Work with emails

Email integration features in Creatio let you track the history of your cooperation with customers. The emails that you receive are bound to other Creatio objects automatically. You can create and manage emails and run business processes by email directly in Creatio.

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To receive and send emails in Creatio, you need a pre-set email provider connection, using which you can add an email account and set up mailbox parameters. Learn more: Set up a personal mailbox.

To open the email sidebar, click the button to open the communication panel → . The email button mark is displayed if you have unread emails.

At the top of the Email sidebar on the communication panel, you can see filters and buttons for managing emails (Fig. 1). You can:

• create a new email

• add a new account and set up your mailbox

• upload emails to Creatio

• filter your emails, for example, display only the outbound or unprocessed emails

Fig. 1 Filters and buttons for email management

Emails are displayed as a list. You can see the sender's data, time of sending, email subject, and the initial text in every email. At the bottom of each email, you can see the icons of all bound objects (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 The bound email records on the communication panel

Send an email

1. Click the button to open the communication panel.

2. Click the button in the communication panel.

3. Click the button to create an email.

4. Fill out the required fields on the email page:

   1. Select the mailbox to send the email in the From field. If you configured an email signature, it will be added to the text area.

   2. Select the recipient's email in the To field. If the email is invalid, the recipient is highlighted red. To remove a recipient, hold the pointer over it and click .

   3. Click the CC and BCC buttons on the top right to display the Carbon copy and Blind carbon copy fields (optional).

   4. Specify the message subject.

   5. Enter the email body.

   6. Paste the image from the clipboard or drag the image to the email text to add an image to the email body (Fig. 3).

      Fig. 3 Dragging the image to the email

      

5. Add an attachment (optional). To do this:

   1. Select the email body → . This opens the file selection window.

   2. Select the file to attach.

   note

   Out of the box, the maximum size of an attachment is 10 MB. You can change this value in the “Attachment max size” (“MaxFileSize” code) system setting.

6. Type the email text or insert a template. To insert a template:

   1. Select the email body → . This opens the template selection window. You can add and modify templates in the Email templates lookup. Use Content Designer to create and edit email templates.

   2. Select the required template → Select.

   As a result, the text of the selected template will be added to the email. Macros, such as the recipient's name and the sender’s name will be highlighted in the text.

7. Select the email body and click the button to use rich text formatting options in the email body (optional).

8. Click Send.

   As a result, Creatio will send the email from the mailbox specified in the From field to the addresses specified in the To, CC, and BCC fields. The email sending status will be changed to “Completed.”

Receive emails

1. Click the button to open the communication panel.

2. Click the button in the communication panel.

3. Select Synchronize email in the menu (Fig. 5).

   Fig. 5 Synchronize email

   

As a result, Creatio will download emails from the folders of the synchronized email server. Email attachments will be added automatically.

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You can set up periodic synchronization of the email account using the email account individual settings page.

Each time an email is downloaded, Creatio automatically performs initial email processing:

• The From field value is associated with the communication options of contacts and accounts registered in Creatio. If the match is found, the Account and Contact fields on the email page are populated automatically.

• If no match is found, Creatio analyzes the values in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. Then, if the match is found, the Account and Contact fields on the email page are populated automatically.

  note

  When matching the To, Cc, and Bcc fields with contact communication options, any contacts connected to Creatio user records will be ignored.

• Creatio also verifies the rules for binding emails to other Creatio objects. Read more >>>

As a result, the user who loaded the email will be specified as the record's author and owner.

Process emails

An email is considered processed if both is true:

• The Account or Contact is specified.
• At least one of the connection fields, for example, Opportunity or Contract, is filled out.

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Emails in which the Contact, Account, and Case fields were automatically populated are not processed.

When uploaded, the emails are processed automatically according to the email binding rules.

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An email is considered processed if the Needs processing checkbox on the email page is cleared. The checkbox is selected/cleared automatically.

The emails that were not processed automatically require manual processing.

1. Select the Not processed filter to display the unprocessed emails. (Fig. 6).

   Fig. 6 Filter emails

   

2. Select the email to process (Fig. 7).

   Fig. 7 Select an unprocessed email

   

3. Bind an email to Creatio records. Learn more about the manual binding of emails to Creatio records: Link emails to existing records.

4. Click Mark as processed. If the email that you processed is part of an email thread, Creatio will offer to process all emails in the thread.

As a result, this email or email thread will no longer be displayed in the list of unprocessed emails and the Needs processing checkbox on its page will be cleared. To view the list of processed emails, select the Processed filter in the filter area.

Add records based on emails

You can create a new record in any Creatio section based on an email from the communication panel. For example, add a new contact based on an email from an unknown sender. Their email address and name will be automatically populated on their edit page using the data from the linked email. If you add another record (i. e., an opportunity, invoice, or an order), Creatio automatically populates its corresponding fields on the contact page with the corresponding data from the email. For example, when you create a new opportunity, the Customer field on the opportunity page contains the name of the account or contact.

To create a new contact record based on an incoming email:

1. Click the button to open the communication panel.

2. Click the button in the communication panel.

3. Select an email.

4. Click the button in the top right corner of the email → Add new (Fig. 8).

   Fig. 8 Add a new record based on an email in the communication panel

   

5. Select an object (the type of Creatio record to create) from the menu, for example, “Contact” (Fig. 9). This creates a new contact edit page whose Name and Email fields are populated using the email data.

