Multi-user auto-tagging

We have half a dozen users, and a lot of our communication is with other
similar or slightly larger organisations. What we need is an easy way
to see all emails between anyone in the two organisations. A threaded
view would be best. A complicating factor is that the organizations may
use several different domain names and individuals may sometimes use
personal accounts.

A straight search doesn't, as far as I can see, have the necessary
flexibility to handle this case, and it is, in any case, painfully slow
(we have >50K messages in our mailbase).

What we've come up with so far is this:

(1) For each of our users, there is a mailbox for each foreign
organisation. The mailbox is set to tag incoming messages appropriately.
I think this means that messages sent from that mailbox will also be
tagged (this didn't happen in TP5). However messages which are dragged
into the mailbox from elsewhere don't get tagged :<
(2) Old messages are tagged by a series of searches.
(3) We use a saved tag-list search to view the history.

We looked at, but rejected, a scheme which had messages from each
organization being filed separately, because it seemed that outgoing
messages would only get filed in the right place if each user set up a
separate personality for each foreign organization.

The big problem I see with the scheme we have is maintenance. Just
setting up appropriate mail-boxes for all out users is going to take a
while, and then, whenever something changes, we'll have to change the
acceptance rules for all our users' mailboxes - otherwise incoming mail
won't get tagged correctly, and neither will replies.

What we need (I think) is a centralised way to tag messages to or from a
given set of addresses (with wild cards). Unless anyone has a better
idea....?
--
John Appleyard Jo...@polyhedron.com Jo...@polyhedron.co.uk

Polyhedron Software Ltd.
Programs for Programmers - QA, Compilers, Graphics

************ Visit our Web site on http://www.polyhedron.co.uk/ ************

[With snips - see original above]

To have these auto-tagged requires the outgoing tagging to be set on the
Personality used.
So you'll need as many Personalities set up as for auto-Filing by

I think there is an error in the Help, under Filing Messages (which gets you
to Folder Properties - Filing).
It says: "Here you can choose whether and where to file outgoing messages
after posting; or to file any message using the File button."
but I don't think it can really mean 'outgoing', as these are controlled by
Personality settings, IIUC. I think it just means 'messages'. TP Team?

If so, here's a plan. Users get their mail delivered to one of the
ForeignOrg folders within User, as you envisage. The user has a single
Personality, set to 'file outgoing message in folder where started'. Each
ForeignOrg within User folder has a Filing rule to use the corresponding
'ForeignOrg Shared Global Folder'.

Thus the mail comes in to the relevant ForeignOrg within User folder. When
the user replies, the reply also sits in the ForeignOrg within User folder,
initially. (This may actually be useful while the correspondence is fresh).

At a time of the user's choosing, he Files everything (more than one day
old, say) from this Folder. It then goes into the 'FOSGF' for this Org. As
he does each of his ForeignOrg folders, Filing goes to the right place
without the user having to think about it at all, by dint of the Folder
Filing rules you set up

So most of what you want is now in a single real folder for the ForeignOrg,
which you can view threaded. (Which you can't do for a Saved Search, which
is what you need on TP6 to display a Tag List).

To absolutely complete the picture, you will need to set up a Saved Search,
which will need to be across all messages, as you cannot (yet? - TP Team?)
specify multiple folders here, but can be set to show only mail in and out
in the last day or two.

A shame, as otherwise you could have had one Saved Search per ForeignOrg,
just spanning the User Folders for that ForeignOrg - which would have been a
very quick way to see the currently 'open' dealings with that ForeignOrg. Oh
well. TP6.02 maybe, when we get it for Newsgroups?

(The above untested. E and O E, and all that. But possibly well worth a try,
unless somebody here tells me I have it wrong. Or has a better idea).

