Advanced inbound and outbound email will be in the next major version (we're working on it now). More details to follow.

We've got the same issue with email. Incoming emails from a customer *must* be attached to that customer, no exceptions. Adding it through Outlook is not acceptable, because any time something has to be done manually there will be errors.

Is there any update on when "advanced email capabilities" will be available?

(This issue is a show stopper for us as well).

I've done a "quick & dirty" email integration. Just an external java program that pools a POP3 account. It checks for new mails, try to discover a Centric CRM contact in the database or check it on a ldap server (Active Directory in my case). In the latter case it imports the data (First / Last name, email address, LDAP account name). Finally it checks if the subject contains a ticket number. If no a new ticket is created, if yes a new logentry is linked to the given ticket. Sender is notified and mails are forwarded to somebody else. I've also modified Login.java so that a new user can login also if not created in Centric CRM: first the credential are checked on AD and than, if he/she is member of a group a new User is created (Contact and Account are created also). We use some like a fallback authentication: if ldap authentication fails the password in the centric crm database is checked. So administrators can login when ldap is not working.
If anyone is interested I can post the source code. Please note: it's not well commented and probably you have to change something to make it run in your enviroment.

romano

I'm very interested in your code (romano trampus) because dealing with inbound email is a feature i was looking for long
Thanks

I am also interested in this functionality

Thanks,
Ryan

Romano,

For starters, the LDAP auto-user creation is a great improvement that I'm sure others will find useful. There's been talk of this and it would at least be nice to see where you hooked it in.

If you are willing to contribute the code (and have the authorization to do so), then we have a code agreement you can fill out, or optionally you can declare that your code portion falls under the Apache License, BSD License, Mozilla Public License or is otherwise freely available.

Thanks for offering these improvements!

I would also be very interested in this functionality.

Well, I have no problem to share the code I've written. Yesterday I've added a simple notification. I've not used the notification system in centric crm because: 1) I don't understand how to configure it, 2) the notification goes to the owner of the ticket, instead I want it goes to who has posted the request. Anyway I've used the centric crm classes as much as possible avoiding direct ineraction with the database. I'm back in office on monday. If Apache licence or GNU licence is ok, I'll post on this thread a zip file with source classes and a small readme. Let me know about the code agreement, so I can have a look at it. For administrator: if you think it's better, please let me know. I'm sorry but I think I will not be able to maintain the code in the future because programming is not on my main tasks at work and at home I'm already involved in other open source projects.

I apologize, but the source code of Centric CRM reports:

* Copyright(c) 2004 Dark Horse Ventures LLC (http://www.centriccrm.com/) All
* rights reserved. This material cannot be distributed without written
* permission from Dark Horse Ventures LLC. Permission to use, copy, and modify
* this material for internal use is hereby granted, provided that the above
* copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
 
Because I've not any written agreement, I apologize but I cannot give the code out. This issue is a big one for a "opensource" project.
After undesterding this I'm seriously thinking to move to some other CRM software.
I've asked to a lawer and he suggested me not to publish any code that make use of Centric CRM api. That is because the licence is for "internal use only". And there is no general authorization to give out information on how interact with Centric CRM.
I understand this is the main difference from "opensource" projects and GNU/GPL or BSD or Apache opensource projects.

Hi Romano,

We're actively discussing the license terms.

Let me find out some more details on this... the code is copyrighted according to the Centric Public License, which says that modifications can be made and redistributed under another license of the author's choosing, but that the code as a whole (the Centric CRM portion) could not be redistributed.

I've asked for legal to provide a clear answer.

As a technical note, any contributed code would be maintained by the core team which is what I think your intent is, especially with the proper license in place. Hope to have a better answer soon.

Thanks for the details,
Matt