What is it?
This add-in for Microsoft Outlook allows users to publish emails to Microsoft SharePoint
2007 lists, where they can be searched and shared with other users. A user friendly
wizard guides you through the different configuration steps.
The U2U Email Publisher add-in can monitor your mail folders for incoming mails,
and synchronize them automatically as the mails arrive. Typically, Outlook rules
are used to select the emails to move to folders. But of course, emails can be moved
manually to the appropriate Outlook mail folder as well, at which point the automatic
synchronization can publish them to SharePoint.
You can also decide from within an open email message to publish it to an already
configured SharePoint list.
Each email will be represented by a SharePoint list item in the selected SharePoint
list.
The U2U Email Publisher requires Outlook 2007, and Windows SharePoint Services V3.0
or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2003. Microsoft Exchange Server is not required.
If you do not want to read any further but want to immediately download the
U2U Email Publisher software? Click here
How does it work?
When you use the add-in for the first time, you can click the "U2U Publish to SharePoint"
button in the toolbar (see figure1).
In the first step you can choose to create a configuration for one or more folders
by checking the email folders for which you want to publish the emails to SharePoint.
If you configure a folder for the first time, you will need to go through all steps
but if you already configured one or more folders, you will be able to configure
a new folder based on an existing mapping by checking the "Use an existing mapping"
checkbox and selecting the configuration of you choice.
Already mapped folders are marked in blue with another icon.
You can select one or more folders that are not yet configured but you can also
select an already configured folder to modify its mappings.
You can choose to delete an existing mapping by right-clicking the (already configured)
folder, and chosing the "Delete mapping" menu item. You will be asked if
you are sure to delete this mapping. If so, it will be immediately removed from
the configuration file.
After selection of one or more folders you can click the Next button to go to the
next step.
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Figure 1: Step 1 of the U2U Email Publisher wizard - choose the folders you want
to configure.
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First fill out the url to your SharePoint site. If you need to specify credentials
for logging on to the site, you can fill out username and password in the corresponding
fields. Click the Go button to log on to the site. The list box will be filled with
lists of your SharePoint site. Select a list before continuing with the next step.
If you are defining a new field mapping and you chose to use an existing configuration,
all controls will be filled with the settings of the selected configuration. You're
still able to modify one of these settings.
If you chose to modify an existing configuration, all controls will be filled with
the settings for this folder. You are able to change them if necessary.
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Figure 2: Step 2 of the U2U Email Publisher wizard - choose SharePoint site, credentials
and SharePoint list.
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In this step you need to map the email fields to columns of the SharePoint list
you selected in the previous step. You find a list of email fields on the left.
Besides each email field you find a dropdown list filled with the columns of your
SharePoint list. Select the corresponding column for each email field for which
you want to store information in the SharePoint list.
A SharePoint list has one or more required fields. You will need to map each of
these required columns to an email field before you will be able to continue. A
label informing you which SharePoint fields you still need to map will appear on
your screen.
Each published email will be represented as a SharePoint list item in the selected
SharePoint list. You can also choose to save the email attachements as attachment
to this list item.
Also the email itself can be saved as an attachment. The mail will then be saved
with an .emg extension.
The "Automatically synchronize emails to SharePoint" option can be checked
if you want the emails arriving in this folder to be automatically published to
the selected SharePoint list.
Click the Finish button to save your settings. Emails in the newly configured
folder(s) will be immediately published to the selected SharePoint list. If you
are defining a new field mapping and you chose to use an existing configuration,
all controls will be filled with the settings of the selected configuration. You're
still able to modify one of these settings.
If you chose to modify an existing configuration, all controls will be filled with
the settings for this folder. You are able to change them if necessary. To avoid
that emails are published a second time, you can choose to store a UniqueID to a
column in the selected SharePoint list. THe UniqueID is calculated based on the
email address of the sender, the subject and the time on which the email has been
sent.
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Figure 3: Step 3 of the U2U Email Publisher wizard - map the email fields to the
SharePoint list columns.
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You can also start the wizard by selecting a folder in the folder treeview of your
Outlook account, right-clicking it and choosing the "Publish to SharePoint" menu
item. You will be able to create or modify a field mapping for this and/or another
folder.
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Figure 4: Right-click a folder in the Outlook folders treeview and choose "Publish
to SharePoint".
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Another option is to publish the email that you are reading. Click the U2U tab in
the Outlook email ribbon and click the "U2U Email Publisher" button. A task
pane will open where you can select an already configured mapping. The settings
of this mapping will be shown in the task pane. You are not able to modify one of
these settings. Click the "Publish" button to save the open email message
to the selected SharePoint list.
Emails that have their Unique ID stored in the SharePoint list will not be published
for a second time to the same field mapping. But you can publish an email more than
once to different SharePoint lists.
Figure 5: Click the "U2U Email Publisher" button to publish the email you are reading.
Downloading and Installing the U2U Email Publisher software
Find the download and setup instructions here.
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