MailFlow Update - 4.9.1.3 Available
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The release fixes several minor but annoying bugs but also includes a new time saving feature existing MailFlow users are sure to love.
The new feature adds Ticket Owner and Ticket State selection to the Message Composition window. So what can this be used for? A few examples...
1. When replying to a Ticket in a public TicketBox. I (Agent A) can compose a reply and set the Ticket Owner to another Agent (Agent B) prior to sending the message. This means should the sender reply to Agent A's message, the reply will appear in Agent B's My Tickets. Leaving the Ticket State "Open" would mean the Ticket would appear in Agent B's My Tickets upon Send.
This could be useful in Level 1 / Level 2 Ticket processing scenarios. Also useful for Agents who expect to be out of the office for a few days and want a specific Agent to deal with their tickets.
2. This opens the door for improved collaboration within MailFlow.
Agent A can now compose an email, assign ownership to another Agent, and save it as a draft. The draft appears in the assigned agents My Tickets. Agent B can edit the message and send, or reassign ownership and draft back to Agent A. Previously drafts could not be shared between Agents.
3. MailFlow has a feature to "Copy" a message, creating a new Ticket. This was perhaps useful when the message required a reply on multiple topics by multiple departments. The new feature mentioned above allows one department to answer their portion of the message, set Ticket Owner to "None", select the appropriate TicketBox for the second department topic, and Save. The Ticket appears in the new TicketBox ready for completion.
VisNetic MailFlow 4.9.1.3 is available from our Download page.
Read the Release Notes.
If you have questions or would like a personal demonstration of this new feature, send us an email at sales at deerfield.com.
MailFlow as an Economical Archive Server
Thursday, November 10, 2011
VisNetic MailFlow combined with your corporate mail server enable you to take advantage of all legal, technical and economical aspects of contemporary email archiving.
The MailFlow database stores perfect copies of all company email in a central archive which can safely maintain any amount of data for many years. Users can easily access the archived emails using VisNetic MailFlow.
Configuring VisNetic MailFlow as Email Archive Server
1. Create two new POP3 accounts on the mail server:
Inbound@domain.com
Outbound@domain.com
Replacing 'domain.com' with your actual domain name.
2. Create two new Content Filters on the mail server;
Inbound CF Filter:
Where Recipient matches domain.com, Copy to inbound@domain.com
This filter simply means that all messages accepted by the mail server will be copied to the inbound@domain.com account.
Outbound CF Filter:
Where Sender matches domain.com, Copy to outbound@domain.com
This filter simply means that all messages sent from the mail server will be copied to the outbound@domain.com account.
Note: Content Filters can be added or deleted to meet your requirements. As example, a Content Filter could be created so that any message sent from a local user to another local user by copied to another account for archival purposes. The possibilities are numerous.
Now that we have a method of collecting/copying the appropriate messages, we'll define the archive process.
VisNetic MailFlow
Install VisNetic MailFlow following the standard product installation process.
**Collecting Inbound mail to the VisNetic MailFlow Archive Server**
With VMF installed, log into VMF using Administrator credentials.
1. Select Administration / Message Handling / Message Sources
2. Select 'New'
Defining New Message Source:
- Type: POP3
- Server Address: IP Address of the mail server where the Inbound@domain.com and outbound@domain.com accounts were created
- Description: Inbound
- Port: 110
-Username: inbound
-Password: (password created in mail server for inbound@domain.com)
-The remaining settings can be left as defaults.
-Save the Message Source
Assure access to the mail server by selecting the 'Test Login' button.
Creating the Inbound TicketBox to view the Inbound messages.
1. Select TicketBox Configuration / TicketBoxes
2. Select 'New'
-Name: Inbound
-Default email address: inbound@domain.com
-Description: Inbound
-The remaining settings can be left as defaults.
-Save the TicketBox
Create Routing Rule to route inbound messages copied from the mail server to the Inbound TicketBox.
1. Select Message Handling / Custom Routing Rules
2. Select 'New'
-Description: Inbound
-Message Source: Select Inbound from the drop-down box
-Scroll down to 'Assign to TicketBox'
-Select Inbound from the Default TicketBox drop-down box
-Select radio button to 'Assign to the Default Ticketbox'
-Save the Routing Rule
Test Archive Server operation
1. Send an email to any account on your mail server.
2. If configured properly the message should be received by the mail server then copied to the inbound@domain.com account defined by the Inbound Content Filter. Depending on the "Check Interval" defined in Messages Sources, the message will be collected by the Archive Server and delivered to the Inbound TicketBox.
Tip of the Week: Restrict Ticket Reassignment
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Is there a way to restrict Agents from reassigning Tickets?
This is a function of Agent to Agent security.
Login to MailFlow and select Administration from the left menu, then Security,and finally Default Access Control. Select Agents, Edit.
Note the default for Group Everyone is to have Delete Access to all other Agents.
Set this value to None and All Agents (except Admins) will only be able to Assign to themselves and None, they will not be able to assign to other Agents. They have to be able to Assign to None as that is the behavior when a response is sent to an Inbound Message and the option to not route any responses to themselves is selected.
