Q. How exactly does the C&P e-mail work?

The e-mail function in Clients & Profits X runs in the background while you work, sending e-mail automatically whenever it is needed. E-mail notifications are triggered by day-to-day events, based on settings in Preferences, as well as for each staff member. When triggered, Clients & Profits automatically creates an e-mail for a certain event (e.g., closing a job), then sends the message to your SMTP mail server for delivery to the recipient.  The program itself acts as an SMTP e-mail client, so the e-mail is sent from the workstation that generated the e-mail event in the program.  

Q. What events trigger an e-mail from Clients & Profits?

There are many different kinds of events that trigger automatic e-mails, including:

• Staff members, and their supervisors, are notified when he or she hasn't entered enough time for the previous day (equal to their planned hours for the prior day).
• Any staff member, account executive, team members, or the job's traffic assignments can be notified when a new job is opened, a billing is created, or a payment is received for a particular client.
• Any staff member, account executive, team members, or the job's traffic assignments can be notified when a job's production or billing status has changed (the easiest way to generate a new job e-mail is by setting up the new job status code to send an e-mail message).
• Staff members can be notified of any tasks that are due today (or any overdue tasks). As well, they are notified the day before a task is due.
• An account executive or team can be notified when a job task goes over budget and when a user causes a budget alert message when entering an order, job cost, or time entry.
• An account executive or team can be notified when the estimated hours on a task have been exceeded.
• The system manager is notified when the Quick Check discovers trouble with the database.
• Any combination of staff members can be notified of a client or vendor diary entry.
• Any staff member, account executive, team members, or the job's traffic assignments can be notified when a job diary entry is entered.
• Any staff member, account executive, team members, or the job's traffic assignments can be notified when a change order is entered.
• The Cash Flash Report, displaying the agency's cash, A/P, and A/R balances, can be sent to any staff member (user must have access to the Cash Flash Report to send this e-mail).
• Can quickly send an e-mail to the system manager, the C&P Help Desk, the C&P User Group, or report a bug or enhancement (wish list) request.

In addition, calendar entries can be scheduled to automatically remind staff members about upcoming events, including:

• Media buyers can be notified about important dates, deadlines, and meetings (media calendar entry).
• A bookkeeper can be notified about upcoming payments, such as tax deposits (cash calendar entry).

Q. Does Clients & Profits replace our existing mail server?

No. Clients & Profits X only sends outgoing e-mail, acting as an e-mail client, it's not a mail server. Your existing SMTP mail server does the actual forwarding of the e-mail messages.

Q. Is any special hardware needed to make C&P e-mail work?

No. The e-mail capability in Clients & Profits X is entirely software-based. As long as your shop has a full-time connection to an SMTP e-mail server, the staff will get e-mail notifications from Clients & Profits X throughout the day. Each workstation needs direct access to the SMTP server, they can't connect through a proxy server to get to it.

Q. What is an SMTP server? Does C&P support SMTP authentication?

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is an established industry standard method for sending e-mail over the Internet. SMTP is widely used on Internet mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange, Apple's OS X Mail, Communigate Pro, Squirrel Mail, and others. The e-mail feature in Clients & Profits can only send mail to mail servers that speak SMTP. Clients & Profits X also supports sending e-mail through SMTP servers that require authentication.  This is set up under each staff record (enter their e-mail account's log in ID and password).  However, certain authentication protocols are not supported by Clients & Profits X, such as those used by Microsoft Exchange servers.  In this case, have IT turn off the need to SMTP authenticate on Exchange for the IP address range of computers on which Clients & Profits X is installed.

Q. How do I know if our mail server is compatible with Clients & Profits?

Check its documentation to see if it supports SMTP.

Q. Can we send C&P e-mail to someone with a gmail, yahoo, or aol account?

Yes, set them up as a staff member in C&P, then enter this e-mail address into their staff record.

Q. Must we have an in-house SMTP mail server?

No, it can be in-house or located at your ISP.  However, each workstation with Clients & Profits X needs to have direct access to it. This is normally taken care of by IT since each workstation also has your company's standard e-mail program that also requires access to this server.

