How do I store emails sent to and received from contacts?

Capsule has a dropbox which allows you to keep a history of emails you receive and send to your contacts. The dropbox address is automatically set up in your Capsule account and you can find it by visiting My preferences from your user menu in the Capsule navigation bar then Mail Drop Box.

It will look something like:
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

You use the dropbox in one simple step at the time you are dealing with your email:

• when you receive an email from a contact
  forward the email to your drop box address and the email will be attached to the contact who sent it.
• when sending an email to your contacts
  bcc the drop box address and the email will be attached to the recipients.

In the following example, a user has sent an email to two contacts and copied in the dropbox. The dropbox has attached the emails to the history of each contact in Capsule.

What do I need to check if the dropbox won't accept my email?

Here are a few things to check:

• Capsule authenticates your email address before accepting any email to the dropbox. Each email address you send from must be recorded against your user record in Capsule. To add or amend your email addresses see how do I change my email address.
• if you are using Outlook, use the Forward as Attachment method when forwarding messages to the dropbox.
• Capsule doesn't currently support auto-forwarding from Google. We are beta testing a solution to this and if you would like to try it out, contact us on .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

If you still have a problem, please contact us on .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with a description of the problem you are having and the date and time you sent the message to the dropbox.

How do I create an opportunity, case or track when I forward an email to Capsule?

When you forward an email to the dropbox, you can create a new opportunity by replacing dropbox@ with opportunity@. It will look something like:
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Capsule will auto create the new opportunity, attaching the email and contact.

When you forward an email to the dropbox, you can create a new case by replacing dropbox@ with case@. It will look something like:
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Capsule will auto create the new case, attaching the email and contact.

When you forward an email to the dropbox, start a track by replacing dropbox@ with track+[track name]@. For a track called "welcomepack", it will look something like:
track+welcomepack@12345678.examplecompany.capsulecrm.com
Capsule will auto create a new opportunity or case, attaching the email and starting the track.

I forgot to bcc the dropbox when emailing a contact, what do I do?

No problem, forward the email from your sent folder to the dropbox address.

What happens when the contact doesn't already exist in Capsule?

The dropbox will auto-create a contact and assign you a follow-up task to check the details of the new contact.

Need a follow up task?

Just replace the "dropbox" in the email address with "todo" and the dropbox will automatically create a follow up task for you as well as attaching the email to the contact. Example address:
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

What is the size limit of an email I send to the dropbox?

The maximum email size is 25Mb.

Email systems typically use a method called base64 encoding to attach files to emails. This has an overhead of about 30%, so the total size of attachments should not exceed around 17Mb.

Which contacts does the email attach to?

The drop box identifies contacts from their email address and looks for a match in as per the following rules:

1. For emails sent to a contact and bcc'd to the drop box
   attaches the email to all recipients the email is addressed to (cc's and bcc's are ignored). will auto-create the recipients if they don't already exist.
2. For emails received from a contact and forwarded to the drop box
   The rule depends on how the email was forwarded:
   • If the email was forwarded as an attachment (the preferred method), attaches the email to the sender only, auto-creating a new contact if a match is not found for the sender's email address.
   • If the email was forwarded inline (the default method in Outlook and the only method in GMail), scans the text of the email to determine the sender of the original email. attaches the email to the sender only, auto-creating a new contact if a match is not found for the sender's email address.
3. For emails sent and then later forwarded to the drop box
   The rule depends on how the email was forwarded:
   • If the email was forwarded as an attachment (the preferred method), handles the email as per rule 1. above.
   • If the email was forwarded inline (the default method in Outlook and the only method in GMail), scans the text of the email to determine the recipients of the original email. In this scenario the drop box will only attach the email to the first recipient that the the email is addressed to, auto-creating a new contact if a match is not found for the recipient's email address.

Hints for using different email systems

Outlook

For best results, choose the "Forward as Attachment" option when forwarding emails to the drop box. needs the full email address for matching to contact records, and Outlook tends to drop the email address when using the default forward method. In Outlook 2007 and later you can do this via the actions menu after highlighting the message:

In Outlook 2003 you can drag the original message into a new message to force Outlook to forward the message as an attachment.

If you are using Outlook 2007 or later and you are seeing extra lines between paragraphs in the messages you forward to Capsule, you can resolve this by installing the fix outlook line breaks script. Note: Because this script is developed by a 3rd party we can't offer support for it. You can learn more about why your Outlook email may appear differently for non-Outlook users in this article.

Thunderbird

If Thunderbird offers the choice of email format choose either 'Send the message in both plain text and HTML' or 'Convert the message to plain text'. Given that most email programs handle a combination of text and HTML, you might consider setting 'Send the message in both plain text and HTML' as your preferred option. See Preferences->Composition->Send Options in Thunderbird.

Gmail via Google Apps

Instead of forwarding messages from contacts to the dropbox, you can use the Capsule gadget that appears at the bottom of each message to store the message against a contact in Capsule. For messages that you send to contacts you will still need to BCC the dropbox.

If you use Firefox or Chrome, you can configure Google Mail to automatically BCC your dropbox when sending emails by installing the
Gmail Auto BCC script. Note: Because this script is developed by a 3rd party we can't offer support for it.

Gmail.com

If you use Firefox or Chrome, you can configure Google Mail to automatically BCC your dropbox when sending emails by installing the
Gmail Auto BCC script. Note: Because this script is developed by a 3rd party we can't offer support for it.

Support for international languages

The dropbox handles most character sets used in emails and converts these to UTF-8 for storage. If you forward a message containing a character set that the dropbox doesn't recognise you'll receive a notification email explaining the problem. To get the dropbox to accept the message, select UTF-8 encoding when forwarding the message. Here's an example using Apple Mail: