There are two methods in which you can receive email from 3rd party email providers inside Top Producer CRM: POP3 or Email Forwarding.
Each method requires a different type of setup and also requires that your 3rd Party Email provides the necessary features and configuration options. It is possible to use POP3 for one email account, and Email Forwarding for another.
Using POP3
POP3 is a standard email protocol used by almost all email client programs, and is a service provided by most email providers. Your email account is hosted on a server belonging to your provider. Email received to your account is placed in an inbox on your Provider’s server and cannot be viewed until another service or program connects to the server and downloads the messages. The messages can be accessed over the internet by other services and programs if they are configured with the correct POP3 Server, Port, Username, and Password.
Quite often, email providers also provide a WebMail client to access your email. WebMail makes its own connection to access the emails hosted on the server.
Configuring Top Producer CRM to receive email through POP3 requires that you have the following information:
- POP3 Mail Server: Typically something like pop.emailprovidername.com, or mail.yourdomainname.com.
- POP3 Port: Port 110 is the default (and most common) setting.
- Username: Your email account username. It is sometimes your entire email address, and sometimes just the part before “@”.
- Password: Your email account password.
Tip: If you do not have the above information, contact your email provider.
To set up POP3 email in Top Producer CRM, follow the steps below:
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At the top right of the screen, click on the Account Menu, then click Settings.
- Click the Email tab and select the TP Email Setup sub-tab.
- Click Edit Email Setup to switch to edit mode.
- Next to Open Email Using…, select Top Producer Email (@topproducer.com & External Email Accounts).
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Click the Add External Email (POP3) Account link. The Add External Email (POP3) Account form opens within the Email Account Setup segment.
- Enter your POP3 account information, including Username, Password, POP3 Mail Server, and Port.
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If you’d like to be able to access the emails from their original location after you’ve downloaded them into Top Producer CRM, click the Yes option button next to the Leave Mail on Server option.
Note: Selecting Yes for this option means that all emails received to that account will remain on your 3rd Party Email Provider Server, even when deleted from within Top Producer CRM. If you do not check that email account using a different email client and delete unwanted messages, it is likely that over time your email server inbox will become full and you will encounter issues receiving new email.
- In the Save mail in pulldown, select the email folder that you would like new messages to be placed. By default they will be placed in the Inbox, but you can create additional email folders – which is useful if you are configuring multiple email accounts in Top Producer CRM.
- Click Add Account to save your settings. Repeat the above steps for any other POP3 email accounts.
Using Email Forwarding
Email Forwarding is a method of automatically redirecting email received at one address to a second email address. Not all email providers allow for Email Forwarding. In most cases, enabling Email Forwarding means that a record of the message is not kept in the original email’s inbox. Some providers do allow you to save a local copy of a forwarded message, such as Google’s Gmail. In addition, Email Forwarding will only redirect new incoming messages to the second address – emails received prior to enabling forwarding will not be sent to the second address. Email Forwarding also sometimes introduces delays in receiving new email.
Note: Please contact your email provider for information regarding Email Forwarding options and the configuration steps.
To receive email in Top Producer CRM using Email Forwarding, you must create a new email address in Top Producer CRM and then configure your 3rd party email to forward to the new address.
To create a new email address, follow the below steps:
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At the top right of the screen, click on the Account Menu, then click Settings.
- Click the Email tab and select the TP Email Setup sub-tab.
- Click Edit Email Setup to switch to edit mode.
- Next to Open Email Using…, select Top Producer Email (@topproducer.com & External Email Accounts).
- In the @topproducer.com Account field, type the account name that you’d like to create. For example, if you enter myusername, your email account will become [email protected]. The name must be unique across all Top Producer users.
- Click Create email. The new email account is active and ready to receive emails.
After completing the above steps, access your 3rd Party Email account settings (usually through Webmail), enable Email Forwarding, and enter your new @topproducer.com email address.
Using Email Forwarding with POP3
While you cannot use both POP3 and Email Forwarding on the same email address, they can be used separately on different accounts. Simply perform the appropriate steps above for each email account and both can be received in Top Producer CRM.
Depending on your 3rd Party Email account features, it may also be possible to combine the methods – using email forwarding from one account to another, and then configuring 8i to use POP3 to receive messages from the second account.
For example:
- Configure [email protected] to use Email Forwarding, sending to [email protected].
- Obtain the POP3 information for email2 and configure 8i to receive email from that account.
Chaining the emails together can be useful if you prefer to use POP3 but one of your email accounts only has Email Forwarding and no POP3.