A hosted solution

Email-Smart is a hosted solution comprising:-

• An Outlook add-in with built-in web services system for communication between the add-in and the Email-Smart Transaction system.
• The Email-Smart Administration Portal - a web based portal for configuring the system and for creating and managing Campaigns and Messages.
• The remote Email-Smart Transaction System which processes the Email-Smart Message requests and which communicates via web services with the Email-Smart add-in.

In order to remove the need to change your email settings and to avoid re-routing your email through third party servers, Email-Smart functions by adding the Email-Smart template and message content via an add-in which is installed alongside your Outlook client(s). This approach means the content of your emails is not exposed to the outside world through Email-Smart and also the architecture is failsafe in that Email-Smart is not in the critical path for delivery of your email.

In operation

The diagram below shows how Email-Smart works in operation when a user has created their email and presses the Send button. Until this time, the add-in is dormant.

When Outlook’s Send button is clicked, the add-in places the email in the Email-Smart Outbox. The Email-Smart Outbox is a folder that is added to the client’s Mailbox folder structure during installation of the add-in. The add-in periodically checks the Email-Smart Outbox and when there is new mail waiting to be processed it initiates a web service communication with the Email-Smart server-side transaction system.

Secure

Importantly, only the sender’s email address and those of the recipients as specified on the To: or Cc: list in the email, are sent to the Email-Smart server. This information is used to select an Email-Smart template and to identify those campaigns that are applicable to the sender and recipients. The Email-Smart Message picker then selects the most appropriate Email-Smart message(s) based upon campaign and management settings from the Email-Smart administration portal. The template and message(s) content is then transmitted to the add-in whereupon it is inserted as appropriate and the email is moved to Outlook’s Outbox where it is sent as normal.

Instant response

This entire process takes typically less than a second although the speed of operation is clearly dependent upon internet connection speeds and Email-Smart content size. However, because the process is asynchronous, it is almost entirely transparent to the user.

Email-Smart offline

For off-line working, the approach of moving the email to the Email-Smart Outbox, ensures that when the user is back online, Email-Smart content will be applied in the normal way at the next Email-Smart Outbox synchronisation. The add-in also incorporates logic to provide failsafe routing of emails in the event of a Email-Smart service failure.