MacroView Corporate Email Filing is now available!  MacroView Corporate Email Filing (CEF) is an optional module for MacroView DMF and MacroView Message and for solutions based on these two products, such as MacroView Case and Matter.

MacroView CEF automatically saves sent and received Outlook emails to areas in SharePoint (including SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business) based on rules stored in a central location. MacroView CEF compliments the personal email filing rules that are already supported by MacroView DMF and MacroView Message.

In addition to the types of filing that are already possible via personal filing rules, MacroView CEF supports automatic filing of emails using special tags it finds in the subject of emails.  The definition of these rules is such that in a well designed SharePoint environment new rules are not required as new locations are created.  This together with the central storage of the rules means that MacroView CEF will be very easy to deploy and administer

MacroView CEF is an alternative to MacroView Predictive Email Filing (PEF) when the email and document store is implemented with Office 365 / SharePoint Online.

See this blog for more information on Auto email filing using Corporate email Filing

Types of Email Filing Rule

MacroView Corporate Email Filing supports all the types of email filing rule that are currently available for personal filing rules.  Examples include:

• To contains  fredd.nurk@acme.com
• Subject contains 'macroview' AND From contains 'dennis'
• Body  contains 'macroview dmf'
• CC contains any of these workds 'bob', 'carol', 'ted', 'alice'

In addition to these, MacroView CEF supports filing rules that use filing tags (aka luggage tags) in the subject of an email to automatically file the email. These rules define both the shape of the filing tag and the general structure or the URL for the save location.

Definition of filing tag based rules

The definition of MacroView CEF filing tags and associated save locations is generalized such that the same filing rule will cover any number of save locations, provided that the URL for each location has a consistent URL structure.  The advantage is that a new CEF filing rule will NOT need to be created every time a new Client / Project / Case / Matter is created.

Flexible Tag Format

The format of the MacroView CEF filing tags is very flexible.  They can be alphanumeric (i.e. combination of letters and digits) or numeric (i.e. all digits).  The tags can have a fixed length or a variable length.  There can be characters to break up longer strings of digits (e.g. 123-456-789). The tag itself can be enclosed in special characters (square brackets are popular choice).

Two Filing Codes

MacroView CEF can recognize two filing codes in a filing (luggage) tag -e.g. Client code 'C1234' and Project Number '5535' in [C1234/5535), or Year '2019' and Matter Number '7768' in [ACME 2019-M7768].

The codes can be used together to identify the save location.  This is useful when the email and document store has a site for each client and a document library for each project or document library for year containing a document set for each matter.

Comparison with MacroView Predictive Email Filing (PEF)

The CEF filing tags are similar in share and operation to the filing tags that are recognized in the subject of sent and received email by MacroView Predictive Email Filing (PEF) when User Defined Tags are configured.

The key difference is that the URL associated with each value or a PEF tag must be recorded in a custom database table. MacroView PEF will not require any custom database table, which will enable much simpler installation and ongoing operation in an Office 365 / SharePoint Offline environment.

MacroView Predictive Email Filing (PEF) will not run when MacroView Corporate Email Filing (CEF) is active.

Saved emails categorised in Outlook

Save to SharePoint by CEF

MacroView CEF automatically applies a Saved to SharePoint by CEF category to emails that is saved due to a CEF filing rule so that the user can easily identify which emails have been saved and which have not.

Not Auto Filed by CEF

MacroView CEF will not file an email automatically if that filing would require prompting the user for metadata.  This is to avoid disrupting the user and is the same as the behavior for personal filing rules in MacroView DMF and MacroView Message.

If MacroView CEF determines that an email has a valid filing tag in it subject, but that saving to the location identified by that tag would result in prompting for metadata, or if the user does not have permission to save to the designated location, CEF will apply a blue Not Auto Filed by CEF category to the email in Outlook.

At a later convenient time, the user can save the emails that have these tags by drag and dropping the email to the desired location.

Corporate Rules Tab

When MacroView DEF is active a Corporate Rules tab will be displayed in the dialog that that displays when a user click Email Filing Rules on the MacroView tab in Outlook.

For each Corporate rule the tab will display the status (enabled/disabled) and whether the CEF rule applies to sent emails, received emails or both sent and received emails.

The user's personal rules will be displayed on the Sent Rules and Received Rules tabs.

Inserting Filing Tags

Manually adding a tag

If MacroView CEF is active a user will be able to manually insert a CEF filing tag in the subject of an email - e.g. an email that the user is drafting.

The user will do this by clicking the Insert Tag button on the MacroView tab of the Message ribbon.  A drop down will display showing the tags for save areas that the user has selected recently, with the most recently selected tag / save area at the top of the list.

The selected tag [MVC-10001] is then inserted in the subject of the email.  When the email is sent, MacroView CEF will automatically save a copy of it in the area identified by the the tag.

The drop down will also contain a Search option.  Clicking Search will display a tree-view of all the areas in the Office 365 tenant for which the user has permission.  When the user clicks on an area that is a valid save location defined in an active CEF rule, the OK button will activate.

Clicking OK will cause the filing tag corresponding to selected location to be inserted into the subject of the email.

Inserting a Tag as part of saving an email

When MacroView CEF is active, the user will be able to click a Tag and Save button, which will allow the user to select a save location that is valid for a CEF filing rule.  Recently used tags / save locations are displayed at the top of the list, followed by the Search button.

The screen shot above shows the dialog box that is displayed by the Search button.  It allow a user to select a save location associated with a filing tag and when OK is clicked, the email will be saved to the selected location and the corresponding filing tag will be inserted in the subject of the save email.

If the tag inserted by Tag and Save is different for the CEF tag that is already in the subject of the email, CEF will prompt the user to confirm if replacement of that filing tag with the correct tag.

Applying Filing Rules to Existing Emails

MacroView CEF will allow a user to select one or more existing emails in their Inbox or Sent Items folder in Outlook and run the currently active CEF rules over those emails using the Run Filing Rules button on the MacroView ribbon.

Email that satisfy a CEF rule will be saved automatically provided metadata is not required and the user has permission to the save location.

When an email is successfully saved it will have a Saved to SharePoint by CEF category applied in Outlook.  If the email matches a CEF rule but is unable to be saved it will have a Not Auto Filed by CEF category applied.

Co-existence with Personal Rules

Having both CEF and Personal Email Filing Rules defined allows an email to be saved twice - once to the location specified by a CEF rule and once to the location specified by the personal email filing rule.

The screenshot below shows such an email which has both a Saved to SharePoint and Saved to SharePoint to by CEF categories applied to it.

If the personal rule and the CEF rule saved the email to the same location, only one copy of the email will be saved but both categories are applied to indicate that both rules were satisfied.

When an email is saved to two different locations due to a personal and CEF rule, the addendum text added at the bottom of the email (if enabled) will reflect the location where the email was last saved.  This will generally be the save location identified by the personal rule because personal rules are processed after CEF rules.

Filing rules are stored in a central location

MacroView CEF rules are stored in a central location which can be either a SharePoint area (i.e. document library, document set or folder) or a folder in a Windows file share.  Updates to the central rules are picked up by MacroView DMF and MacroView Message each time Outlook is restarted.

This central location makes the deployment of filing rules very simple as there is no need to roll out Corporate Email Filing rules to each users registry.

See Also

Getting started with MacroView Corporate Email Filing

MacroView Corporate Email Filing release notes

Support and Tutorials