In case you haven't been using a good CRM system so far, it can be a bit of a chore to get current and relevant data about your customers and prospects into your new CRM system.
Outlook Discovery is designed to help with this task.
Usually you have corresponded via e-mail to customers and prospects. And some of them you may even have created as Outlook contacts. Outlook Discovery helps to find this information and to transfer the information to ChannelCRM.
But: As you may have discovered, one can write just about anything in Outlook fields. And it is not certain that you have always been structured when it comes to filling in data about your contacts. Eg. it is our experience that most skip when it comes to filling in correct business addresses. Let alone VAT numbers.
Therefore, Outlook Discovery is designed for two tasks:
1.Finding information in your Outlook.
2.To let you edit and enrich the information before transferring to ChannelCRM.
Read further:
Outlook Discovery is part of ChannelCRM AddIn for Office package. If you have already installed and configured this, look here Office AddIn
You start Outlook Discovery by opening Outlook and in the mail ribbon select the tab ChannelCRM. Herein, click on the Outlook Discovery.
First page in Outlook Discovery briefly describes what the purpose is and what should happen.
(Maybe a dialog comes up telling that you have saved data. This happens if you have already been working in Outlook Discovery and have carried out some part of the process. If you want to pick up where you last left off, then choose " Yes "in the dialogue.)
The process continues in 6 steps:
Step 1: Select folders in Outlook
Here it is important to select the folders in Outlook that can include CRM-relevant contacts or e-mails to or from persons with CRM relevance. Outlook Discovery elect two folders: Standard Contacts and Standard sent mails.
When we do not select the Inbox, it is because it often contains large amounts of e-mails from companies / individuals without CRM relevance.
You can select / deselect folders as you want. Also across multiple mail accounts if you have them.
Be aware that in this step it is not about "catch" all emails, but just at minimum to catch one email for each of the people out in the real world, which is relevant in your future use of CRM.
Once you have selected folders, click Next.
Step 2: Scan folders for Outlook contacts og e-mail adresses
Now the selected folders are scanned for unique email addresses. You can follow the scan on-screen and you may already see that some of your contacts have rather large amounts of correspondence with you. When the scan is completed Outlook Discovery automatically goes to the next step.
Step 3: Scanning results and enrich/lookup
Here are all the found contacts and email addresses in a list. The list is sorted so that the contacts with most correspondence is at the top. They are probably the most relevant to you - therefore on top.
The upper half of the screen shows the list. The lower half shows the detailed data of the currently selected item.
The idea now is for you go through the list line by line and correct/enrich the information to fit best with reality. You have here some tools:
a.You can simply write in the blanks and correct in the fields where it displays incorrect data. Pay special attention to ensure phone numbers actually contains phone numbers.
b.You can click the CVR button and make lookups in the Danish Business Register (CVR). Initially the lookup searches for the domain that forms part of the contact's email address, but if this doesn't provide the result, you can write the beginning of the company name, phone number or company registration number. When you choose a company in CVR, the values are inserted automatically.
c.If more contacts in your list poses the same e-mail domain, Outlook Dicovery will prompt you for changing the company information on these as well.
d.Remove check-mark in "Do upload". You will remove the check-mark for contacts without relevance for CRM. This will probably be the case for your private contacts, but you should also remove the check-mark for e-mail adresses belonging to you or your collegues - should they be found in the list. For clarification bottom at page.
e."Skip remainding" will mark the remainding contacts in the list as NOT to upload. This may prove efficient in case you decide that contacts with less than say 2 mails are of no concern.
Step 4: Transfer of Contacts
Once you have completed the enrichment process, click Start Transfer. While the contacts are created in ChannelCRM you can follow on the screen. Those that are transferred are marked green. Those already in CRM are marked yellow. (We will not update the data for contacts that are already in your CRM. In such cases we must assume that it is data in CRM that is most accurate.)
Step 5: Select folders containing mails of relevance
Now you need to identify the folders containing emails relevant to your CRM. The mail folders you identified in step 1 are already designated, but there'll be more. Eg. Inboxes.
You can also set a date backwards in time as a filter so that only the e-mails more recent than this date is considered.
Once you have selected, click Upload.
Step 6: Transfer e-mails
This step begins by making a list of all e-mail in the designated folders where the list is sorted with the newest on top.
Then the actual upload starts (with newest first). Depending on your data volume (number and size of e-mails) the transfer itself can take a while. But you can follow along the way and interrupt if needed.
After step 6, contacts, companies and e-mails are created as activities in ChannelCRM in a way so that they are linked. Contacts as employees of companies. And emails visible both along the contacts (sender / receiver) and the companies employing the contacts.
Mail addresses for you and your coworkers
We suggest that you do not allow Outlook Discovery to upload yourself or your coworkers as contacts in ChannelCRM. Reason being that ChannelCRM needs to be able to "decide" if a mail-address is to be treated as internal or belonging tom someone external to your company. Just one example is the automated mail-scan you may later employ. Here we need to be able to establish whether an e-mail originates from the outside (inbound) og inside (outbound).
As a general rule: Do NOT create yourself neither your coworkers as contacts in CRM. They are to be found as users and as such internal.