Email Read/Unread Status and Open Comments Reset in Communication Center
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Daniel van Doesum
Use Case:
Currently, SmartSuite's email functionality allows users to send and receive emails directly within records, which is highly appreciated. However, there is a need for better management of email statuses once they are committed to a record. Specifically, when emails are added to a record, the "open comments" field is updated to reflect the number of unread emails.
Underlying Problem:
Once users open these emails, there is no option to mark them as read, which means the "open comments" count does not reset to zero. This can lead to confusion and mismanagement of email communication within records, as users cannot easily track which emails have been addressed and which are still pending review.
Current State:
Emails are added to records.
The "open comments" field updates with the count of unread emails.
No functionality to mark emails as read or reset the "open comments" count.
Requested Feature:
Implement a "mark as read" option for emails within records.
Automatically update the "open comments" field to reflect the number of unread emails.
Once all emails are marked as read, the "open comments" count should reset to zero.
This feature would greatly enhance email management within records, ensuring that users can efficiently track and respond to communications without any ambiguity.
Jed Wood
This might sound odd, but this is a deal breaker for our use of the comms center. I just pulled over 10,000 contact records from Highrise for a client, on the promise that they'd be able to handle client comms in SmartSuite alongside other tasks and comments. As it stands, sending out an email from within SmartSuite adds an "open comment" to the record. This seems like odd behavior, but it then really takes a turn for the worse since the email can never be "resolved" nor "marked as read." This renders the open comments badges totally useless- the team will never be able to look at the grid view nor in the client detail record and tell whether there are _actual_ open comments/emails that need attention. Am I missing something?
Jon Darbyshire
Great to hear your perspective, Daniel van Doesum! Following up on this:
- Can you provide more details on how you envision the 'mark as read' feature? For example, should it be a button, a checkbox, or something else?
- How should the system behave if an email is marked as read and then a reply is received? Should it be marked as unread again?
- Would you find it useful to have a 'mark all as read' feature, or do you prefer marking emails as read individually?
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Daniel van Doesum
Hi Jon Darbyshire,
Thank you for your message. To answer your questions:
- I think the way you activate the "marked as read" has something to be said for both ways. By automatically marking it as read as soon as you open the email section (like you normally have with email) it saves the user an operation. On the other hand, a checkbox can make it clearer that you have actually seen the emails.
For now, my preference would be a boolean that you can turn on and off. That way you can set emails back to "unread" at the record level when you want to deal with this later.
- In my opinion, the email thread associated with this record should be marked as unread again.
- I think this could be a nice addition!
Finally, I have one last addition to this feature. It would be nice if a new incoming mail could be used as an automation trigger.
So as an example. I send a mail to a customer at the record level. This email is logged to the record in the communication center.
Once this customer responds to my email, this email is currently also logged to the record in the communication center. (Very nice feature!)
Next, it would be nice if you could use this response from the customer (incoming mail) as an automation trigger. For example, to update the record or to send out a mail.
Hope this helps and especially let me know if you need any more information!