Q. Will Clients & Profits notify me if I don't have access to an SMTP server?

Yes. When C&P e-mail is started, it does a standard ping of the mail server at the URL or IP address you entered into C&P E-mail Preferences for the SMTP server. If this computer isn't found (for example, the server is turned off or it's a bogus address), Clients & Profits will prompt you with an error and temporarily turn off the C&P e-mail feature on this workstation (not for everyone, since this check is performed each time someone starts C&P). Theoretically, if you have a computer at your mail server's address, but it does not have an SMTP server running on that computer, you won't get an error. But, when C&P tries to send individual e-mails you'll receive pop-up errors by the program since it couldn't communicate with the server.  You can turn off this startup check (ping) in the C&P e-mail preferences. Sometime an ISP won't allow their mail server to be pinged, which will turn off your C&P e-mail since C&P thinks there is no computer at the server's location.

Q. What setup is necessary before C&P begins sending e-mail?

1. Enter e-mail addresses for each staffer in the Staff window. Or, you can enter e-mail addresses for all staff members at one time from the Users window (choose Setup > Users, Access & Passwords, then click on the e-mail addresses toolbar button).

2. Enter the mail server's URL or IP address in Preferences (choose Preferences > C&P Mail).

3. Click on the Automatically send e-mail checkbox, which turns the ability for C&P X to send e-mail (it's the quick way to turn e-mail on and off in C&P X).

4. Enter the system manager's name and e-mail address.  This does not have to match a staff record.  A few of the automated e-mail messages go to this address, as does the System Manager Help e-mail, under File > Get Help.

5. Last, configure the various automatic e-mail messages you want (e.g., status codes, over-budget, etc.), and enter the body of the message that will be sent to staffers (for those messages that give you an option to enter a message body).  You aren't required to receive all automatic e-mails from C&P X when the feature is turned on, you can choose to configure some of them and not others.

Q. How do I quickly turn on and off C&P e-mail?

The C&P mail system is started and stopped in Preferences > C&P Mail. Click on and off the Automatically send e-mail checkbox. (If the mail server's address isn't entered, enter it first.) Turning off e-mail will not clear any particular configurations you made for the various e-mails C&P X can generate (like status code e-mails, etc.), it just stops the e-mails from being sent. And, as mentioned above, turning on the feature isn't enough, you must also configure the various e-mail generating events.  See the list at the top of this FAQ for the most used e-mail events.

Q. Can I resend a C&P e-mail that failed?

No, at this time, automatic e-mails are sent once.  If it fails (you receive a pop up error) due to a connectivity problem with the mail server it can not be sent again. C&P X does not maintain a log of "unsent" e-mail at this time, and then try to send them again later. 

Q. Do I have to enter the system manager's e-mail address?

No, but it's recommended. The "system manager" is the person who receives problem e-mails and general questions about how C&P works from users. As a shortcut, e-mail can be sent to the system manager by any user while they're working in Clients & Profits by choosing File > Get Help. A default message can be entered into Preferences that prompts the user to answer some standard questions.

Q. What is the "missing time message" for? Do I have to use it?

The "missing time message" in Preferences > C&P Mail is for the C&P TimeCop e-mail feature, which sends e-mail to those who didn't enter their planned hours for the prior day into time cards or time sheets.  If you are not using the TimeCop e-mail feature, you don't need to use it.

Q. Can the TimeCop be set for some people and not for others?

Yes. TimeCop can be selectively enabled for specific staff members. The staffers that need missing time reminders should have the Send Missing Time option checked in the Staff Availability window. This option should be unchecked for people that shouldn't get TimeCop e-mails.  As well, enter planned hours for those you want to receive the e-mail to finish the TimeCop setup.  The actual hours are checked against the planned hours each day to determine if an e-mail should be sent.

Q. Is a supervisor notified when the staff member forgets to enter their time?

Yes. A copy of the missing time e-mail is forwarded to the staff member's department manager. For this option to work, each staff member needs to belong to a department (which is entered in the Staff window) and the departments must be set up under Setup > Departments.. Each department needs a manager's (or supervisor's) initials, which must be a staff member with an e-mail address. If a department has no manager or supervisor specified, the copy of the missing time e-mail is sent to the system manager in Preferences > C&P Mail.

