This guide is for users who connect to their email via POP3 (for incoming email) and SMTP (for outgoing) email. The instructions are based on someone using the Outlook mail client, but you can roughly follow these steps for any mail client.

1. Double-check you're not using Exchange

The main way to tell if you're using Exchange as your mail server (from Outlook) is to look at your accounts.

From the Accounts page, you'll be able to see a list of your accounts; if there's one there with "Exchange" in its title, you're using Exchange. If not, odds are you're using a POP3 email server.

Incoming Email Capture 

• NB: This document is going to assume you're using a POP3 or IMAP mail server for your email. If you have another email configuration, please contact support@affinitylive.com today and we'll help you get incoming email going on your own configuration.

Incoming is email is handled in AffinityLive by forwarding emails you receive over to a special email address tied to each user account. For example:

• AffinityLive domain: demo.affinitylive.com
• User’s username: richard
• Address to forward incoming email to: richard@demo.affinitylive.com

Forwarding email into AffinityLive

Forwarding this email across to AffinityLive is best done at the mail server level - this way, even if you're not online and checking your emails, the mail is still being forwarded across into AffinityLive. This makes the date and time values that AffinityLive stores with captured email more relevant, helps to ensure that your colleagues are up to date with the latest client emails you're receiving, and is generally just better.

The key to forwarding emails across from your mail server - which is likely to be a web host of some description - is to log into a control panel provided by your email providers, and choosing to "forward" your emails to the address in the format provided above.

Forwarding is often provided so that users who are travelling - or otherwise unable to easily check their email account the normal way - are able to get their email sent to a different address.

• NB: When you choose to forward your email from your mail server's control panel, make sure you choose to "forward and retain a copy on the server" or similar if you have such an option; this ensures that your emails both go into AffinityLive and also end up in your inbox. If you turn on forwarding, and emails stop coming through to your inbox, then all of your emails are being sent into AffinityLive and potentially lost; make sure you don't do this, and whenever you make a change, test it quickly by sending yourself an email, or even better, getting someone external to send you an email (friend, family, or a webmail account you have access to).

Different mail server and hosting companies will have their own method of configuring email forwarding, but rest assured that almost all of them can provide this functionality. It is mostly a case of just asking for access to the control panel, either from your internal IT staff, or from your hosting/email company.

Hints for determining your email server

If you don't know who provides your email/hosting service, there are a couple of tricks for helping to work it out.

Looking at the mail account name

Using the technique above in "Double-check I'm not using Exchange", see if the name of the account gives you any hints to who's providing it for you.

Looking at the incoming email server

Picking up at the end of the "Double-check I'm not using Exchange" section above, double-click on your default account. Depending on your version of email client, you might need to click on a "Servers" tab.

The secret is to look for the "Incoming Mail Server", especially if the Account Type is POP3. The incoming email server - in this case of the above screenshot, smtp.hostingcompany.com - will help you work out who is hosting your email - in this case, www.hostingcompany.com - and from there, you need to try and contact them to try and get access to the necessary control panel(s) to get your email forwarded to your AffinityLive address.

Outgoing Email 

Capturing Outgoing Email in AffinityLive is best achieved by using AffinityLive's servers as your outgoing email server; that way, we take care of the rest. Using us as your outgoing server means you benefit from our systems being configured to automatically BCC all emails from your domain into your AffinityLive system, so just by using this email server for all emails that go off-site, you’ll benefit from automatic logging.

To enable the outgoing email settings for your AffinityLive domain, go to "Integrations" under your user account, and then scroll down until you see the Outgoing SMTP box.

Hit "Connect", and you'll be presented with a box like the one below. Note, however, that in place of the red text, you'll have details that you can use to configure your mail server.

While different mail clients use different words, you'll probably find the details you need are:

• Outgoing Server: The server address listed in the Outgoing SMTP server section.
• Outgoing Port: Either Port 25 or Port 587 will work. Some ISPs block outgoing connections on Port 25, so if you're not sure, use Port 587.
• Outgoing Server Username: Your username will be provided once you enable the Outgoing SMTP server section.
• Outgoing Server Password: Your password will be provided once you enable the Outgoing SMTP server section.
• Security: use Basic or TLS as your authentication mechanism.

Alternatively, if all of this is Greek to you (and you're not Greek), then relax as we take you through the steps, one at a time.

Step 1 - open your default email account

The first step is to get into your email account settings, as described above in "How can I tell if I'm using Exchange?".

Go to "Tools" and click on "Account Settings" (previous versions of Outlook just call them "Accounts")

Once there, double-click on your default email account from the list.

Step 2 - change your outgoing (SMTP) mail server

Once you've opened your account, there is 1 change to make on this dialogue box: locate the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) section, and change the setting to your AffinityLive domain, eg, yourcompany.affinitylive.com.

• NB: Before making any changes, however, make sure you note the old SMTP server name, just in case it doesn't work for one reason or another, and you need to change it back.

Next, click on the "More Settings" or "Advanced Authentication" button.

Step 3 - ensure you're using Authentication

Another dialogue window should now be open. Find the "Outgoing Server" tab, or whichever section allows you to enter a username/password combination for your outgoing server.

Once there, tick the checkbox that says your "outgoing server requires authentication" AND select to "Log on using" specific details.

Use the username and password provided by AffinityLive (on the Outgoing SMTP section of the Integrations screen, which you can find by clicking on your own name in the top right, and then choosing "Integrations" from the list).

Step 4 - be prepared to change your outgoing port

Before you finish, it is worth noting that a lot of ISPs (the people you connect to the internet through) have disabled outgoing email access via the default SMTP port (like a channel) of 25. As a result, it is a good idea to change the Outgoing Port number to overcome these sorts of restrictions.

By going to the "Advanced" tab, you're able to change the Outgoing Port to 587.

Once done, click Save or OK on all of the open dialogue boxes.

Testing Outgoing Email Capture

Testing the Outgoing Email Capture process is as easy as sending an email to a contact who’s listed in AffinityLive. Send an email, and then open their company or contact record in AffinityLive and look at the Activities tab down the bottom; you should see a captured version of email there as a an activity.

Troubleshooting

Make sure the email address in AffinityLive exactly matches the email address you’re sending to, and also make sure the email address you appear to send your email “from” exactly matches the address stored in your user account. If in doubt, test the way your “from” email address appears by using a web-based email service like Gmail.

if you're unable to send emails at all, then the combination of SMTP server, Username/Password and/or Port Number aren't correct. Given there are so many things in this set of combinations that could be off the mark, it is best if you contact support@hiivesystems.com (or call us if you can't send email!) to work through your configuration challenges.