About E-mail Auto-linking in Business Contact Manager

You can automatically link incoming and outgoing e-mail messages (including meeting requests and assigned tasks) to the communication history of specific Accounts, Business Contacts, and Business Projects.

Note: Attachments to e-mail messages are not linked to records along with the e-mail messages. You can save an attachment as a file and then you can link the file to the communication history of the Business Contact Manager record.

To ensure that outgoing e-mail is correctly linked, enable the option in Outlook so that it automatically save copies of your sent (outgoing) messages.

How?

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

2. On the Preferences tab, click E-mail Options.

3. Select the Save copies of messages in Sent Items folder check box.

4. Click OK.

If your messages are stored in different personal folders, you must link these folders as well.

How?

1. On the Business Contact Manager menu, click Manage E-mail Auto-linking.

2. Click the Folders tab.

3. Select the folders and subfolders that you want to link.

4. Click OK.

To enable e-mail auto-linking, do one of the following:

• From an e-mail message, meeting request, or assigned task

  1. Open the e-mail message, meeting request, or assigned task.

  2. On the Ribbon, in the Business Contact Manager group, click E-mail Auto-link.

  3. Do one of the following:

     • To link to an Account or Business Contact, in the E-mail Auto-link dialog box, on the E-mail Address tab, select one or more e-mail addresses contained in the message, and then click OK.

       The selected e-mail message and any future e-mail messages—both incoming and outgoing—that contain the specified e-mail address are now linked to that Account or Business Contact record.

       Tip: If the e-mail address is not linked to an Account or Business Contact record, a new Business Contact record is created.

       The link is displayed in the Communication History section of that record.

     • To link to a Business Project, in the E-mail Auto-link dialog box, on the Business Contact Manager Projects tab, select one or more Business Projects, and then click OK.

       Note: The e-mail address that you want to automatically link does not have to be saved to your Address Book or Business Contact list prior to setting up e-mail auto-linking.

• For e-mail addresses that are included in Account or Business Contact records

  1. On the Business Contact Manager menu, click Manage E-mail Auto-linking.

  2. On the E-mail tab, select e-mail addresses from a list of all the e-mail addresses that are listed in your Account or Business Contact records.

  3. Click the Folders tab.

  4. Select the e-mail folders that you want to search for the selected e-mail addresses. The e-mail messages are linked to the Account or Business Contact records and are listed in the communication history of the record.

     This method links e-mail messages received in the past and present as well as those that will be received in the future.

Note: If Business Contact Manager for Outlook is set up so that multiple users can access its database, by default the e-mail messages linked to your Accounts and Business Contacts are also shared with these users. For more information about the effects of this choice on privacy and security, see Effects of sharing your Business Contact Manager database on E-Mail Auto-Linking.

Stop automatically linking e-mail messages

You can turn off e-mail auto-linking for all records or for individual Accounts or Business Contacts.

Turn off e-mail auto-linking for all records

1. On the Business Contact Manager menu, click Manage E-mail Auto-linking.

2. In the Manage E-mail Auto-linking dialog box, on the E-mail tab, click Clear All.

Turn off e-mail auto-linking for an Account or Business Contact

1. On the Business Contact Manager menu, click Accounts or Business Contacts.

2. Click the record that you want to stop automatically linking e-mail messages to.

3. On the Business Contact Manager toolbar, click E-mail Auto-link.

4. Click to clear the check box for the e-mail address that you do not want to be automatically linked to the record.