Q. Can I customize an e-mail's recipient list? Can I copy someone outside the company?

Yes, you can customize a recipient list by selecting any combination of staff members. Hold down the shift key, Apple (command) key, or control key and click on whoever you want to get the e-mail. Each person will be highlighted and the e-mail will be sent to these staff members.  Or, you can select things like "Traffic Names" or "Team Members" for job related e-mails.  Traffic names are the initials for the traffic assignments on the job and team members are where if you put in a team ID instead of someone's initials into the AE/Team field on the job.  As well, you can enter a full e-mail address in the CC: and BCC: fields (you can't enter staff initials into these fields).  This is how you can notify someone outside of the office or use a staff member's alternative e-mail address.

Q. Is there a way to send an e-mail to everyone in our office who uses Clients & Profits?

Yes, but in most cases, you wouldn't send an email notification to everyone. The automatic e-mail sent by C&P is generally sent to a single person, such as an AE, a media buyer, the agency president, or a group of people, such as team members or traffic assignments. With job-based e-mail, the point is to make the people who manage the job instantly aware of day-to-day changes to a job's status, traffic, budget, billings, etc., so there are fewer surprises. If everyone in the office was notified by C&P, there would be a tremendous number of trivial messages crowding the shop's in-boxes. This glut of information would make it hard for someone to see the really important news of the day.

Q. Can C&P send automatic e-mail to everyone in a certain department?

Not within C&P. E-mail can only be sent to individuals, team members, the job's traffic assignments, and in rare cases, everyone. Theoretically, you could assign everyone in a department to a team, but often teams are cross-department, so this won't work. A work around option is to setup a customized recipient group on your mail server, then setup the e-mail address for that group as a staffer (using a staff name that identifies the department) and select that staffer as the recipient.  Or, manually type this e-mail address into the CC or BCC fields.  Your mail sever will then distribute the e-mail to the group when it receives e-mails to that address.

Q. Can automatic e-mail be sent to anyone who belongs to a certain account team?

Yes. Many of the e-mails have the option to select the job's Team Members as the recipients of the e-mail. The most common include the job status e-mail, change order e-mail, job diary e-mail, and the new job e-mail.  However, you'll need to assign a team ID to the staff records (an staff record can only be a member of one team), then enter the Team ID into the AE/Team field on the job ticket (instead of one person's initials as the AE).

Q. Can I send estimates, invoices, or purchase orders via e-mail directly from Clients & Profits?

Yes. One way is to save the report as a PDF file, then use your company's e-mail program and include it as an attachment.  For instructions on how to create a PDF file from C&P X, please read the tech note on this topic. Another way is to choose the E-mail print destination.  This automatically converts the report into a PDF file and attaches it to the e-mail for you.  But, some users like to view the PDF file before sending it, so the first option works best for that.

Q. Can C&P receive e-mail?

No. The automatic e-mail function in Clients & Profits only sends outgoing mail. All incoming messages, including replies to automatic e-mail, are handled by your e-mail server, and in turn will deliver the e-mail to the company's staff e-mail inboxes.

Q. How do I know a C&P e-mail was actually sent? Why would an e-mail not send to my recipients?

All e-mail areas of C&P, except for the startup e-mails (when first person signs into C&P each day), will notify you with a pop-up message that an e-mail did not send. C&P X does not have an "outbox", so these messages will not be sent at a later time. Normally, the failure error is caused by a connectivity issue with the mail server, or a setting that was changed on the mail that is now blocking C&P X froms sending e-mail.

There are two reasons e-mail won't be sent to your recipients: user error and system error:

User errors often are caused by selecting the wrong recipients or forgetting to send the e-mail. Some areas you need to select your recipients before saving an entry (like when adding a diary entry). Another common user error is the "No One" option is highlighted by default, but you hold down shift or control to select multiple recipients.  If "No One" is still highlighted, no e-mail will send.  Make sure to single click the first recipient (which will unhighlight "No One"), then shift or control click the remaining recipients.  As well, user errors are often caused by setup errors, such as selecting traffic names or a team as your recipients, yet you didn't enter traffic name initials on a job, assign a team to a job or to each staff record, or assign a department manager to a department or a department to each staff record (for TimeCop e-mail).  Last, you may have added an incorrect, or no e-mail address, into the recipient's staff record, so confirm each staff record has a correct e-mail address.

