Shared Email Folder SM 15 vers SM 17

Problem reported by J Lee - 2/9/2019 at 1:31 PM

Resolved

Hi Everyone

I'm writing to ask our community about the functionality of Shared Resources. In the interest of bring the shared resources into a place where the utility aspect of these features are humming like a fine tuned engine, I wanted to bring up some mud bogs we have run into.

1.a. Shared Email Folders - I have a client that shares 100s of email folders with all his employees. When upgrading from SM 15 to SM 17, they lost 50% or more of there shares. The email folder are just not shared any more. There is no option on a Top Level folder to say share all sub folders with everyone.

1.b. Mapping Email Folders - There should be a setting where you can auto accept all shares that are sent to you. With 100s of shared resources this can be very time consuming to accept every single share one at a time.

2. I see that you have search Shared Contact lists, this is great, I has suggested this a couple of years ago and nice to see it works great.

3. Email Shares and Search capabilities - First the search of a large Inbox seems very slow and you can not search all your folders for in your email folders or in Shared Email Folders. Shouldn't you be able to search all folders a once for a lost email?

4.a. Calendar Shares – I think this is coming in SM 17, The ability to View/Edit Shared Calendars in Outlook desktop and Mobile

4.b. Calendar Shares – The ability to add a Shared Calendar to a webpage, via WordPress Plugin or iframe code.

4.c. Calendar API – Is it possible for me to hire a WordPress Plugin developer to create a Calendar Plugin for Smartermail?

Anyone please add to the list.

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

29 Replies

Reply to Thread

Anne Campbell Replied

2/27/2019 at 9:05 AM

We were using Version 15 this morning and upgraded to Version 17

This morning

We did have a very neat and efficent folder structure "Supplier A-Z / A / ABC supplies / then sub folder PO / Invoice / Statement shared accross full team we all had quick easy access to all communications relevant to our grouping.

This afternoon

All shares are lost and if go through the painful sharing process again the best we are going to have is one long list of folders there doesnt seem to be anyway of displaying as subfolders.

we have had to upgrade hardware to host the new version and it seems to be a backwards step!!!!

J Lee Replied

2/27/2019 at 10:30 AM

Yes not being able to mass share and mass accept makes the process very painful. I have a client that has about 2000 shared email folders and when we upgraded to SM 17 they lost about 70% of the shares.

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Merle Wait Replied

2/28/2019 at 5:05 AM

Wow,, I didn't know the sharing of folders would be an issue in SM17.

Was preparing to upgrade to SM17. Now think I'll wait.

Not sure what the advantage of going to Sm17 for my clients is...

Found out they don't offer video, whiteboard .... and now I am losing my shared folders?

Also don't understand ....

Are you saying you can not have that type of folder structure any more as well?

Anne Campbell Replied

2/28/2019 at 6:01 AM

!!!! DONT Upgrade !!!! please we are in a complete mess you can't have shared folders in subfolder stucture.

All you get is one long list of shared folders so if you want to access and invoice from our supplier XYZ you need to scoll past every single folder to get there. thats if they actually were all shared we lost all our mappings and now You have to map each shared folder individually which is a complete nightmare.

I have a ticket n just now and hopefully I am doing something wrong and there is an easy fix but at the minute, Im stuggling to see a way forward.

We purchased enterpise version solely for sharing functunatlity which once set up previously worked well. Setting up was long laborious task but it worked well.

J Lee Replied

2/28/2019 at 7:00 AM

Hi Thanks for your input Yes my client with 1000s of shared folders is looking at hours if not days of work to reset up their shared email folders system. In the middle of tax season they are hating this.

Please vote and give thumbs up on this and hopefully more will join this post and SM Dev Team will see what a mess this has created.

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Anne Campbell Replied

2/28/2019 at 7:24 AM

I have a ticket raised and SM are looking at it for we are in the UK so time differences not helpful at all.

Currently wondering if sharing is even worth the days of work as it looks like going to be left with a big long list of shared folders to work from.

