Two-Way Emailing (Conversation View)

About Email Conversation View

Campus Cafe now offers a conversation view in emailed activities that gathers all messages in an email thread and places them in a conversation, similar to the activity tracking edit page for a text message:

Two way emailing/conversation view requirements

In order for two-way emailing to function correctly, users must have their email address authenticated via SMTP Authentication or Multi-Factor Authentication for the messages to attach appropriately. Additionally, users must have their authenticated email attached to only one user account in Campus Cafe. Users can search for their email address in the all people finder to see all accounts with the specific email address, allowing those user accounts to be accessed and the email address removed.

Sending Emails

When adding an email activity to a student, there are two options Quick Comment and Add New:

Quick Comment

Quick comment will add the activity to the student and automatically send the value of the workflow email body to everyone defined as a recipient in the workflow, including (if identified as a recipient) the tracked person, advisors, counselors, faculty, preferred parents, and any addresses listed in the “To” section of the workflow:

Activities are defined as “quick comments” in the Activity tracking template detail page, by clicking the checkbox next to the Quick Comment field:

Add New

If “Add New” is selected, the activity will add:

But the user will have to compose the email to be sent:

This is utilized if changes need to be made to the email before being sent, or if an ad hoc email is to be composed, and no pre-defined email message exists in the system. When clicking the “Compose email” button, a pop up with a composition window appears:

The tracked person’s email address auto-populates, but can be changed.  The email or emails defined in the “Send Email To” textbox will be the only recipient(s) of the email sent, and the only members of the email thread that is generated in the two-way emailing window. A “from” address must be defined from the drop down menu, and a subject must be entered.  The email can be populated from a saved template (not a workflow; one of the saved email templates from Admin Menu -> Saved Templates), or by entering data in the Body textbox.  The textbox can be resized by clicking the icon in the lower right hand corner of the box and dragged to resize.  Email templates can be edited in the body.  Currently, only simple editor format allows editing of the emails. Rich text format editing will be included in a future update. 

Email Thread

Once the email is sent, it will kick off an email thread that looks similar to the text message thread:

Student replies will attach to the activity. The administrator who sent the initial email can reply from the Activity Tracking Detail page by clicking the “Reply” button and composing a response in the text box that appears OR by replying in from the administrator’s email, such as Gmail, outlook, cell phone mail app, or Office 365 Inbox; all will attach the reply to this email thread.