Save an email directly to Alf??

[usuf]

Hello, I'm new to Alfresco and I was wondering if its possible to save an email or attachment from a mail client like outlook, directly to Alfresco. Having to save an email to a middle-man type folder on a computer, then uploading it to Alf seems pretty clumsy to me, is there a way to bypass this??

Any input would be much appreciated, thanks ;D

[mikeh]

We're currently developing an IMAP interface which would fit this requirement. It should be available "soon".

Thanks,
Mike

[usuf]

We're currently developing an IMAP interface which would fit this requirement. It should be available "soon".

Thanks for the quick response Mike, that feature would truly be, beyond cool 😜

[jpfi]

Hi,
I agree that the coming IMAP feature is going to be extreme cool.
But there are several other ways to connect outlook with alfresco for the moment:

• mount your alfresco repo or only a space via WebDav or CIFS and store your attachent using outlook save attachment dialog


• my company (Westernacher) offers a buyable outlook plugin which accesses Alfresco via WebScript Api. You can use this plugin e.g. to archive your mails via Drag&Drop with outlook or by using Outlooks Rules Engine. Alfresco Folders are somehow mapped in your outlook mailbox folder hierachy


• And i'm sure that there are some other approaches out there

Cheers, Jan

[sduckworth]

Another alternative for enterprise ECM users is to use our (Opsera's) email management tool OpsMailmanager, which extends the basic drag & drop of individual emails into Alfresco now released in Labs 3.2.
We are an Alfresco Gold Partner and have collaborated with Alfresco on OpsMailmanager, which provides extra value-add functionality on top of the Labs 3.2 IMAP integration. Specifically, it automates the filing of emails and attachments to Alfresco folders based on email properties, identifies duplicates to avoid unnecessary storage, and can be used to trigger Alfresco workflows from the email client. It works with Outlook, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird and any IMAP-based email client. It is good for ECM users needing to reduce email storage and make it easy for lots of users to store high volumes of emails in the central Alfresco repo.

[zaizi]

Specifically, it automates the filing of emails and attachments to Alfresco folders based on email properties, identifies duplicates to avoid unnecessary storage, and can be used to trigger Alfresco workflows from the email client.

Could this not be achieved using content rules in Alfresco, anyway?

[gravitonian]

The email filing functionality can indeed be constructed with an Alfresco rule, that is how we actually started implementing this feature. However, now we do not use a rule anymore because of the following reasons:

1) When OpsMailmanager is installed the complete email filing folder structure does not usually exist and is created on the fly, and then it is easier to not use a rule but instead a behaviour policy that detects "inbound email filing folder" based on property file settings.
2) Works also better when you want to change the names of the email filing folders before installation, such as to another language.
3) It is much easier to switch to using another email filing folder structure without having to move a rule etc.
4) It is easier if you want to add multiple email filing folder structures with different permission structures for different groups of users.
   (i.e. user A files emails into one folder and user B files emails into another folder)
5) It is faster not using a rule as then you do not have to check everything that the Alfresco Rule executer does

/Martin Bergljung