EDIFICE Inquiry - Email

Email provides an easy and convenient way to electronically send EDIFICE communications to customers.  There are several places within EDIFICE that have email capability.  You can use email to send customer payment plans, read history, BUSA report information and general letters as well as email copies of statements or other notices for customers.  Emails are easily customized using the Template Builder and setting up the email configuration is flexible allowing for multiple configurations as needed.  Multiple templates for each type of template can be built.  You can see the history of the emails sent to the customer and their contents  from the Timeline view.

Note:  To activate email, the Email configuration must be set up as well as templates for each type of email that you want to send.  For directions, see Setting Up in Email below.

 

Places Where Email can be used in EDIFICE

Email is available in the following places within EDIFICE.  If you do not see Email functions within a particular screen, check to see if the required type of email template is set up for that screen.

Enhanced Inquiry

Use email to send an account letter type of email to the customer.  Use the letter icon next to Customer ID and Location ID.

Tip:  Email in the EDIFICE Inquiry is activated when an Account letter type of template is set up.

BUSA Reporting View

Use email blasts for sending report data to a group of selected customers.

Tip:  Email in the BUSA Reporting view is activated when a default BUSA email type of template is set up.

Documents View

Email is available for sending documents stored in this view.  For example, use the email function to send a customer a copy of their statement.

Tip:  Email in the Documents view is activated when a default customer document type of template is set up.

Payments View

Email is available for sending payment plan information and letters about missed payments for a payment plan.  Email can also be used for sending payment history to a customer.

Tip:  Email in the Payments view is activated when a Customer Payment Plan type of template is set up.

Read History View

Email is available for sending read history information to customers.  There are 3 options for including read history.  Chart images can also be included.

  • Reading Table - all currently visible rows, sorted descending by date

  • last 10 of the most recent readings

  • Current year readings

Tip:  Email in the Read History view is activated when a read history report type of template is set up.

Timeline View

Emails that are sent are recorded on the date sent in the customer's Timeline for an audit trail.  You can click the email icon to view email detail.

 

 

 

Setting up EDIFICE Email

You will need to set up email configurations and email templates in order to send customers emails from EDIFICE.  After the steps below are done, email is ready to use.

Note:  To build the email configurations requires your SMTP email server information, which can be provided by your IT staff or by Northern Data Systems.  For more information, please contact NDS Support at 800-649-7754.

 

1.  Build Email Configurations.

2.  Build Email Templates.

 

 

 

Sending EDIFICE Email

Sending emails to customers is easy.  These are the general steps.

Tip:  Emails that were sent to customers can be seen on the customers' Timeline View.

 

1.  To send an email, from any of the following views:

a.  From the EDIFICE Inquiry Customer or Location fields, click Email .

b.  From the BUSA Reporting view - see Using BUSA Reporting Email for instructions.

c.   From the Documents view - click Email on the line that contains the document that you want to send to the customer.
Note:  The document is first created and then the Send Email screen opens.

d. From the Payments view - click Email Payment Plan .

e.  From the Read History view - click Email Report .

 

 

2.  The Send Email editor opens with the customer data filled in the fields.  Send Email has similar formatting functions as the Template Editor.
Note:  The email template will display different text and data depending on the type of template being used.  Because templates can be customized to suit your purposes, your template may look different than the example below.

 

Send Email (Account Letter Type of Template) Window Example:

 

Send Email Prompts

Template

Displays for your reference the type of email template used for the email.

To

If the customer has an email address associated with their account, it fills in the Send To address.  Otherwise, you can enter an address in the To field.  You can add multiple addresses in the Send To field by entering a semi-colon (;) between the addresses.  And, you can remove Send To addresses as needed.

Subject

If a subject was entered, you can edit it, if needed.  If there is no text in the subject line, enter one now.

Required

Body of Email

To build the body of the email:

Note:  The HTML code can be edited directly in the editor by clicking HTML .

 

1.  The text in the body of the email can be edited and added to as well.  To add text begin typing or paste text that was copied.  Formatting toolbar shown below offers tools for formatting the email to suit your needs.

Send Email Toolbar

 

2.  Customer data displays where data fields were inserted.
Note:  If you are creating BUSA emails, you can add fields of report data to be included in the emails.

3.  To insert an image, click Picture and then click Browse to select the desired image.  The image is inserted at the cursor, but can be moved as needed.

4.  To insert a hyperlink, click Hyperlink .  Enter the hyperlink text to display in the document and enter the URL for the link.  Then, click Insert Link.

5.  To add an attachment to include with the email, click Add Attachment .  From the Select a File to Attach screen, browse to find the desired attachment.  Then, click Open.  
Tip:  After an attachment is added, the number of attachments displays with the Add Attachment button .

 

To send the email, click Send Email.  The following prompt displays:

 

If the displayed email address is accurate, click Yes to continue or to cancel, click No.  When the send completes, the message Success! displays.  Click OK to close the prompt.

 

 

Viewing Email History

Use the Timeline view to see email history for a customer.  From the view you can double-click the email in the Timeline to see details about the email.