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Archetype's e-mail system manages all incoming and outgoing e-mails and their attachments
Managing e-mails has become a major issue as e-mail has superseded other methods of communication e.g. letters, faxes, and is also used as a vehicle for distributing other information e.g. drawings, minutes, schedules, specifications, etc.
Normal e-mail systems are not designed to manage the messages in a project orientated way, i.e. a number of people collaborating on a project and all need to be able to read the messages and find the attachments.
Using Outlook for example, sent messages are stored in a sent items folder from where you may need to move them to public folders, save them or even print them out so that you have adequate records and can find the messages again. Incoming messages are stored in individuals' inboxes from where they need to be moved to public folders, saved as eml files or printed. Attachments may need to be saved to a folder so that they can be found again but this separates the attachments from the messages and leads to a plethora of folders and files which can be difficult to manage over the life of a project.
These methods of managing e-mails are inadequate since they require the user to remember to do it and to not make mistakes. Also, retrieving previous messages and attachments may require you to browse through possibly hundreds of messages to find them.
It is not unusual to find Outlook users with hundreds of items in their inbox and sent items folders. These messages may be inaccessible to other people on the design team.
Archetype is designed to manage e-mails so that they are automatically filed and everyone can easily find them and their attachments.
Creating An E-mail:
Press the new e-mail button and fill in the e-mail form shown below. The name and address details of the recipient are selected from the contacts database as are the copy to names. The e-mail is automatically given a unique reference which consists of the document type, the project reference, a file reference (if required) and a sequential number. A disclaimer can be customised for your organisation and automatically included with the message. An auto signature can be set for each user and added to the message. Attachments can be zipped without having to manually create the zip files and other documents e.g. drawing issue zip files, instructions, minutes, etc. created with Archetype can easily be attached.
(Archetype keeps a store of all the e-mail attachments which can be accessed to recover the attachment and the message that was with it.)
Attachments can be automatically zipped thus avoiding the need to browse for attachements, zip them, save the zip file and then attach the zip file to the email message.
Archetype documents can be attached from the document registers e.g. drawings, letters, instructions, minutes, agendas, drawing issues, etc. without having to know file names, folder structures and browsing for them.
(E-mail addresses can be selected from the project orientated contacts list.)
Thomas James
Copyright © 2006