Overview Live Chat Overview Standard Response Overview Service Level
Agreement (SLA) Overview Configuring New User Accounts Configuring Security Groups Configuring Shared
Jabber Groups Configuring
Ticketboxes Understanding and Setting up Agent View Understanding & Configuring
Accelerators
Administration Screen Create FocalScope Accounts for New User Create Personal Email Accounts Create Ticketboxes Create System
Email Accounts
for Ticketboxes
Overview Integration Users and Groups Email Accounts
Email Account Smart POP Smart SMTP System E-mail
Account
Rules E-mail Parameters Folder Tree External Compose Reporting News Tickers RSS Reader Data Purging Calendar
Configurations
to Agents Message View Discuss a Message
with Another Agent Flag Messages for Follow Up
Features Detailed - Live
Chat Log Detailed - E-mail List Detailed - E-mail Account Response Time - Detailed List Response Time -
Totals per Ticketbox Response Time -
Totals per Agent Statistics - Number of Messages Per Date Statistics - Number of Incoming E-mails per Time Interval Statistics - Number of Outgoing Messages
per Agent Statistics - Number of Open/Closed Tickets
per Ticketbox Statistics - Number of Open/Closed Tickets
per Category
Results
External Compose
The External Compose feature in FocalScope allows you to extend the reach of a FocalScope e-mail accounts, by embedding a link in your intranet web page (as shown in this opening page) or 3rd party application. When this link is clicked, a mail creation popup loads and an e-mail can be sent from there, without navigating away from the page or minimizing the application.
This saves you the effort of moving away from the information you are replying to just to open a new e-mail. You can reply right there and then and External Compose even has extra features, like "auto clipboard copy and paste" directly to the e-mail body. You just highlight and copy the text you want included in your e-mail, launch the link and (if the option was set during configuration) the clipboard contexts are instantly added to the e-mail body. You also have the option to set pre-completed e-mail subject & body fields for Externally Composed e-mails.
Please Note: For security reasons, FocalScope will only allow instant e-mail composition, should the user clicking the link have an active FocalScope session open on that PC. Should they not have an active session open, they will be prompted to log in first, when activating the External Compose link and get automatically logged out once the e-mail is sent (Logging in will be required again if they want to send another e-mail). Additionally, FocalScope will only respond to an activated External Compose link, if the PC from which the link is activated, has, at least, had one previous session established with the FocalScope server.
Clicking the link will open a standard FocalScope e-mail creation window. Depending on what options were chosen during setup, you will either go directly to composing the mail or get asked to choose a folder where the e-mail will be created in and sent from. Since my options were set to ask for a delivery folder, I'll select the "Incoming" folder and click [OK].
You are now presented with a normal e-mail composition screen as you would use in FocalScope when logged in to your account. All the options and functions you would have, being logged into FocalScope and composing an e-mail, are available in this popup. Additionally you may see your subject & body fields filled in or even the contents of your clipboard pasted to the e-mail body. All of these will only be seen if the options were chosen during the External Compose configuration. You can now send that emergency e-mail to a client or internal staff member, with all the relevant information of that location visible, simply by clicking one link.
Configuring External Compose
Now you will see how to configure and use the functions in External Compose
- In the Administration screen, click the [Advanced Properties] tab.
- expand the [External API] node.
- Select the [External Expose] icon.
In the right-hand pane you will see all the options we have for configuring External Compose. Let's take a systematic look at each option and what it does.
- Ticking the [Enable external compose] tick box will make FocalScope accept the creation (in applicable folders) and sending of e-mails from an embedded HTML link on an internal webpage/application.
- [Default folder:] is where you set the default incoming or ticket box folder where the externally composed e-mails will be created in.
- Selecting the [Prompt user to pick a folder] tick box, would ask the person opening the embedded link (And thus the "compose e-mail" window), if they want to create an e-mail in a specific folder or ticket box. It might be that you have ticket boxes or incoming folders for different departments, the user can then decide where to create his/her e-mail in or just send it to the right e-mail, as usual.
- [Subject:] is just a standard Subject line for the "compose e-mail" window which will be seen when opening the link. This field can be pre-populated with a subject.
- [Body] like the subject, is also a standard "compose e-mail" window component and you can add pre-existing text, as may be required.
- Ticking [Get the body from the clipboard] will take any text or link (not images or files), held in the systems clipboard, to automatically be pasted into the body of the e-mail (very useful for responding to information on the page). You simply highlight and copy the text and activate your External Compose link and it will automatically be pasted into the e-mail body.
- [Compose link:] is the HTML code generated, which you will then include in your web document/application. Simply click the [Copy] button to get the code into your clipboard and go insert where required.
- The [Save] button is clicked once you have made all your selections and wish to save them. [Reload] simply refreshes the UI.
When you click the [...] button to add a default folder, you are given a list of all the current accounts folders you can use for the "delivery" of e-mail from external compositions. I selected Incoming as my folder. Notice how folders you cannot select (Outgoing/Sent Items/Drafts) are grayed out.
With all other options filled in to our liking, we click the [Copy] button and the link is copied to our clipboard and can now be inserted into a raw HTML document to make a clickable link which will launch an e-mail creation popup.
Finish off by clicking [Save].
Now log out of FocalScope and log back in (this step is important).
Embedding External Compose Code in an HTML Document
Simply edit your internal web page/application source and enter the code generated in FocalScope, to where it needs to fit in your code (You will need to know HTML scripting to do this at a more complex level).
To change the name of the link as it appears on your intranet site/application, simply change the highlighted text as required. You have now successfully embedded the External Compose code and it will now appear and allow you to send e-mails quickly from this location.
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