How it Works

Concepts

• Conversation - limetype that represents an email thread and contains a collection of messages that are related to each other. A conversation can be attached to a conversation parent and has followers. A conversation is created when sending or receiving the first message of an email thread.

• Conversation parents - limetype that represents the main object that should be created alongside the conversation. It can be a ticket, deal or any other limetype that you want to attach the conversation to.

• Conversation message - limetype that represents a message in a conversation. Each response within the same email thread results in a new conversation message.

• Followers - limetype that represent every participant involved in a conversation and their participation level. A conversation has a list of followers showing everyone who at same point in the thread has sent or received an email and their latest status.

• Message followers - limetype which represent a follower of a particular message. Each message therefore has a list of message followers showing who was involved in this message.

• Follower parents - limetype that is following a conversation. It allows you to map participants of a conversations by their email addresses to already existing entities in your application. A follower parent can be a person, a company, or any other limetype. A follower will be created per conversation but always connected to the same parent. Let's assume a user with the address [email protected] is involved in 5 conversations. Each conversation has a follower representing this user, but they can all be connected to the same person.

• Document - limetype that represents any attachments connected to an email.

• Embedded Files - limetype that represents any embedded images which are part of an email.

Example

Let's consider an example to illustrate these concepts:

Scenario

John Doe sends an email to support@lime regarding an issue. The email initiates a new conversation in the system.

Breakdown

Conversation:

• A new conversation is created for John Doe's email thread.
• This conversation is attached to a conversation parent, which in this case is a support ticket.

Conversation Parents:

• The support ticket is the main object created alongside the conversation.

Conversation Message:

• John Doe's initial email is stored as a conversation message.
• Any replies from the support team or John Doe will be added as new conversation messages.

Followers:

• John Doe and the support team members are added as followers of this conversation.
• Their participation level and status are tracked.

Message Followers:

• Each email message within the conversation has its own list of followers.
• For example, if a support team member replies, they are added as a follower of that specific message.

Follower Parents:

• John Doe's email address is mapped to his customer profile in the system.
• This allows the system to link all conversations involving John Doe to his profile.

Document:

• If John Doe attaches a screenshot of his order issue, it is stored as a document.

Embedded Files:

• If John Doe's email includes embedded images, they are stored as embedded files.

Text Formatting from Incoming Emails

Some of the text formatting from incoming emails is kept and respected when creating conversation messages based on their content. Both when showing the conversation message inside Lime CRM (in Activities on the conversation parent or on a conversation card) and also when including the conversation message as part of the historic conversation in outgoing emails.

In the examples below, text color, text highlighting, table, and inline image are kept from the original incoming email throughout the handling of the conversation messages.

Original Incoming Email

Message Shown in Activities in Lime CRM

Message as Part of Conversation History in Outgoing Emails

Automatic Reply

It is possible to configure, for each account in Lime Admin, if an automatic reply should be sent as reply to an incoming email. The automatic reply will only be sent if the conversation does not already exist in Lime CRM.

It is possible to use merge codes in the automatic reply where you can fetch relevant information from the conversation object. Curly brackets is used as delimiter for the merge codes. For example, {{helpdesk.helpdesknumber}} will fetch the helpdesknumber from the object that is attached on the helpdesk relation on the conversation object.

It is possible to configure that automatic replies should not be sent if an email is older than X hours, this is useful if old emails are being recovered in the recovery process. It is also possible to completely turn off the automatic reply through the Send automatic reply account setting.