--
Roy Brown

Posting with the OEnemy, tamed by OE-QuoteFix
http://jump.to/oe-quotefix

Interesting... my first thought was to consider a saved IMAP search
which might cover different folders... well it *can* do that but you
have to start with "all email messages" on the front tab of the search
dialog first otherwise it may not work as expected (if you have a folder
location selected here the search will confine itself to that folder
only). In other words you still have to search across the whole email
database rather than getting the search to home in on a particular
location, which would be better/quicker, but it's better than nothing :)

I have discovered that you can do a search across multiple folders by
using this format in the IMAP box:

OR (LOCATION Folder1) (LOCATION Folder2) (LOCATION Folder3) etc.

...where 'Folder1' etc. would be replaced by the name of the folder
required e.g 'Filed/Companyname' or 'WidgetCo/Sales'.

If 'all email messages' is selected on the front tab and no other
criteria set then this rule would return all messages stored in all of
the folders specified.

I'm not sure if/how this could be done across different user folders,
though, so it may not be relevant to John's situation. I'm just
mentioning all this merely as something I have learned today about IMAP
searching, maybe others will find it useful.

Chris
--
Christine-Ann Martin

[with snips]

>I'm just mentioning all this merely as something I have learned today

What I have learned about IMAP searching is that if you want to Save an
IMAP search, then you *must* do this while the 'Advanced' tab is
selected and its window is showing you the IMAP rules.

If you save with any of the other tabs foremost, the IMAP rules will
turn off. They won't be lost, but they won't be operative, either.

Likewise if you later edit that saved search, make sure you go to the
Advanced box, where you will have to check the IMAP option once more
(though it will be preserved there), before you Save it.

Not knowing this can cause a certain amount of hair-tearing..... :-(

It's on a list at TP Towers, apparently.....
--
Roy Brown 'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd useful, or believe to be beautiful' William Morris

Hmm, yes, I see... I had noticed the 'greying out' of the rules box when
you switch away from that tab but didn't think about the implications
for saved searches :(

Good point, thanks for mentioning it!

I hope so!

Chris
--
Christine-Ann Martin

What happens is that tags from an incoming message are attached to the
reply. However new messages don't get the tag, even if started in a
folder with a "Tags applied" rule. This means that my original idea
won't work - unless each of our users has a separate personality for
every foreign organisation. :<

<snip rest if plan>

Thanks for this - it seems better than our plan, and I'm trying it out.
It's still not perfect - for example, it relies on users to start emails
to foreign organisations in the appropriate folder - but it's probably
the best we can do.

I'd still like a future version of Turnpike to include a scheme for
automatically tagging incoming and outgoing email according to the
address/domain of the outside party. We, and I think many others, would
find it much easier to organise email with such a facility.

OK, I haven't actually tried it, so I've never seen this. (So nor have I
seen anything to the contrary).

But I'd point out that the Help doesn't say anything about this. And indeed,
this might cause a conflict with the Personality tagging rules on outgoing
messages. Unless the messages gets tagged with both, if different.

But the Help does say that *incoming* replies will be tagged with the same
tag as the outgoing message thay are a reply to. So if they go into a folder
that also applies tags, I guess we get the same conflict/doubling-up issues.

Maybe the Help is unreliable in one or both of these assertions? TP Team -
what should the Help say here? What's the true skinny?

So the gotcha I thought would get you gets you in the end.... :-(

> <snip rest of plan>

Yes, or to move them there tout suite, or to file them manually.

What, you mean like a tag property on an address that says 'Tag all outgoing
mail to this address with this tag'?
If you regard a newsgroup as the analogue of an address, then that would
work very like the tagging for news postings that TP already does.

and incoming

Yes. There could be quite a few external addresses which apply the same
tag - e.g. john_...@customer.com and john_s...@hotmail.com may be
the same person - in the office, and on the road. Also, since we deal
with quite a few people at customer.com, it would be useful to specify
the tag for emails to and from *@customer.com.

I suppose so. I've spent some time setting up a global shared folders
along the lines you suggested, and moving old emails in to them. The
result reinforces my view that this would be a very useful facility. I
can see all sorts of helpful things about our dealings with customer.com
that were not apparent before. The threaded view is particularly useful,
though the ordering of the threads seems odd at times - not simply the
date/time of the initial message..