Double-check you're not using Exchange

The main way to tell if you're using Exchange as your mail server (from Outlook) is to look at your accounts.

From the Accounts page, you'll be able to see a list of your accounts; if there's one there with "Exchange" in its title, you're using Exchange. If not, odds are you're using a POP3 email server.

Hints for determining your email server

If you don't know who provides your email/hosting service, there are a couple of tricks for helping to work it out.

Looking at the mail account name

Using the technique above in "Double-check I'm not using Exchange", see if the name of the account gives you any hints to who's providing it for you.

Looking at the incoming email server

Picking up at the end of the "Double-check I'm not using Exchange" section above, double-click on your default account. Depending on your version of email client, you might need to click on a "Servers" tab.

The secret is to look for the "Incoming Mail Server", especially if the Account Type is POP3. The incoming email server - in this case of the above screenshot, smtp.hostingcompany.com - will help you work out who is hosting your email - in this case, www.hostingcompany.com - and from there, you need to try and contact them to try and get access to the necessary control panel(s) to get your email forwarded to your Accelo address.

 This guide assumes that you're using a POP3 or IMAP mail server for your email. If you have another email configuration, please contact support@accelo.com today and we'll help you get incoming email going on your own configuration.

Incoming Email 

Incoming email is captured by configuring your email account to automatically forward a copy of all incoming email to your Accelo account, allowing Accelo to automatically capture client emails, and ignore personal ones.  The exact steps for creating this forwarding rule will differ depending on your email client, but these details will always be consistent:

• The forwarding process should be performed as soon as the email is received
• A copy of the forwarded message should be kept in your inbox
• The destination for your messages will be your Accelo Capture Address, and will be different for each person who is setting up this rule.  To find your Capture Address, simply click your user icon in Accelo

Outgoing Email 

Capturing Outgoing Email in Accelo is best achieved by using Accelo's servers as your outgoing email server; that way, we take care of the rest. Using us as your outgoing server means you benefit from our systems being configured to automatically BCC all emails from your domain into your Accelo system, so just by using this email server for all emails that go off-site, you’ll benefit from automatic logging.

To enable the outgoing email settings for your Accelo domain, go to "Integrations" under your user account, and then scroll down until you see the Outgoing SMTP box.

Hit Connect, and you'll be presented with a box like the one below. Note, however, that in place of the red text, you'll have details that you can use to configure your mail server.

While different mail clients use different words, you'll probably find the details you need. 

Enable the SMTP Server in your Accelo account - Step 1

The first step in capturing your outgoing email in Accelo is to enable the outgoing SMTP server for your Accelo account.  This is done by:

1.  Opening the Integrations page, located under your user icon, and selecting Integrations.
2.  Select the "SMTP Server" heading, and press the Connect button

Open your default email account - Step 2

Now that the outgoing SMTP server is enabled for your Accelo account, the next step is to get into your email account settings, as described above in "How can I tell if I'm using Exchange?".

Go to "Tools" and click on "Account Settings" (previous versions of Outlook just call them "Accounts")

Once there, double-click on your default email account from the list.

Change your outgoing (SMTP) mail server - Step 3

Once you've opened your account, there is 1 change to make on this dialogue box: locate the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) section, and change it to Accelo's SMTP server:

• Outgoing SMTP Server: mail-us2.accelo.com

Before changing your Outgoing SMTP Server, take note of your current server's name.  This will be important in case you need to change your email server back.

Click the "More Settings" or "Advanced" buttons, and locate the "Outgoing Server" section.  Enter Accelo's SMTP Server information, found here and on the Integrations page of your Accelo account:

• Outgoing Server Username: Found under the SMTP Server details in your Accelo account's Integrations page
• Outgoing Server Password: Found under the SMTP Server details in your Accelo account's Integrations page
• Outgoing Server: mail-us2.accelo.com
• Outgoing Port: 25
• Security: STARTTLS

Confirm Your Server's Settings - Step 4

Ensure you're using Authentication

Another dialogue window should now be open. Find the "Outgoing Server" tab, or whichever section allows you to enter a username/password combination for your outgoing server.

Once there, tick the checkbox that says your "outgoing server requires authentication" AND select to "Log on using" specific details.

Use the username and password provided by Accelo (on the Outgoing SMTP section of the Integrations screen, which you can find by clicking on your User Profile Icon in the top right, and then choosing "Integrations" from the list).

Be prepared to change your outgoing port

Before you finish, it is worth noting that a lot of ISPs (the people you connect to the internet through) have disabled outgoing email access via the default SMTP port (like a channel) of 25. As a result, it is a good idea to change the Outgoing Port number to overcome these sorts of restrictions.

By going to the Advanced tab, you're able to change the Outgoing Port to 587.

Once done, click Save or OK on all of the open dialogue boxes.

Testing Outgoing Email Capture - Step 5

Testing the Outgoing Email Capture process is as easy as sending an email to a contact who’s listed in Accelo. Send an email, and then open their company or contact record in Accelo and look at the Activities tab down the bottom; you should see a captured version of email there as a an activity.

HTML Email Capture

When viewing captured emails in certain areas of your deployment, such as the Stream, Inbox or View Activity screen, you will be able to see them as they were intended to be seen: with all of the images, signatures, annotations and more natively inside of Accelo. This also includes emails with images inline, bulleted lists and emboldened keywords.

As emails with HTML components are captured in Accelo, they are sanitized for security and styling purposes. So if you find that certain HTML aspects aren't being captured as expected, this may be the result of the sanitization process.

If you notice that emails are not rendering correctly where HTML email capture is shown, please report the issue using the following link: https://www.accelo.com/html-email-bug

Also, to see past messages in the thread, simply click the Ellipses button near the bottom of the email message.

NOTE: HTML Email Capture will not be shown on every screen where emails can be viewed in your deployment. Areas with limited space, such as the Daily and Weekly Timesheets, will show plain text emails.

Troubleshooting

Make sure the email address in Accelo exactly matches the email address you’re sending to, and also make sure the email address you appear to send your email “from” exactly matches the address stored in your user account. If in doubt, test the way your “from” email address appears by using a web-based email service like Gmail.

if you're unable to send emails at all, then the combination of SMTP server, Username/Password and/or Port Number aren't correct. Given there are so many things in this set of combinations that could be off the mark, it is best if you contact support@accelo.com  to work through your configuration challenges.

Different mail server and hosting companies will have their own method of configuring email forwarding, but rest assured that almost all of them can provide this functionality. It is mostly a case of just asking for access to the control panel, either from your internal IT staff, or from your hosting/email company.

Forwarding email into Accelo

Forwarding this email across to Accelo is best done at the mail server level - this way, even if you're not online and checking your emails, the mail is still being forwarded across into Accelo. This makes the date and time values that Accelo stores with captured email more relevant, helps to ensure that your colleagues are up to date with the latest client emails you're receiving, and is generally just better.

The key to forwarding emails across from your mail server - which is likely to be a web host of some description - is to log into a control panel provided by your email providers, and choosing to "forward" your emails to the address in the format provided above.

Forwarding is often provided so that users who are traveling - or otherwise unable to easily check their email account the normal way - are able to get their email sent to a different address.

Note - When you choose to forward your email from your mail server's control panel, make sure you choose to "forward and retain a copy on the server" or similar if you have such an option; this ensures that your emails both go into Accelo and also end up in your inbox. If you turn on forwarding, and emails stop coming through to your inbox, then all of your emails are being sent into Accelo and potentially lost; make sure you don't do this, and whenever you make a change, test it quickly by sending yourself an email, or even better, getting someone external to send you an email (friend, family, or a webmail account you have access to).