Outlook Integration: Prefill Client ID/Contact Fields Journaling Emails from Outlook

September 2019    Tags: Clients, Contacts, Outlook Integration, PracticeMaster

When I’m journaling emails from Outlook, the Client and Contact fields sometimes populate a value and sometimes don’t. What determines when those will have a default value or not?

To determine whether an email address is associated with a client or contact, PracticeMaster utilizes a cross-reference file that is updated each time you journal an email from Outlook into PracticeMaster. The cross-reference file tracks associations between a particular email address and the Client and/or Contact to whom an email to or from that address was saved. You can control this behavior using the settings for the Outlook Plug-in in PracticeMaster. When the PracticeMaster Outlook Plug-in is installed, there are a few options designed to simplify the process of journaling emails from Outlook. Two of those options determine whether the Client ID and Contact fields are automatically populated in the new journal record.

• Prefill Client ID/Contact fields – When this check box is selected, PracticeMaster looks for an existing association between the email address and a client or contact. If one is found, then the appropriate (Client ID or Contact) field is automatically populated in the new Journal record.
• Only prefill when single match is found – This check box adds additional refinement to the Prefill Client ID/Contact fields check box. When this check box is selected, PracticeMaster will leave the Client ID and/or Contact fields blank if it finds more than one client or contact associated with the email address. When this check box is cleared, if more than one match is found for an email address, then the most recent match is used.

Note: The Client ID and Contact fields are handled separately in these scenarios (e.g., if the email address has a client but not a contact associated with it, then only the Client ID field will be prefilled).

In order to change these settings, you must uninstall the Outlook Plug-in, make your changes, and then reinstall the Outlook Plug-in for the changes to take effect.

To make changes to the prefill options for the Outlook Plug-in

1. Close Outlook if it is currently running.
2. From the PracticeMaster Maintenance menu, point to Integration and select Toolbar Plug-ins.
3. On the Outlook tab, click the Uninstall Outlook Plug-in button. A message will be displayed indicating that the PracticeMaster toolbar has been uninstalled. Click OK to close the message.
4. Select the option(s) you want to enable. (Note: These options must be configured separately for each user.)
5. Click the Install Outlook Plug-in button. A message will be displayed indicating that the PracticeMaster toolbar has been installed. Click OK to close the message.
6. Click OK to close the Toolbar Plug-ins window.