Web:Email

The Email System allows you to send email from within Prime using your organization’s IMAP/SMTP. Prime interacts directly with your email server, allowing you to send and receive email from within Prime.

Setup

Each staff member using the email system must have the appropriate information entered about the email server they use. This information is entered using the Email Setup tab found on the Staff Member Input screen. Go to Administration. Expand Staff and Add or Search Staff.

1) The Email Setup tab brings up the Email Settings page. The information on this page is required for the proper operation of the email system.

2) The Email Address is attached to every outgoing email. It appears to the receiver as the ‘from address’. The Name is added to the outgoing email so that the receiver can quickly tell who the email is coming from.

3) Only IMAP is supported. IMAP has been chosen for a number of reasons: (1) email is stored on and handled by the server; (2) synchronization is handled between multiple email clients—each email client will show the same email.

4) The Incoming mail server is the name of the server from which email will be retrieved. If your email server requires IMAP connections on a particular port, enter that number. Otherwise, normal IMAP connections operate on port 143. If special security is required, it should be selected as well. Enter the outgoing mail server (outgoing emails use an SMTP connection), port number (normal SMTP connections operate on port 25), and security settings.

5) The username and password for the staff member should be entered. Once all these items have been entered, you may use the Test Incoming and Test Outgoing buttons to test connection settings.

Email Use

Once a staff member’s email setup is complete and successfully tested, that staff member may use the Email to open the primary form that handles email. The Email form provides you with a simplified interface for dealing with email.

1) This form provides you with the ability to get email from the server, read email, reply to email, send email, and delete existing email. You can access email by going to View --> Email.

2) Which opens this screen.

3) The Sync/Get Mail button will contact the server and download basic information about the emails existing on the server. Smaller emails are downloaded. Larger emails only have basic information shown (the download checkbox will not be checked). Larger emails may be downloaded by selecting the email and clicking the Download Selected button. The system stores a copy of the email in Prime. This makes the process quicker after the first synchronization, as already downloaded emails are skipped.

4) To send a new email, click on the Send Mail button. This will bring up a standard form allowing the entry of a recipient (To), carbon copy recipient (CC), and blind carbon copy recipient (BCC). A Subject for the email may be entered. The body of the email is entered in the large white box. If you wish to add an attachment, click the Attach File button. Send the email by clicking on the Send button. Note: Email may be sent from other parts of the system as well, including (for example) the client intake form and the lawyers form.

5) To read an email, choose an email and click on the Read Email button. To reply to an email, choose an email and click the Reply button. If you want to reply to everyone that received the email, click the Reply to All button. To delete an email, select it and click on the Delete button.

Version 16.4.02 Update

August 30, 2017

Two new features are available. You can now copy an email to a case's emails. Additionally, if an email has attachments, you can copy those into a case's document tracking system.

Copy Email to Case's Email

To copy an email to a case's email, choose the case using the dropdown box under the "Copy to Case" button. Select the email to be copied by clicking on it. Then click on the Copy to Case button. This ONLY adds the text of the email to the case's email storage. If there are attachments in the email and you want to save those, use the Copy Attachments to Case's Document Tracking method, below.

Copy Attachments to Case's Document Tracking

To copy an attachment to a case's document tracking, choose the case using the dropdown box under the "Attachments to Case Doc Track" button. Select the email that contains the attachment. Then click on the "Attachments to Case Doc Track" button. The system will work through the attachments it finds in the email. It presents the name of each and asks if you want to add it to document tracking.

You may not wish to add all attachments to the case. For example, many organizations add images (Facebook/Twitter/etc.) to their email signatures. There wouldn't be a point in adding the Facebook image to a case.