System errors focus around communication with the SMTP server itself. At log in C&P will check if the SMTP server name or IP address entered in the E-mail Preferences window exists by pinging this computer.  The pinging can be disabled in the E-mail Preferences window for those servers that don't allow pinging. If the pinging fails, you'll receive an error message saying that C&P E-mail will be temporarily disabled. Only this one workstation is turned off to C&P e-mail when this happens, it does not turn it off for everyone. Once fixed, log back into C&P to turn e-mail back on in C&P for this computer.  If the SMTP server was successfully pinged at log in, other communication problems with the mail server will cause pop-up error messages (many will say something like "Web Enabler Error") when C&P tries to send an e-mail.  These can range from SMTP authentication failures, hardware or software firewall blocks, certain virus software, DNS problems not resolving the URL of the server (in this case enter the IP address for the mail server), or white/black lists being set up incorrectly on the mail server causing C&P e-mail not to be delivered.

Q. Can I get a return receipt from e-mail sent by Clients & Profits?

No, there is no option for notifying you when someone reads your automatically-sent messages from C&P.

Q. When are overdue and overbudget task e-mails sent? Is this why the first user logging in each day takes a little longer to log in?

These e-mails are sent when the first user signs into C&P each day. When this user logs in, they'll have to wait a short while (usually less than 30 seconds) while C&P sends these "startup" e-mails. If a user periodically complains about it taking a long time to log in, ask this person if he or she was the first one to log into C&P that day.  Most likely the sending of the "startup" e-mails caused the delay.

Q. What is the "BCC:" address used for?

It's used to send copies of a message privately to a supervisor or management. If you enter a full e-mail address in the "BCC:" field, a copy of an e-mail will be sent without the knowledge of the original or CC: recipients. Only a full e-mail address can be entered in the BCC: field, not staff initials.

Q. Are the messages sent by C&P secure and private?

None of the e-mail sent by Clients & Profits is encrypted or otherwise secured. Since C&P is not a mail server or a full featured e-mail client, the security depends on the security provided by the mail server. Also, Clients & Profits has no way to know if a recipient's e-mail address is correct or not. The System Manager needs to check the staff records for correct e-mail addresses to prevent an e-mail from being sent to an inappropriate address.  But, a user could also type in a full address manually into the CC: or BCC: fields.

Q. Does Clients & Profits keep a log of the automatic e-mail it sends?

No, but your mail server may keep an activity log of outgoing mail. However, R&D at Clients & Profits is aware of this request, as well as having an "outbox" in C&P that would queue e-mails, then resend e-mails that failed the first time.

Q. How can I quickly test if C&P can send e-mail?

Sent the System Manager Help e-mail.  Go to File > Get Help.  Send an e-mail to the System Manager (the e-mail address set up in Preferences > C&P Mail) and see if the message is delivered.  If it is, then all e-mails in C&P should work as well, since they use the same technology to send their e-mails (assuming they are set up correctly, like TimeCop, etc.).

Q. Why have the "startup" e-mails, like the overdue and overbudget e-mails, mysteriously stopped?

A user most likely set their computer's date forward, then logged into C&P.  There is a date saved in the database that is checked against each workstation when it logs in.  If the database date is before the date of the workstation, the startup e-mails send, then the date is reset to the date of that workstation.  Thus, the startup e-mails won't send until this date is reached again.   If this happens, the date in the database needs to be reset manually, easily done wtih a SQL database.  Also, keep in mind that once a job is closed, the overdue and overbudget e-mails for these jobs will no longer send (so that the company's inboxes are not littered with irrelevant overdue and overbudget e-mails).

MAIL SERVER COMPATIBILITY CHART
The following servers support SMTP and should be compatible with Clients & Profits**:
Eudora WorldMail Server	www.eudora.com
Ipswitch Collaboration Suite	www.ipswitch.com/products/collaboration/
Infinite InterChange	www.bmi.tm/infinite/
Lotus Domino	www.lotus.com
Microsoft Exchange	www.microsoft.com/exchange
Netscape SuiteSpot	www.netscape.com/suitespot/
Novell GroupWise	www.novell.com/groupwise
MailSite SQL Enterprise	www.mailsite.com
Mercur	www.atrium-software.com
N-Plex Office	www.bomara.com
NTMail	www.ntmail.co.uk:88/
QuickMail Office	www.outspring.com
** Clients & Profits, Inc. has not tested every mail server configuration and cannot guarantee their performance.