   Fig. 9 Select the type of Creatio record to add

   

6. Modify the entered data manually before saving the changes if needed (Fig. 10).

   Fig. 10 The page of the contact created from the email

   

As a result, Creatio will add a new record based on the email data to the Contacts section.

Link emails to existing records

You can bind emails to other records manually:

• by using a special email field where you can specify a Creatio record to bind (Fig. 11)

  Fig. 11 Bind an email to another record using email fields

  

• by clicking the button in the top right corner of the email (Fig. 12)

  Fig. 12 Bind an email to another record using the + button

  

As a result, Creatio will display the bound email in the History tab of the activity page.

Auto-link emails to existing records

To bind an incoming or outgoing email to other Creatio objects, set up the binding rules in the Rules for connecting emails to system sections lookup. For example, if the email subject contains an invoice number, the email will be automatically bound to the corresponding Creatio invoice.

To set up the binding rules:

1. Click to open the System Designer.

2. Go to the System setup block → Lookups.

3. Open the Rules for connecting emails to system sections lookup.

4. Click the Add rule button or open an existing rule for editing on the lookup page.

5. Fill out the required fields (Fig. 13) on the displayed page:

   Fig. 13 Set up the binding rules

   

   1. Specify the rule name, for example, “Email subject with invoice number.”

   2. Enter a regular expression that matches the subject text in the Rule field, such as the invoice number prefix.

      For example, if the following invoice auto numbering format is set up as follows: Inv-1, Inv-2, Inv-3, ..., Inv-n, the regular expression is Inv-[0-9]+. As a result, when the following email is received - “Additional information for Inv-53,” Creatio will automatically verify whether the specified invoice exists. If the invoice is found, the Invoice field on the email page will be populated with the corresponding value.

      note

      To ensure the right connection between emails and other Creatio objects, configure different auto numbering patterns for different system objects. For example, the auto numbering pattern is “Inv-0” for invoices, “Ord-0” for orders, “Cont-0” for contacts, etc. Set up the record auto numbering in Creatio via the system settings.

   3. Fill out the Object for connection field group. To automatically bind emails to Creatio objects, select “Activity” in the Object field. In the Column field, specify the field to bind. Creatio performs the match search using the email subject. It is located in the Subject column.

   4. Fill out the Connected object fields group. In the Object field, select the Creatio object for which the rule is set up, for example, “Invoice.” In the Column field, select the column to perform the match search. In this case, the column is Number.

6. Save the rule.

7. Add the rules for other sections in a similar way.

As a result, when uploading messages to Creatio and sending emails from Creatio, the message subjects will be checked according to the configured rules. If the match is found, the connection fields will be automatically populated. In addition, such messages will be automatically considered processed.

Working with emails FAQ

Why do I receive an email notification that the login/password is incorrect after mailbox registration?

Email server security settings sometimes block access to mailboxes from third-party applications. If you entered the information correctly during the email account registration, but still received a notification about an incorrect username or password, do the following:

1. Enable IMAP access in the mailbox settings. Usually, email forwarding and POP/IMAP protocol management settings are in a separate group.

2. Enable access to your email account from third-party applications in the email account security settings.

3. In most cases, the email server sends the users an email about an attempt to connect to the mailbox. Confirm the connection authenticity by following a special link from the email.

4. Repeat the mailbox registration procedure.

How do I set up a custom email provider?

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Set up the Email Listener synchronization service before setting up an email provider.

To set up email provider integration, open ports 25 and 587 on the Creatio application server. On the email provider selection page, click the Add provider button, select the provider type and fill out the send/receive settings. Learn more about the detailed procedures for email provider setup in separate articles: Add IMAP/SMTP email provider. Microsoft Exchange / Microsoft 365 email, contacts, and calendar.

Why no emails can be received in Creatio after a successful mailbox synchronization setup?

This can occur if one of the following is the case:

1. The “Activity” object includes a custom field required on the application level.

   To ensure Creatio receives emails properly, modify the field attributes. Make it required on the page level, but not required in the object.

2. The emails received from an IMAP mail server have been downloaded to Creatio and then deleted, or they have been downloaded to any other email client earlier.

   To upload the email to Creatio, change the name of the lookup based on the “EmailSynchronizedKey” object to an arbitrary name.

How to set up a shared mailbox?

Shared email accounts are used for email communication between the support team and users. Shared mailbox setup is similar to individual mailbox setup in general, but has a number of additional steps.

Why are the outgoing emails not imported to Creatio?

You can set up the import of all emails from your mailbox to Creatio. Alternatively, you can import emails from specific mailbox folders only. Check your email account folder settings for email import.

If your mailbox security settings restrict access to certain mailbox folders for third-party applications, these folders will be unavailable for importing into Creatio. To permit access to these folders for third-party applications, modify your mailbox security settings.

Also, in some cases, outgoing emails might not be imported from Microsoft Outlook, because not all email servers support saving emails sent from third-party applications.

Why do I receive the “Error sending email, please contact system administrator” message when trying to send emails?

This error might be the result of the following:

• sending emails is restricted on the provider level

• no connection to SMTP server

• one of the following ports is closed on the SMTP server: 25, 465, 587

Contact your system administrator to determine the exact cause of the error and correct it.

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See also

Add IMAP/SMTP email provider

Set up the Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft 365 services

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Resources

Email marketing