Implicit FrontEnd for Mac User Guide (SugarCRM & SuiteCRM)

Installation Guide

Supported Platforms

Outlook & Exchange

  • Office 365 for Mac
  • Outlook 2016 / 2019 for Mac with on-premise Exchange 2013 (SP1) and higher
  • Outlook Web App (Safari) on Mac

CRM

  • SugarCRM and SuiteCRM on-premise
  • SugarCRM and SuiteCRM on-demand

Configuring Your CRM Instance Prior to Installing FrontEnd for Mac / Mobile / OWA

Configuring SugarCRM

For instruction on how to configure SugarCRM, please see:

Configuring Your SugarCRM Instance Prior to Installing FrontEnd for Mac / Mobile / OWA

Configuring SuiteCRM

For instruction on how to configure SuiteCRM, please see:

Configuring Your SuiteCRM Instance Prior to Installing FrontEnd for Mac / Mobile / OWA

Installing Implicit FrontEnd for Mac on your Office 365 Account

Centralized Deployment via the admin center

  1. Go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Integrated Apps and click Add-Ins

  2. Click the ‘+ Deploy Add-In’ link
  3. A ‘Deploy New Add-In’ screen will open. Click ‘Upload Custom Apps’

  4. Select “I have a URL” and enter the URL you received with your license key, and click Install

  5. Select the users who will have access to Implicit FrontEnd and set the deployment method to ‘Fixed’.

  6. Click ‘Deploy to deploy the add-in.
  7. It can take up to 12 hours sometimes for an add-in to be published through Microsoft 365 to all devices. Once it is deployed, users will be able to see the Implicit FrontEnd button on the Outlook toolbar.

Initial Configuration

Once the add-in is installed, click on an email message and look for Implicit FrontEnd
button on the toolbar (note: If you are using Outlook for Mac, you may need to force
quit Outlook and re-launch it after installation in order for the add-in to show up in Outlook).

Upon the first time of launching the add-in, it will display a welcome screen:

Next, you will be prompted to accept the End Use License Agreement:

Next, you will be prompted to enter the Implicit FrontEnd license key. If you don’t have a license key yet, you may sign up for a 15-days free trial.

To login to your CRM, provide the CRM URL and your credentials and click Login.

If at any time, you need to re-configure your account or switch license keys, click the ‘Sign Out’ button
on the top right corner of blue header.

Enabling FrontEnd API Platform on the SugarCRM Server

Upon clicking OK, FrontEnd will attempt to login to SugarCRM. If you receive an error
indicating that FrontEnd API platform is not enabled on your SugarCRM server, please
contact your SugarCRM administrator and ask him/her to add FrontEnd to the list of
API platforms by following these steps:

  • Launch a browser window and login as administrator and click ‘Admin’ under the SugarCRM drop down on the menu drop-down on the top right corner.
  • Scroll down to ‘Developer Tools’ section and click ‘Configure API Platforms’
  • Add ‘ifo365’ to the list of ‘API Platforms’
  • Restart Outlook and login again via FrontEnd.

FrontEnd Settings

To open the settings screen, click the settings button on the top-right corner of the FrontEnd side panel

It allows you to configure the following settings:

General

  • Server – A URL to your SugarCRM instance
  • User Name / Password – Your SugarCRM credentials.
  • Verify – Click ‘Verify’ to confirm that you’re able to login to your SugarCRM account.
  • Connected Accounts – If you are using Office 365 and have multiple accounts connected to the primary account that you are using, you can specify all your connected accounts here.
  • Refresh modules and fields – If any of SugarCRM modules/fields have been modified since you started using FrontEnd, click refresh to retrieve the updated list.

Email Attachments Options

  • Upload Attachments – Check the box to enable email attachments to be uploaded and archived.
  • Only Smaller than – If you want to limit attachments by size, check the box and specify the size of maximum size of attachments (in KB).
  • Only the Following File Types – If you want to limit attachments by type, check the box and specify a comma delimited list of file extension that you allow to archive, for example: docx, xlsx, pdf etc.

Modules

Specify the modules that you would like to display in the details view of the side panel. You can specify different lists of modules for contacts and for leads. The list on the right shows all available modules and the list on the left shows the one that are visible in the details pane. Use the arrows to add or remove modules from the list.

When you are done configuring your settings, click Save to save the settings or cancel to go back to the details view.

Email Side Panel

FrontEnd Email side panel is an extremely useful and functional feature to view pertinent CRM information related to emails and take immediate actions.

The side panel is divided into sections:

  • Contact / Lead information
  • Account Information
  • Modules information (based on the modules selected under options)

Contact / Lead and Account information

The side panel shows the contact information for the contact/lead and the account and supports the following actions:

  • View/Edit – Clicking on the name opens the records for viewing/editing.
  • Open Social networking profile based on the information entered in SugarCRM
  • Archive – the email to the contact/lead and account records.
  • Schedule a meeting
  • Log a call
  • Quick Note – Create a quick note and store in the contact’s or account’s CRM
    records. The quick note window opens in place and slows you to create a note and save it directly to SugarCRM.
    Once the note is saved, the icon changes to green to indicate that you have created a note for this email
    message and the particular CRM record. This indicator is ‘persistent’, which means that it stays as part
    of the email message and you can re-visit it any time, view and make changes.
  • Open in SugarCRM – Launch a browser and open the record in SugarCRM

Multiple Email Recipients

If there are multiple recipients in the email message, you’ll notice that there is a small drop down arrow which shows you the email addresses of all recipients and allows you to switch the side panel to display the information for the select recipient:

Related CRM Records

Below the contact and account information, the side panel display the modules that you have selected to show under Options including the number of records under each module type. To view related records, expand the section by clicking on the down arrow:

In the example above, the opportunities section is expanded and user can view the most recent active opportunities.