I really hope this can be resolved its not feeling very Smarter right now

J Lee Replied

2/28/2019 at 8:49 AM

Hi Anne

I had the same ticket, it appears they changed the subfolder view on purpose. I do not understand why? They did say they submitted it for review.

The best thing we can do is try to find more company's with the same problem and get them to complain here.

If you click the little thumbs up, we will get more votes and SM Dev will hopefully fix these problems.

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Anne Campbell Replied

2/28/2019 at 9:22 AM

Surely Logically if the functionality is there to stucture your folders in a sub folder method this must have been added due to demand. If there is a demand for it in a users mailbox why would you not want it in shared folders.

The more I have thought of this since changing to V17 yesterday I can't think of how they expect folder sharing to actualy work in a real life.

Matt Petty Replied

2/28/2019 at 10:34 AM

Employee Post

Hello, I posted some good news to our feature request thread for automatic subfolder sharing. Check it out :D

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a87247/include-sub-folders-in-shared-folder-aka-public-folders.aspx

Matt Petty

Software Developer

SmarterTools Inc.

(877) 357-6278

www.smartertools.com

Anne Campbell Replied

4/17/2019 at 2:46 AM

Hi J Lee,

If you don't mind me asking how are you getting on with your shares?

We are having to manually reinstate all our shares after a lot of them having been lost again, however we don't seem to be able to get them to actually Map after having been shared.

Groups don't seen to work for sharing we have been able to get a odd couple of individual shares to work but nothing consistent.

Just wondered if you had any tips on getting shares to work.

J Lee Replied

4/17/2019 at 8:41 AM

Hi Anne

Well the client with the biggest problem, 1000s of shares. The temp work around is, I have asked them to have two browsers windows open and be logged into both email accounts at once. And to wait for SM to fix this mess.

Once you share the folder, go to the email page where you want to Map and click the three line icon in the lower right corner. If you have Share to map, you will see a button "Map Folder", in that pop up there should be a drop down with all the shares you can map. If you don't see "Map Folder" in the list then you don't have shares to map.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Groups", I don't think the top level folder of any nested folder structure will show up in the current build.

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Employee Replied

4/17/2019 at 8:50 AM

Employee Post

Hi J Lee,

You could also setup Email Retrieval for your users. If you go to Settings > Connectivity > Email Retrieval > New Retrieval Task you can add an IMAP account to the web interface of your users. With this setup they would have the secondary mailbox showing along with their individual mailbox within one screen. As long as you don't setup the SMTP account the users would not be able to send emails from the additional mailbox. I do understand this is a workaround and does not address the sharing feature. But I thought it may help your users.

Anne Campbell Replied

4/18/2019 at 1:30 AM

Thanks,

J Lee, we are doing similar with different browsers, Smartermail fixed a bug with the sharing yesterday, we haven't put the new build in as yet as cant afford the downtime just before long weekend but hopefully get the ability to share back once the new build is put in (public release coming soon according to smartermail)

As for Groups I was meaning groups of users we have a "purchasing Team" group so all relevant supplier folders are shared with all users in the Purchasing group. In SM15 it worked well as you only had to share with the group not 10 individual users but the biggest advantage is that is some one joins or leaves you just have to amend the group not the 1000's of folders.

Rose Karl, Thank you for your suggestion this actually may be better than the current sharing mess, Smartermails decision to not display nested shared folders makes it very impractical to use. Hopefully if the sub folders show in IMAP after some setup time we could have a much better working environment.

Anne Campbell Replied

4/23/2019 at 6:23 AM

Hi Rose Karl

I having been working on your suggestion below and although initially looking like a solution as we are able to show mail box as described above, any changes whether it be deleting emails, moving to emails to sub folders don't seem to be replicated in the source mailbox. Like wise we deleted a lot of Spam from source mailbox(typical first task of the day) however they remained in the secondary mailboxes.

Any suggestions on how we can ensure any changes are fully sync'd?

