With SuiteCRM 7.8.x having now reached it’s EOL (See blog post here). I’m looking to collect a little feedback on the 7.10.x and 7.11.x email module specifically.
While there is ongoing work on general email bug fixes and other areas in 7.10.x, I’d like to take the chance to focus some of this work into the areas of the email module as a whole that impact the community the most. With that being said:
What specific issues do you encounter when using emails in SuiteCRM? and if you don’t use the email module, what’s preventing you?
Are there any missing features from 7.8.x that you would like to see brought over to SuiteCRM latest?
Have you raised any email related issues on GitHub? if so, are there any you would like to highlight that you feel should have a higher priority?
Are there any general email enhancements or features you would like to see included?
Dillon, one aspect I think could be improved, from the troubleshooting perspective, is having more visibility into the decision of which Email accounts are displayed in the Compose dialog box, in the “From” dropdown.
Often people phrase their issues as “I defined the account, but it doesn’t show so that I can use it” and we’re always a bit lost as to what the reasons are for this. Is the account invalid? Is it only usable by admins? Did it even get saved when it was configured? Is it lacking a From-name? Does it need an inbound to be configured for the same account?
Maybe it would be helpful to have some additional DEBUG-level logging showing all accounts that were considered for that function, and reason for being discarded.
That code could be put into core with some more generalization - not limiting to “Opportunities” module, but for any module that you can get a record id from.
What specific issues do you encounter when using emails in SuiteCRM? and if you don’t use the email module, what’s preventing you?
We use inline images for our customer support frequently. However, inserting inline image is not supported directly in email module. Hence, we have to use Outlook and archive the emails via Opacus Outlook plugin lite. But working in this way is still not ideal because of issue #6470
Are there any missing features from 7.8.x that you would like to see brought over to SuiteCRM latest?
No experience in using email module in 7.8.x
Have you raised any email related issues on GitHub? if so, are there any you would like to highlight that you feel should have a higher priority?
Issue #6470. Understand that there is a fix. Will try it out when 7.11.7 is out.
Are there any general email enhancements or features you would like to see included?
Able to insert inline images directly and need not to use email template
What specific issues do you encounter when using emails in SuiteCRM? and if you don’t use the email module, what’s preventing you?
Are there any missing features from 7.8.x that you would like to see brought over to SuiteCRM latest?
Have you raised any email related issues on GitHub? if so, are there any you would like to highlight that you feel should have a higher priority?
Are there any general email enhancements or features you would like to see included?
Sorry haven’t time to correct grammar issue
Many issues will solved in Sprint 15… after we will see what is working and what doesn’t.
Here is one which my employers loved.
A. You can split the screen horizontally or vertically to email list and email detail view. You can choose and work with email in one time… you don’t missing the overview about situation. And in this spited view you can do many things
B. We want see in list view in TO and FROM don’t only names or if isn’t exist in database the record shows the email… we want new labels in studio with TO (name+email) and FROM (name+email) because it’s save lot of time by working with this list view. Because same email address very offter use contact, account, lead or target. And sometimes the name added by system shouldn’t be good one.
We will see what will done… after we will asking
Suggestion to improvements
A. In FROM is special characters fine… but in TO isn’t… see the link 2019-07-29_1627 - TechSmith Screencast - TechSmith Screencast
B. We want see in list view in TO and FROM don’t only names or if isn’t exist in system we see the raw email… we want new labels in studio with TO (name+email) and FROM (name+email) because i’t save lot of time by working with this view. Because same email address very often use contact, account, lead or target. And sometimes the name added by system shouldn’t be good one.
C: The information when was synchronization finished for emails will also very helpful. Should be in footer or in tooltip on icon of “Check for New Emails” in email list view
D: Didn’t show 2rd level of folders in emails and don’t show all folders… for example you have Email Account → Archives → 2019 or Email Account → Archives → 2018. To this third level you can’t go because it supports only first level of folders. 2019-07-29_1648 - TechSmith Screencast - TechSmith Screencast2019-07-29_1652 - TechSmith Screencast - TechSmith Screencast
E: Can’t clean from email INBOX pop up the old deleted inboxes See the inbox in admin 2019-07-29_1644 - TechSmith Screencast - TechSmith Screencast See the inbox pop up in email module 2019-07-29_1642 - TechSmith Screencast - TechSmith Screencast
F: Have in in bounce list more action for email like Print, Download eml, Move to folder, Copy to folder, Open in new window,
G: Possibility in email user settings to show email in detail view as HTML or CLEAR TEXT.
H: Missing in action menu of email detail view the Flag or Unflag the email.
What specific issues do you encounter when using emails in SuiteCRM? and if you don’t use the email module, what’s preventing you?
Better hooks to manipulate/intercept the message in code ie.attach files from code etc
passing template ID/name used so hooks can take specific actions
ability to pass say a Case ID and pre-populate a list of attachments that are already attached to a case etc, this could be done via hooks on render etc
Right click assign to case/account etc instead of relationships.
when assigning email to case/account etc then assign email to the assigned user of that case/account etc.
ability to create more persistent [Case: XXX] subjects and also maybe within the body as well as clients like to edit this, seems to only use string match instead of a regex string.
ability to hook on inbound emails at various points, ie if Email has not been assigned to a case it will have a hook to allow us to create our own routing, also pre-routing hook etc so its possible to decide what we want to do with it, post-routing hook so we can do custom actions based on inbound email
bounce detection for manually sent-emails
Are there any missing features from 7.8.x that you would like to see brought over to SuiteCRM latest?
