Emailing into Freedcamp
Description
You can create tasks, discussions, issues and upload files by sending emails to Freedcamp. Unlike other systems, it is implemented slightly differently in Freedcamp. For example, we allow anyone outside Freedcamp with email-in to use it. We also allow regeneration of emails, enable this feature automatically for new projects or turn it on for projects when needed and will be used.
This feature is available in all paid plans.
How to manage
This feature is disabled by default. Only the account owner can turn it on and manage it.
Permissions
When enabled, project group administrators and all project users, except users having read-only access can access, email-in emails from under project application cogwheel icon (more on it later). If project users do not have access to Tasks, for example, but need the ability to create tasks by email, simply share email-in.
How To Enable
When disabled - project users can only request a project owner to enable it.
The project owner can enable this feature for each project group or a project individually.
Go to My Account page (1), select Email In (2) and enable it (3).
Please read the hint provided (1) and close it.
Start enabling email-in for project groups (2) or individual projects (3).
You can regenerate all emails (4) and if you want to enable it for new projects - use (5).
Note: When Email In is enabled for a new project and you use Project Templates - a new set of emails will be automatically created for the duplicated project.
When enabled
When email-in is enabled, users may start using it:
from applications, they have access to.
(1) to copy to clipboard and close and (2) to copy all their available emails as a CSV list (check the section "Easy access to your Email Ins" below).
The account owner can also access the Email-In from My Account page.
Note: Even though you can see only projects you own on this page, "Export CSV' will generate a file containing also emails in projects you do not own and where the email-in feature is enabled.
When you copy a link (1) you have confirmation pop-up (2) and hint (3) showing what was copied to a clipboard. Since each project application has a unique email address your clipboard will contain something like:
sXDx07z+[tasks|discussions|files|issues]@s.freedcamp.com
Simply paste it into your email client and edit to post to a project application you want.
For example, sending an email to sXDx07z+tasks@s.freedcamp.com will create new tasks in that project. The recommended way, however, is to export all your emails as a CSV file and import it into your email client in one go (check the section "Easy access to your Email Ins" below).
How we interpret your email
When using Email-In with Issue Tracker
You can specify issue type directly in the email-in email (new supported values are shown below in bold):
YOUR_HASH+issues+[task|bug|cosmetics|exception|feature|usability|performance|auto-reported]@
* When using Email-In to upload files
When using Email-In to upload files to Files application in your project:
- you can add space+slash / at the end of your subject line and specify the exact folder name you want files to be uploaded to.
- if you do not want to add descriptions to files, simply remove a subject line.
- if you want files to be uploaded to a specified folder start your subject with /your_folder/etc. to specify a path to upload your files.
Examples:
Subject: "New feedback from a client /Feedback/18_Nov_2016"
All attached files will be uploaded into folder Files/Feedback/18_Nov_2016 with the description "New feedback from a client".
Note: There must be a space separating the subject and a folder if it is specified.
"New feedback from a client<space>/Feedback/18_Nov_2016"
Subject: "/Feedback/18 Nov 2016"
All attached files will be uploaded into folder Files/Feedback/18 Nov 2016 with no description.
Subject: ""
All attached files will be uploaded into folder Files with no description.
If the folder does not exist - it will be created. For example, the subject "New feedback from a client /Feedback/18_Nov_2016" will create folder '18_Nov_2016' in /Files/Feedback and if 'Feedback' folder does not exist too it will also be created in /Files.
You can use spaces in folder names when you specify folders in the subject line:
"New feedback from client /Feedback from client/18 Nov 2016"
** Using TO and CC fields to assign and subscribe team members
You can assign tasks and issues as well as subscribe your team to them by adding their Freedcamp emails into TO and CC fields in your email.
Send an email to your designated email-in address (1), add a person to assign a task or an issue into 'To' (2). Note - all extra recipients can be added (3) but will be ignored by Freedcamp during email parsing.
