EDI Concepts Inc

Storing Outlook Sent or Received Email Items

InStar now has the capability of storing the Outlook Email, as a file, just like viewing the email in Outlook. This new feature should alleviate much of the concern about keeping copies of Email in Outlook. This feature is on by default but requires use of the Enhanced Email Inbox in InStar. (EDI Enhanced >>Open Email Inbox or Ctrl+Shift+M) The user may turn off this feature in Main Setup under the Letter tab.

How to View Stored Email Files

  • NEW! Under User Preferences each user can select how they wish to view email when drilling down from a list. Choices are Open in InStar or Open the Outlook email. We recommend trying Open Outlook Item. User may also Right Click on a list item and choose to open an email in InStar or Outlook. See File >> Preferences then on the letter tab make your selections. Recommended settings in image below

  • From the InStar Letter Window open a sent or received email and click the New OL View button.
  • Sent Email IF the file is not available open then close the Email Inbox Under the EDI Enhanced Menu. Since InStar can send the same email multiple times, InStar will store each of those email as files. If you click the OL View button on a sent email which was sent 4 times, InStar will open all 4 of the Outlook Email Files.
  • Received Email

How Storing Original Email Works

  • NEW: Added ability to store a Receipt (Read or Not Delivered) with the Sent Email.
  • NEW: Added a prompt to perform search and storage of email items when closing the Enhanced Email Inbox giving the user control over when the process runs. This process is necessary for Sent Email. Received email is stored immediately. Includes option to “Run and Shutdown” to run and leave for the day. This process should be run daily with Outlook open. If the Shutdown option is selected both InStar and Outlook with be closed when finished.
  • This functionality is only available in the Email Inbox under the EDI Enhanced menu.
  • InStar cannot go back and file items sent or received prior to this update of 2022.07.30 (Final release version not determined yet).
  • When an email is filed, replied to or forwarded, the original Outlook Email is copied as a read only file into EDocs to only be viewed with the Letter Record.
  • When sending an email the process is a bit different because the email must be sent by Outlook AND moved to the Sent Items Folder, before being filed to InStar.
  • Since InStar does not know exactly when Outlook will send the email the process of filing the Sent Outlook Email takes place when CLOSING the Enhanced Email Inbox. This process should only take a moment as long as the user does this daily. If this delay is a bother, we recommend closing the Email Inbox when taking a break.
  • Once InStar files a Sent Email, InStar will move the Outlook Email to a new folder, Sent Items Filed. IF the user feels they must move the Outlook email after sending do so from the Sent Items Filed Folder.
  • IF the user moves the Sent Email out of the Outlook Sent Items Folder BEFORE InStar files the email, InStar will never find the email to be filed. In this circumstance, when InStar cannot find the Sent Email, InStar will prompt the user to simply flag the Sent Email, so it will not be searched for and the Sent Email will not be filed with the InStar Email record.
  • Also of note, there is a drop list on the Email Inbox with the number of days to look back for Sent Email to File. This defaults to 5 days. The user can change the number of days to look back within a range of 1 to 365 days. It will do no good to try to file items Sent or Received before this update of 2022.07.xx (Final release version not determined yet)
  • Keep in mind that each user has their own Outlook so only that user can facilitate filing Sent Email items when closing the Enhanced Outlook Inbox.
  • This has a tremendous advantage of centralizing all Original Outlook Email Files with the Letter record on the InStar Client.

Some Thoughts

  • Every so often we see offices where the users are filing all email into separate Outlook Folders for each client in InStar. This is not bad for those with shared folders on an Exchange server as that does centralize the email making it easy to find by anyone. We feel this new method in InStar is a better way and will save the user a good deal of time while centralizing items within InStar.
  • Many users committed to storing all email on their servers are faced with increased charges for keeping years worth of email. We believe InStar does this much more efficiently and safely and there is no room for user error as long as the user just leaves Email Items in the Sent Items Folder until InStar files the Outlook email Item.
  • We believe that storing the email in InStar to be more efficient not just time wise but also for disk space. We found our email to be on average about .33 of a MB. If we do a little math that would mean to store 1 GB of email files would equal 3,030 email items and if you wish to take that to a terabyte that would be 3,030,000 email items which equates to 3,030 Folders in the InStar\EmailAtt Folder. Even if you cut this in half, by assuming your attachments are much larger, that is still 1.5 million email files stored in a terabyte of space which is a huge amount of email items.

EDI Concepts Provides Support and Programming Services for InStar and NOVA SalesPro