Email Forwarding Strategies

When in production, set up the best email option for each of your trading partners. Choose between Outlook integration, RBOP integration, CRM solutions, and generic inbox or mail-server solutions.

Setting Up Email Forwarding Strategies

Once in production, there are multiple ways you can setup your trading partners to forward emails to Conexiom.

Outlook Email Integration: Integrating Outlook directly with Conexiom through its system.
RBOP Integration: Blind copying, (using the “BCC:” address field), of email based on mail-server rules.
Inbox or Server Email Forwarding: Forwarding of emails based on inbox rules or server rules.
CRM Integration: Integrating with products like Salesforce software. Salesforce filters emails and forwards on relevant trade documents (orders) to Conexiom.

Email Option Decision Tree

You can setup the best option for each of your trading partners, (whether customer or vendor), by first asking a few basic questions, including the following:

Whether documents should be sent to a designated central inbox or to various individuals across the organization.
Whether trading partners typically receive one type of document, (such as PO).
Whether different decisions need to made for each trading partner.
One significant question is whether that trading partner uses Outlook, making them available for Conexiom’s Outlook Email Integration.

To help find the best strategy for a trading partner to automatically forward email orders to Conexiom, use the following table to compare solutions.
Note: CRM solutions are not represented in the table; (diversity and variance in the market makes comparing them beyond the scope of this document).

Current Situation

Solution

Outcome

Outlook Email

Situations where an Inbox receives multiple types of documents on a regular basis.

OR

Server redirects may result in Conexiom receiving non-relevant document types, even with the email rules in place.

Specifically for Microsoft Outlook systems.

Note: Is Conexiom’s preferred solution.

Outlook Integration

Apply Outlook Integration

"From" address will be the trading-partner account’s.

Requires a unique buyer email address for each trading partner.

Any Brand of Email

Situations where an Inbox receives multiple types of documents on a regular basis.

OR

When many individuals across the organization receive documents for processing.

Server redirects may result in Conexiom receiving non-relevant document types, even with the email rules in place.

Note: Outlook Integration is Conexiom’s preferred solution.

RBOP

Apply RBOP integration

"From" address will be the trading-partner account’s.

More effort required at Conexiom to set up and maintain each trading partner.

Requires unique buyer identifier (either domain or email address) for each trading partner.

Any Brand of Email

Only for Designated Inboxes that typically receive one type of document, (such as PO).

Inbox Rules

Apply inbox-level rules. Email that fulfills conditions, trigger the rules.

Only for designated inboxes that typically receive one type of document, (such as PO).

Forwards the email to a specific address.

Conexiom added as a “to” or “cc” recipient.

Any Brand of Email

Designated Inboxes that typically receive only one type of document, (such as PO).

AND

Require additional options.

Example: Require appending a value to the subject line to inform a specific user that an email was sent to Conexiom; (beneficial when multiple users need to be kept informed of the actions in one inbox).

Mail Server Rules

Apply mail server-level rules. Applied at organization level (before the inbox level). Rules take action while messages are in transit, (not after the message is to delivered).

Exact setup dependent on provider.

"From" address will be the trading-partner account’s.

Conexiom added as a “to” or “cc” recipient.

Documents sent to a centralized inbox.

Ensure you do not set up Conexiom as a recipient from a distribution list. This is important because no filters or rules can be applied to that type of list.

Click the links below to download the Quick Reference Guide for considering each topic:

Click the following links for instructions on Outlook and RBOP integration. CRM, inbox, and server solutions listed above must be implemented by each customer through their internal IT departments.