User Actions

Similar to user actions for contact/account, FrontEnd allows you to:

  • View/Edit – Clicking on the name of the record opens the record inside the side-panel for viewing/editing.
  • Archive the email to the related CRM record (e.g. opportunity or case)
  • Quick Note – Create a quick note and store in the CRM record.
  • Open in SugarCRM – Launch a browser and open the record in SugarCRM
  • Add a Record (‘+’) – Add an opportunity, case, meeting task or any other module type that you selected for the side panel.

Unknown Contact / Lead

If the email is received from an unknown contact or a lead it will display an ‘Unknow contact’ message

Upon clicking the button to create a new contact, the contact form opens up inside the side panel.
On how to create contact or leads from email see Contact / Lead section. Upon
creating the new contact, FrontEnd will refresh the detailed view and display the information
you entered for the contact and the account.

Working with CRM Modules

Contacts / Leads

To open a contact (or a lead) record, click on the name of the contact in the side panel. The contact
form opens up inside the side panel and display the contact information. You can update the information
and click ‘Save’ to save it to SugarCRM. If you would like to open the contact in SugarCRM, click on
the name of the contact on the top light blue title bar:

Notes:

  • If the company (account) exists in SugarCRM, start typing its name and select it from the drop-down list. Otherwise, click the ‘+’ button to create a new account.
  • By default, when you create a new contact, the account billing address is filled in as the address of the contact.

Accounts

To open an account record, click on the name of the account in the side panel. The account form opens
up inside the side panel and display the account information. You can update the information and
click ‘Save’ to save it to SugarCRM. If you would like to open the account in SugarCRM, click on
the name of the account on the top light blue title bar:

Note:

  • Creating a new account is done from the contact form by clicking ‘+’ next to the company name.

Opportunities

To open an opportunity record, click on the name of the opportunity in the side panel. The opportunity form opens up inside the side panel and display the opportunity information. You can update the information and click ‘Save’ to save it to SugarCRM. You can also create a new opportunity by clicking the ‘+’ button next to the ‘Opportunities’ section on the side panel. If you would like to open the opportunity in SugarCRM, click on the name of the opportunity on the top light blue title bar:

Cases

To open a case record, click on the subject of the case in the side panel. The case form opens up inside the side panel and display the case information. You can update the information and click ‘Save’ to save it to SugarCRM. You can also create a new case by clicking the ‘+’ button next to the ‘Cases’ section on the side panel. If you would like to open the case in SugarCRM, click on the name of the opportunity on the top light blue title bar:

Meetings

To open a meeting record, click on the subject of the meeting in the side panel. The meeting form opens up inside the side panel and display the meeting information. You can update the information and click ‘Save’ to save it to SugarCRM. You can also create a new meeting by clicking the ‘+’ button next to the ‘Meetings’ section on the side panel. If you would like to open the meeting in SugarCRM, click on the subject of the meeting on the top light blue title bar:

Tasks

To open a task record, click on the subject of the task in the side panel. The task form opens up inside the side panel and display the task information. You can update the information and click ‘Save’ to save it to SugarCRM. You can also create a new task by clicking the ‘+’ button next to the ‘Tasks’ section on the side panel. If you would like to open the task in SugarCRM, click on the subject of the task on the top light blue title bar:

Other Modules

If you configured FrontEnd to display other modules in the side-panel including custom modules for which there are no built-in forms in FrontEnd, you will be able to interact with these modules via SugarCRM. FrontEnd will launch a browser window and go to the appropriate web page to allow you to view, edit or create new records.

Email Archiving

One-Click Email Archiving

To archive an email to a record on the side-panel, simply click the envelop icon next to that record:

The currently selected email will be archived to the record and you will receive confirmation in the status bar on the bottom of the side panel.

You’ll also notice that a green checkmark is added to the email envelop icon to indicate that the email has been archived to this record. This is a persistent indicator that remains as part of the email such that if you close the email and come back to it later, you would be able to see which records the email archived to.

Notes:

  • The envelop icon is visible only for modules that have relationships with the email module in SugarCRM.
  • The email upload will adhere to the limitations you configured for attachments under the options page.
  • Archiving to a contact, will automatically archive the email to the account and vice versa.

Advanced Email Archiving

Since only the most recent records of each module will be visible on the side panel, there will be situations where the record you’re looking for, will not be visible on the details view. In these cases, or when you need to archive the email to more than one record, click the ‘Advanced’ tab for more advanced email archiving options:

Use the first list to archive the email to the contact, account and any of their related records.

Use the second part to select any record in SugarCRM by selecting the module (Related To) and the specific record (Related to Item).

Quick Note

To create a quick note for any of the CRM records, click the ‘Quick Note’ icon next to the record. A small note window will open up ‘in-place’ to allow you to type the note directly to the side panel and save it to SugarCRM:

After saving the note, you’ll receive confirmation that the note was successfully saved. The note icon will turn green to indicate that you have created a note for this email and this record. This indicator is persistent which means that if you close the email and come back to it later, you would be able to open and make changes to the note.