as fast. - Use an internal POP account. - Be willing to live without some of Outlook's sexy features that are, in my and others opinion, not necessary for business email. Your milage may vary and what I view as a nuisance might be a deal breaker feature you have to have. - Finally, even if MAPI worked well enough to trust the sending of documents, it still is limited to the Inbox and not other folders (like IMAP can do, but TM doesn't support). All this means there are a bunch of pros and cons you have to weigh, knowing there is no perfect solution. There will be some give and take, no matter what you decide.

Thanks for your input. However, i still cant locate the setting to prompt users to save sent outlook folder to TM. Could u pls throw more light on this? I also checked under Outlook sync it only offer to sync contact, event and todos but not sent folders.

This is a topic that many of us could write on for a while.... having been involved in all of the email options for many years (including training Time Matters tech support), if you are going to attempt to use the internal email options in Time Matters, someone has to completely understand all of the options and each user must be fully trained and monitored to ensure everyone understands. When compared  to the TM Connect (and a properly set up Documents list to make attachments easier) the Outlook option rises to the top and you will have quicker adoption and better data in Time Matters .

In summary though, no one recommended using MAPI here. In years past I have implemented it, but we had to worry about issues including (as Tom has stated) sending attachment issues and there used to be an Exchange setting (or some other server setting) to increase the number of allowed connections so it worked better.... I still do not recommend it. There is no option to have MAPI see the sent items folder.

To answer your question directly, each user can configure their settings in Outlook. Tools-Options-Time Matters tab. Here you will find the prompt to save when sending an email.

Matt