How to Set Up your Email Communications

This article walks you through the Email Communications setup so you can connect your external emails, link to the right contacts, and have a full understanding of how the connected emails work.

Communication is key when planning and organizing your events and our Communication tool can be a hub for you and your team! Making the most out of our Communications tool can start with the setup itself! This article walks you through the Email Communications setup so you can connect your external emails, link to the right contacts, and have a full understanding of how the connected emails work! 

To get started, click on Settings > Email Communications. 

Email Via Planning Pod Setup

The first Panel is our email via Planning Pod option. This is available to use at anytime! You can send out emails from our system to your clients and their replies will come into your external email inboxes. If you'd like to adjust the name of the sender, or assign a specific contact as the 'reply-to' contact, you can do so by clicking on "Settings" on the right side of the panel.

In this panel, you can decide what the "from" sender Name looks like:

• Always use the name of the user sending the email: Whoever is logged in and sending out emails, it will show their name. Example: Elizabeth Crowe via Planning Pod
• Always use the company name of the account owner: It will pull the account Owner's company name found in their contact card, and display it as the sender. Example: Grand Meridian via Planning Pod.
• Select one contact whose name will be user for all messages sent: You can select one contact from your account to be used as the name for all messages sent from Planning Pod, regardless of who is logged in and sending email. Example: if I choose a co-worker's contact, Alex, all messages will see their name- Alex Rowan via Planning Pod.

You can also decide how the "reply-to" address looks like:

• Always use the email address of the user sending the email: Whoever is sending the email out from the system, their email in their contact card will show up as the reply-to address. Example: If Alex send out an email to a client, the client will see "alexr@grandmeridian.com" when they go to reply. The reply will be send to Alex's external inbox.
• Select one contact whose email address will be used for all messages sent: You can select one email for all responses to go to. Example, if the reply to is set to be 'grandmeridianevents@outlook.com', Alex can send out an email to a client, and the client's response will end up in the 'grandmeridianevents' external inbox.

Notes for the "Always use the name/email of the user" option:
* If no one is logged into the account and a notification is sent out, it will default to the Account Owner's name.
* For all automatic email notifications, the 'reply-to' will default to the Account Owner.

Send/Receive Email Via Connected Accounts

If you want, you can choose to connect your external email addresses to the system. This will allow you to send out email from Planning Pod as your external email address and the replies from your clients can come back into Planning Pod. You do not have to connect an external email account to have full functionality of the system.

To start the process of connecting your external email, click on "Connect Email" in the second panel.

A new panel will pop up! 

• First, Add your External email address you wish to connect.
• Second, decide on the connection start date. If you want to bring in emails from the last week or month, you can do so by updating the connection start date to "a week ago" or "A month ago".
• Third, decide your Privacy sending and viewing options.
• Last, click 'Continue', then "Start authorization now".

You'll be taken to a page where you can continue the process of connecting your email. You'll want to follow through the prompts on the screen. Depending on your external email provider (Google, Outlook, etc), you might need to follow specific steps. For more information on this, please check out: Setting Up Your Email Address in Planning Pod.

Important notes:
* This is an advanced feature and we have limited ability when it comes to support as some steps require you to update settings OUTSIDE of Planning Pod. You may need assistance from your own email admin/IT team.
* Google/Gsuite users: You can only connect a business email account. If this is your first time connection, you will need to Whitelist Planning Pod in your Google Admin.
*Microsoft users: You may need assistance from your email admin as Microsoft requires your admin to grant access to the connection.

When you have successfully connected your external email, the address will show up in the second panel.

By default, this email will display your contact information when an email is sent. To associate this email with a different contact, click the "Actions" link to edit after the initial connection.

Once you've connected your external account, you can adjust the privacy viewing/sending options, add a signature, and assign this email to a specific contact. 

To make these adjustments, click on "Action" on the right and then click "edit" to open up a new panel.

Associate Contact to Email: 
When you add an email to this panel, you will most likely be assigned as the contact to this email address. So when you send an email out with this address, your first and last name would show! Feel free to remove the contact and use the search bar to assign a different contact to this address if you'd like. In this example above, our Account Owner, Elizabeth, added the email address and didn't change the contact. So if she emails from the Communications tool with this email, her name will show. If our Super Admin, Alex, emails from the connected email, Elizabeth's name will still show.

TIP & TRICK: Do a lot of team members use your external email to communicate with your clients? You can create an "Events Team" contact and assign that generic contact to your connected email! If you do this, you'll want the first name of this new contact to be something like: Events, and the last name: Team. Once that's created, you'll want to update the assigned contact for this email to that new contact.

Privacy Viewing/ Privacy Sending: 

When setting up this email, you can decide who can send from this email and who can view emails send to this address. Learn more about this setting here: Privacy Settings in Email Communication Setup

Signature: 
You can add your signature here and emails from this address will display it. The signature needs to be text only, no image banners. 

Need additional help? 
If you have additional questions on the email communications set up, please reach out to support@planningpod.com and let us know! Keep in mind that some questions, like connecting your external emails might require you to reach out to your own email admin or IT. Our support team can't review or log in to your external email accounts but we can help point you in the right direction!