Once you set the default security for the group Everyone's access to other Agents to None, you can then allow access to some Agents or Groups by selecting the New button and adding more lenient rights.
MailFlow always follows the path of least resistance, so if it encounters two or more rights that are in conflict with one another, it will always select the most lenient (less secure) right.
When to move on from Outlook
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
If you’re receiving 30 or more emails a day, Outlook or any other standard email client is not designed to meet your needs.
Recent studies show that 88% of consumers emailing an online organization expect to receive a response within 24 hours, and 33% say they will not do business with a company if they do not receive a response within an hour of sending their message. Most organizations realize the importance of responsive, professional customer service, yet more often than not they fail to meet their own expectations, or more importantly, their customers. When analyzing why most organizations are not providing quality service via email, you must first look at the tools with which they have to correspond.
As a personal email client, Outlook is an excellent solution to send, receive, and organize individual messages. It also has the lowest learning curve, as company representatives are accustomed to its design and functionality. However, as inbound business email traffic to your organization increases, personal email clients are not equipped to properly route and track messages to meet customer service standards. Automatically routing messages to the appropriate parties or groups, tracking messages and how quickly they are being responded to, alerting executives when messages aren’t responded to in a timely fashion, are all essential functions that are necessary to ensure that business email is being responded to quickly and in accordance with your company guidelines. Personal email clients do not provide this level of functionality.
Email Response Management Systems are designed to remedy these problems, and provide organizations with the essential tools to capitalize on all inbound messages. They are the logical progression from personal email clients to collective business wide email clients, allowing representatives to view all customer history correspondence, create and use standard responses to most frequently asked questions, easily distribute messages to appropriate representatives and more.
Administrators proactively route messages to groups and individuals using highly flexible routing criteria (email to or from address, message content, subject line, etc.), are notified if messages aren’t answered in a reasonable time frame, track emails - who answered what and how quickly, report on overall email traffic and individual performance, and much more.
Akin to the progression from individual phone lines to a phone distribution tree, email management systems automatically route emails to appropriate groups and individuals and ensure quality, timely responses, resulting in vastly improved customer satisfaction and immediate, recognizable ROI.
VisNetic MailFlow 4.9!
Monday, August 1, 2011
Deerfield.com is pleased to announce a new release of VisNetic MailFlow!
VisNetic MailFlow v4.9 helps administrators save time by introducing new features and improvements to streamline configuration while providing departmental managers options to maximize their mail flow effectiveness. MailFlow 4.9 was developed in direct response to customer requests and Deerfield's commitment to continually enhance the software.
Here’s what’s new in 4.9:
Option to Remove Ticket Tracking Data from Subject - Administrators now have the option of where to place MailFlow’s Ticket Tracking Data [123456:654321]. MailFlow uses the data to route and thread incoming messages. Since MailFlow’s inception the tracking data has been added to the Subject line however in this latest release you have the option to add the tracking data to the bottom of the message body.
MailFlow 4.9 also includes the option to remove ticket tracking data entirely. With tracking data removed MailFlow relies on Sender and Subject matching to route replies to outbound messages.
Round Robin Ticket Distribution - A function of Custom Routing Rules administrators can evenly assign Ticket Ownership to selected Agents of a TicketBox. Round Robin Ticket Distribution is ideal for commissioned based leads, ensuring each Agent is receiving an equal number of opportunities as well as balancing the workload.
Regular Expression (RegEx) Support - A regular expression, also referred to as RegEx provides a concise and flexible means for matching strings of text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters. RegEx matching support has been added to Custom Routing Rules and Processing Rules. You might ask, “How can I use RegEx?” Consider this: Every time a customer includes credit card information in an email you would like to send an auto reply reminding them of the risks of sending such information via email. In the Custom Routing Rule you can specify a match using a RegEx string.
Additional RegEx examples and information are available Here.
Assign Agent TicketBox Views when creating/editing a TicketBox – This time saver allows an Admin to quickly add a TicketBox to an Agents view. Let’s say you are creating a new TicketBox and rather than alerting each Agent to add the TicketBox to their list the Admin can simply select from a list of Agents and add the TicketBox to their view for them.
Approval Queue Enhancement – A minor enhancement big on efficiency! Agents assigned to approve queued messages now have the ability to edit and send messages from the Outbound Approval Queue. Previously, approving Agents could only release or return the queued message.
VisNetic MailFlow 4.9 may be downloaded from: http://www.deerfield.com/download/visnetic-mailflow
An update on VisNetic MailFlow v5 – coming this Fall.
MailFlow 5 is scheduled to include:
Additional Browser SupportHTML Support for Standard Responses and Signatures
Mobile Device Support
Message Source IMAP Support
Auto Complete Addresses
Browseable Contacts
Follow-up on Assigned Tickets
More…
If you have any questions or would like a personal demonstration of the new features of v4.9, send us an email at sales at deerfield.com.