Add all team members into the 'CC' field, if you want to subscribe them (4).
The email subject will become a task or an issue title (5) and email body (6) will become a description.
Below you can see a task example that was created using this method. You can see that Freedcamp has identified a task creator using the FROM field from the email you sent (A). Team member added to 'To' field was assigned (B) and team members which were added to 'Cc' are subscribed to a task.
If you add your own email to 'To' or 'Cc' fields, you will receive an email notification from Freedcamp back when the item will be received and posted by Freedcamp to your project:
If need to, you can 'Reply' (A) and post a new comment back by typing above designated line (B).
*** When using Email-In to create tasks
You can add space+slash " /" at the end of your subject line and specify the exact task list name you want a task to be added to. If the task list does not exist, or not specified in a subject - the task will be added to the first task list.
Examples:
Subject: "New feedback from a client /Feedback"
A task will be created in the task list 'Feedback' with the title "New feedback from a client".
Solo projects
In solo projects (where you are the only user) tasks and issues will be assigned to you.
Emails from non Freedcamp project users
If Email In was sent from an account not matching any Freedcamp user's account in a project - you will get following confirmation email:
The same avatar, along with email it was sent from, will be used in Freedcamp:
HINT: Make sure you are creating items in Freedcamp by sending emails from an email account matching your Freedcamp account.
Hints and tips
Images in email signatures may end up being uploaded as attachments to your tasks. Please delete text, inline images and attachments you do not want to be posted before emailing into Freedcamp. If it is too late or it is hard to impose rules to 3rd party customers using email-in in your project - you can periodically remove unwanted files in bulk as explained in this blog post.
We suggest to always use the BCC field for email-in if you also want to send the same email to other recipients. If you don't and your recipients reply with the 'reply to all' option - each such reply will create a new task or a new discussion. This is probably not what you want.
Easy access to your Email Ins
Enable easy access to your Email-Ins by importing them all to your email client following these steps.
We use Gmail as an example, but most email clients have the same concept of importing a contact list and contact groups which are used later by providing type-ahead hints.
1. Start by exporting all you available emails as a CSV file (2):
2. If you intend to import to Gmail use this to get better results.
- rename column titles to First Name and Last name as shown (1)
- shorten project names with find/replace feature to make future use with type-ahead hints to works faster and with less typing (2). We learned it while testing and decided to share it. You want to avoid typing many characters in your email client before the auto-suggestion feature shows you the correct email.
See below shortened project names list imported on the left side compared to unedited on the right side. You can expect your emails right at your hands with less typing in 'To' field in your email client with the list on the left:
You still have our original project names as shown above.
3. Go To Contacts in Gmail and select Import
4. Select CSV
5. The new version of Google Contacts does not support import function (software development is not easy even for Google) so you will be prompted to switch to the old version. Go ahead.
6. Click "Import Contacts" (1), select your CSV file (2) and hit 'Import' button (3)
7. Contacts will be imported into a group having timestamp as a name
8. Rename it
9. If you need to add more emails to your new projects - simply select existing contact group(s) and import.
10. Now you can start using imported emails. Start typing (1) and use type ahead email client suggestions (2). Do not forget to remove unnecessary text when forwarding like email signatures and headers like "---- Forwarded message" etc. (3)
This completes pro-email-in setup and makes sure you have all the emails you need at hand, to post an idea or to forward important requests from a customer or contractor to your projects!
Security
Our implementation is slightly different from other vendors. We do not validate incoming email FROM allowing you to share such email with people outside your project allowing them to send you files, report issues and assign tasks.
Please do not share this email with people you do not trust. If email is not used as intended simply regenerate it as were shown above and share it with your team again.
Fair use policy
Please do not forward all your emails to Freedcamp. It is not developed to replace your email client. We monitor the rate of emails created by users and reserve the right to remove this feature from the abuser account.
Feature requests and feedback
Please post your request here.