Sending an e-mail to a customer from the contact Screen

Creating an e-mail template folder in Outlook
Creating the Template E-mails
Turning on the Ability to use Email Templates in SMP
Using the Email templates
Using Graphics in Templates

E-mail is quickly becoming the communication means of choice and you can effectively communicate to your customers directly from the contact screen in SMP. Since SMP relies on Outlook as your e-mail client you have all the benefits associated with using Outlook such as your send folder to store your sent email and rules to govern where the sent email should be saved. For further information on using Rules in Outlook see the Outlook Help file.

Although Outlook allows you to create an unlimited amount of Signatures they are cumbersome to select and limited in their use of graphics. SMP allows you to select e-mail templates that you design in advance so that each of your e-mails have a message or is custom to the specific subject. For example, if you routinely write quotations to customers you may find that the e-mail you write is fairly standard. Creating a template with the verbage already written saves you time as well as keeps all your quotation e-mails consistent.

Creating an e-mail template folder in Outlook

• In Outlook, if your folder list is not currently visible make it so by selecting "View", "Folder List"
• Select "File", "Folder", "New Folder". the "Create New Folder" pop up window will appear.
• When naming your new folder the word "template" must be in it. In our example our folder is called SMP_Template.  

Creating the Template E-mails

• Start a new message by selecting "Actions", New Mail Message
• Leaving the "To" field blank create an e-mail including subject. 
• For the Salutation you can use SMP specific codes to personalize your emails to the recipient. These are pulled from the contact information on the customer screen. The usable fields are:
  • Addrby 
  • Salutation
  • FirstName
  • LastName

  As in the example to the right, we have used Dear Addrby. When the e-mail is generated "addrby" will automatically fill in with the information stored in the addrby field from the contact form in SMP.

• Save your template by clicking "Save" from the "File" menu or the Save button on the toolbar. The file is automatically saved in your Drafts folder
• Using standard drag and drop move your new template from Drafts to your Template folder.

Turning on the ability to use Email Templates in SMP

Before SMP will allow you to use Templates you need to turn the option on on "Tools" , "Options", "General Tab". Set the "Use Email Templates" to YES

Using the Email templates

• Select the button to the left of the email address for the person whom you wish to send an e-mail
• The "Send Email" window appears as shown below
• From the Templates Folder dropdown, select the folder that contains the template emails. only folders with the word "Template" will appear in  this dropdown.
• The templates stored in the folder will be displayed in the Select Template box.
• Choose a template or choose None for no template. Click "Create Email"
• Your email is created and ready for you to customize

Using Graphics in Templates

The use of graphics is becoming more common as more and more email programs can read HTML based emails. To embed graphics into your email template

• Create your template in Outlook as described above.
• Check to see that your email is set to be written in HTML by selecting "Actions" from the e-mail toolbar and being sure HTML is selected 
• Copy and paste the graphic into your email. Use graphics that end in .jpg or .gif if possible for compatibility with all HTML email programs
• Save your email template as described.
• The graphic will be sent with the email. Any email program set to read HTML will see the graphic when the preview the email. Any text based email program will receive the graphic as an attachment.