J Lee Replied

5/13/2019 at 9:50 AM

Any news on this update request

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Anne Campbell Replied

5/21/2019 at 7:50 AM

doesn't look like it!

J Lee Replied

10/4/2019 at 10:58 AM

Just following up on the Share Email Folders problem that happens after upgrading to SM 17. Please post if you still need help on this issue.

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Anne Campbell Replied

10/8/2019 at 3:09 AM

Yeap, its nightmare labour intensive way of sharing now should definitely not be listed a software feature.

Done right it could be an amazing feature but doesnt seem to be on smarter mails radar

Anne Campbell Replied

10/8/2019 at 3:09 AM

Yeap, its nightmare labour intensive way of sharing now should definitely not be listed a software feature.

Done right it could be an amazing feature but doesnt seem to be on smarter mails radar

Derek Curtis Replied

10/8/2019 at 9:13 AM

Employee Post

Just to follow up on this, we're revamping how sharing is handled across the board. We're bring in features from older versions (e.g., the Shared Resources page to show you what you've shared and what's been shared with you) and making sharing simpler. We'll have some more info on this once we get closer to our next release. However, we think much of the headaches around sharing folders -- including sub-folders -- will go away.

Derek Curtis

COO

SmarterTools Inc.

(877) 357-6278

www.smartertools.com

J Lee Replied

10/8/2019 at 10:59 AM

Thanks Derek

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Anne Campbell Replied

10/9/2019 at 1:55 AM

Thanks Derek

We rely heavily on sharing, if any of your developers are interested I'm happy to give feedback from a users perspective on how features layouts etc work / don't work.

J Lee Replied

10/26/2019 at 2:35 PM

@ Derek Curtis Did these updates make into ?

Build 7236 (Oct 24, 2019)

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Derek Curtis Replied

10/27/2019 at 8:10 PM

Employee Post

No, sorry. The sharing changes are pretty extensive and will require a lot of testing on our end. It's not a "minor release" type of change..more like a major release change. It's also being implemented as part of the MAPI, EAS, etc. protocol overhaul that's being done. So we'll have it in testing this coming week, and it will be part of the next MAPI BETA, then rolled out with that Build once it's made public.

Derek Curtis

COO

SmarterTools Inc.

(877) 357-6278

www.smartertools.com

Employee Replied

11/7/2019 at 7:37 AM

Employee Post

Hi Michael,

Although I don't have a date for public release, I can tell you I've seen the changes in testing. The changes include the ability to share sub-folders. I do understand the importance of electing to share sub-folders and I assure you, this will be coming very soon!

Anne Campbell Replied

11/7/2019 at 7:48 AM

Hi Rose,

Can you advise if the way in which shared folders are displayed is being addressed?

Previous version allowed shared folders to he viewed in a hierarchical format, current version you are only able to view one flat list

Derek Curtis Replied

11/7/2019 at 9:13 AM

Employee Post

Anne,

As of now, this is what sharing looks like in the web interface:

The WHD folder is one of mine, shared with others. (It just happens to be the last folder in my list)

Under Shared With Me are folders that have been shared with me, including a sub folder within the Marketing inbox. Ideally, you WON'T create folders within the Inbox for an account, but it was the simplest way to show that sharing of sub folders is working.

We're also going to roll out the Shared Folders area for users, where they can see the items they've shared in one tab, and then items shared with them in another. This includes folders, calendars, notes, contacts...basically anything that can be shared. Items are fully editable from that area as well -- changing permissions, removing the shares, detaching, etc.

This is how things are as of now..so, of course, they're subject to change prior to release. But I wanted to at least get it out there.

Derek Curtis

COO

SmarterTools Inc.

(877) 357-6278

www.smartertools.com

J Lee Replied

11/7/2019 at 10:27 AM

Coolio, will you be able to mass give and accept shares?

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

J Lee Replied

4/6/2020 at 3:29 PM

Great work guys, Shared Email Folder is so much better in the Beta Production. Woot!

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

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