Sneak Preview: IMAP Email Integration for Apptivo CRM

Here at Apptivo we are very excited to announce what may be our biggest improvement to date: comprehensive email integration with any IMAP based email system. While our CRM system has had support to track outbound emails up to this date, this new e-mail integration takes the integrated approach to CRM off to a whole new level.

It’s a known fact that these days in business, employees spend vast amounts of time within their email program. This makes it paramount for a business to keep a tight integration between their email client and other business tools. Not only this, but 2013 continues the trend of “bring your own device” and working from home, introducing many more applications and devices which scatter your communications in multiple places.

With Apptivo’s upcoming email integration, these are all worries of the past. This system will seamlessly integrate with any device, and nearly any email provider. Imagine this: you respond to a prospect’s email before you leave work, then at dinner you trade more emails from your phone, finally you head home for the night and send one last email to the customer. When you come into the office the next morning, you’ll log into your CRM system and be able to see each email back & forth for this prospect by simply bringing up their sales lead. No extra addresses to email a copy, no fumbling about with some special app, you simply continued to use your existing email tools, and it just works. This is the experience which Apptivo’s IMAP email will offer, and we hope you are as excited as we are!

What is included in this email integration?

Our email feature is composed of three primary components:

1. Settings
2. Central Email Dashboard
3. Filtered Email Tab

The settings pages are where you will enter in your email provider’s IMAP information. Each user can set up multiple email accounts within the system, and they can select which address to use by default.

The central email dashboard shows a listing of all emails from your inbox, regardless of who they were received from. This page is available within your personal dashboard immediately after logging in to Apptivo. Near the email you’ll find the social news feed, central calendar, task list, follow ups, and your assigned objects. All of this information is available within a single click of each other, bringing your entire business operation together into one screen.

Finally for the most impressive feature of the Apptivo email tools. When viewing any object in the system, such as a customer from your CRM apps, you will have a tab for “Email”. By clicking on this tab, you will see a list of emails related to this customer; including both sent and received mail, from you and your colleagues. This is a complete history of email interaction between your company, and this customer. It even works across multiple apps, so an email to a customer would show up when viewing that customer, or any of their projects, invoices, timesheets, etc.

What is IMAP, and why is it better than POP?

IMAP is a standard protocol which email clients to use to download email, the other common email protocol available is called POP. While this may not seem like it matters to you, trust us, it does! IMAP offers many benefits over a POP based solution, which can save you time & headaches. The key advantages resolve around integration between your devices & software. With an IMAP email solution, every device reads the same email. So if you mark an email as read on one device, it is read on all devices. If you send an email from one device, it is available in the sent folder on all devices. This consideration made it an absolute must-have for Apptivo to integrate with the IMAP protocol.

When will Apptivo’s IMAP email support be available?

Update: in order to assure that everything is done just right, we’ve held back the IMAP integration for next Monday, January 21st. We’ll keep you in the loop with updates via our blog and social media.

The first release of our new e-mail tools will come this Sunday on January 13th. This initial release will allow users to play with the new interface, and test a few features. On January 26th, we’ll be making the complete feature set available to all of our users. This second release will include notable items such as advanced security rules, more configuration settings, improved usability, as well as a few special surprises we have in store.

How can I learn more about connecting my email to Apptivo CRM?

If you are interested in being notified as soon as these new features are released, send us a feature request using our contact form. We’ll be happy to send you email updates as changes are made, and we’ll include setup instructions to get your account connected. We hope to hear from you!