Full split view like the old 7.8.x, more like a proper email client such as Outlook split horizontal or vertical.
Are there any general email enhancements or features you would like to see included?
Threaded view for emails
Ability to search by subject/body/from/to etc
We’ve gathered this information and will be using it to assist with planning of Sprint 16. We will continue to monitor this forum post so please feel free to update us about anything you feel would be of benefit to users of the 7.10.x & 7.11.x email module.
centralise emails definitions/admin (in addition to what is currently available): currently too many people get lost when defining emails as this takes place in too many places around the application and the scope of each definition is not always clear at 100% (specially for first-timers)
make adding inline images easier
allow raw email editing (I really mean just RAW with no filter or limitation whastoever)
orphaned emails: there are several circumstances under which emails become orphaned in the system: it would be useful to have a way to get rid of these or to assign them to some module/user. Currently they just take space and they are invisible
rules to decide whether certain emails should be imported form email server (related to orphaned emails)
dropdown to select email to send as well as other variables (sender name, server, etc: starting from more feasible feature and, a little at a time keep on implementing additional features)
I would like to add a few things not entirely related to the “email client” but SuiteCRM Email in general.
ESP support - From sending email through an API to receiving webhook events
Campaigns and Workflow manager are heavy Email users.
Both of which can leverage ESP traditional features, from higher throughput when sending to advanced email tracking.
All top ESP have webhooks that would ping back Suite to inform the result of the email sent. (delivered/bounced/read/etc)
Some ESP SMTP will confuse SuiteCRM email READ event due to email scanning, in campaigns, they will be shown as READ but that was not the case.
Also, ESPs uses HTTP so no weird configuration or ports blocked. Just add your API Key and voilĂ , with the added benefit of being able to use any FROM address when sending through the ESP, something that no all regular SMTP providers allow (a master account for Email authentication while setting your own from address will fail in many mail servers).
In general, I would say that email is changing a lot, and the Email paradigm Suite still has is the old one, I guess this email stuff can go through the product manager to get a more up-to-date evaluation. Every major cloud CRM has some campaigns and automation that are far away from what Suite currently does.
If you ever have an RFC or PR that needs work just let me know.
Hi just saw this and thought I’d add a couple things that I didn’t see listed:
Allow apostrophes. Currently if the from name has one present (O’Brien, O’Connor, etc.) then when the email is received it shows as
O'Brien
This bug also meant that email PASSWORDS with an apostrophe were not allowed. I forced one of my users to change their email password when I realized this issue. This is specifically present in the outbound email smtp server configuration under each user’s profile but could be present in other areas. I will attach a picture of showing the from name as I receive it.
Email Signatures. Currently, you can add a default email signature for each user, but if you use an email template, it erases that signature. I have tested this on demo. This means that I have to make the same template for each user, each with a different signature.
Outgoing Mail SMTP Server Settings. This entire area under each user’s profile is difficult to setup. I wanted to give you an exact “what needs to be fixed” but to be honest the demo has issues my production doesn’t have, and my production has issues the demo doesn’t have. But whether it is my issue or SuiteCRM’s issue the issues all boil down to: “From” names not being correct, and “Send Test Email” not having the same result as actually sending the email. I tested this on the demo and my production CRM and in both, what you receive from the “Send Test Email” is not the same as what you receive when you send through the actual email composer. This is one of the biggest issues imo because having a “From” name is the difference between looking legitimate or looking like spam and Tests should always compare to the real implementation.
Selecting Email Templates. Currently in order to select email templates, you have to use that popup search box which then makes you search again. But what if you want to only select your email templates (because, you know, you can’t use your email signature and an email template so you have to make the same template for each user with a different signature in each)? Well you have to actually select who you are, click search, then scroll down (because the search form pretty much dominates the window, then select your template. I added a photo to show you guys how this is inefficient from a design standpoint.
See how long that was to type, let alone do? The old method (a dropdown list that is always present with your assigned email templates present as late as 7.7) made 1000 times more sense. If you’re not able to go back to that, at least add a “my items” checkbox that we can leave on by default so they just can just search immediately. Or you could add an autofill feature in the email template text field and have it only autofill from the user’s items.
Allow email templates to be edited as RAW text. As the other user said earlier, NO BACKGROUNDS!
Sorry for the long post. I like SuiteCRM very much and appreciate the hard work you guys put in. The email module is still pretty rough, but I know you guys are working on this, along with tons of other features and bugs relating to many other non-email things. This was just me listing the issues that keep my company from fully embracing the email module.
Would Email Thread be possible so that All Incoming email goes into the Same conversation. A Dashlet for all New Emails in Thread (showing related module too) would give a direct Working Task to users as they would need to reply and act on the Responses Received. Currently in Cases module, each reply received goes as a New Case which effects the whole purpose of CASE.
Email settings to Accumulate at One Place. User has to set something in his profile, then Admin -> Email settings and then in the Emails Module Settings to setup Inbound/Outbound Emails. There should also be Better Description and Tooltips for the Options so that it CLEARLY defines what these settings are for.
Can you please open an issue for this on Github? I don’t think there’s an issue yet, and I’ve seen several people complaining about this recently - it reall yshould be fixed. Thanks.
