Categorization of Items Between eWay-CRM and Microsoft Outlook

You can recognize whether the email is already saved or calendar is synchronized with eWay-CRM by the Outlook category. This way you get a complete overview of your emails that are saved to eWay-CRM either manually or automatically.

eWay-CRM allows you to categorize not only emails, but also calendar events and tasks that are synchronized between eWay-CRM and Microsoft Outlook.

The advantage of the eWay-CRM Premium version is the fact that you can automate the categorization with categories created right to your needs.

Select Categories From List

First, you have to set categories that will be used for categorization of items in Microsoft Outlook. There is wide variability in eWay-CRM Premium and you can create categories that correspond with your needs. You can easily categorize items according to territories you sell to, by company division, products, etc., or you can even use categories according to user roles.

To choose categories that can be used for categorization, go to Administration application (if you have appropriate permissions). In the Groups section, create new category or select any existing group you want to use for categorization. Open the Group window by double-click and mark the Used for categorization in Outlook check box (this option is currently available only in the old administration application). By marking this checkbox you determine that this group will appear in the list for Outlook items categorization. We do not automatically create categories in Outlook. Category is created in Outlook after it is assigned for the first time. It is also recommended to mark those groups with flag Is Category. For more information about settings on the group card, go to Group Card.

Important for tasks categorization: If you want to synchronize categories on tasks, you need to mark group as Used for Categorization in Outlook and as Is Category. If both options are not marked, synchronization of categories on tasks will not work correctly.

Automatic Categorization

It is used to automate repeated steps - while saving an incoming email to the system, the email will be always categorized with the pre-select categories. Of course when needed, automatically assigned categories can be changed, some remove and some new add.

To  activate the automatic categorization, go to the Emails tab in eWay-CRM Settings where you can find the Automatically categorize saved emails. After marking this checkbox, you can select categories that ought to be linked to every email saved to eWay-CRM. In the Premium version, there are listed categories that you have selected or created in the previous step. In the previous Basic version, there is only one predefined category eWay-CRM. Once you select desired categories, move to Microsoft Outlook and start saving emails.

Possibilities of automatic categorization is good to combine with possibilities of automatic email tracking; the description of all options can be found in thes article Automatic Email Saving Into eWay-CRM.

No matter what of the listed ways of saving emails to eWay-CRM you choose, every incoming message will be saved to the system from your user account and marked with the selected categories. Note that emails saved using Drag&Drop won't get the selected categories in Outlook.

You can also be asked for a category while sending an email, but you need to have activated outgoing emails tracking - see Automatic Email Saving Into eWay-CRM.

Similar automatic categorization can be set for tasks and calendar events.

Manual Categorization

If you don't want to use automatic categorization or an email was not automatically categorized (e.g. email wasn't saved to the system because of set conditions for email synchronization) you can still categorize it manually. Just open the email message in its Microsoft Outlook window and select the category in the bottom part of this window.

Color Differentiation of Categories in Microsoft Outlook

For maximal effect of categorization, we recommend to add specific colors to each new category. Only by this way you can distinguish for the first sight to your inbox which emails are saved in eWay-CRM and which are not.

Automatic Color Differentiation of Categories

eWay-CRM automatically add colors to items in Microsoft Outlook where categories were added using eWay-CRM. You do not have to manually add color to categories, eWay-CRM does it for you.  Categories that do not have any color will have random color that is not already used in Microsoft Outlook. Automatic color differentiation is related to these actions in eWay-CRM:

Email:

• Add category by the Categories field in the email window in Microsoft Outlook (see above)
• Automatic relation to a category when emails are tracked (see above)

Tasks:

• Adding a category using Create Task action
• Adding a category in the Task window via Categories tab

Calendar:

• Resource planning using calendars
• Convert calendar to journal
• Convert calendar to time sheet

Color differentiation will be displayed similarly as in this email:

Manual Color Differentiation of Categories

The dialog for editing categories can be opened by procedure described below. Added colors can be changed by same steps anytime.

1. In your Inbox right-click some already categorized email (or task or calendar event) and in the context menu select Categorize and All Categories. The same result can be reached (Microsoft Outlook 2010 and higher) in the Email window where under the Categorize you find All Categories.
   
   

1. In the new window Color Categories you can find categories that were from imported from eWay-CRM. Those imported are white and have supplement "(not in Master Category List)".  In our case, these is eWay-CRM. Select one of those and then click the New button.

1. In the Add New Category dialog will be automatically pre-filled name of the category and it's up to you to select a color that will highlight the category. It is appropriate to choose a color that it is not assigned to any other category in Microsoft Outlook yet. Confirm your choice and setting by clicking OK.

1. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for other categories that don't have color.
2. As you get back to Microsoft Outlook, categorized email (or taks or calendar event) will be highlighted by a chosen colors.