With New Outlook 365 Add-in You Always Have Contact Details at Hand
One of the biggest improvements brought by the new eWay-CRM 7.0 is the add-in for Outlook 365. The developer Adam Znamenacek worked hard on it, so we asked him to introduce the useful tool himself.
eWay-CRM 7.0 was released a month ago. What in store for users?
The most visible change for them will definitely be a more colorful and more intuitive user interface that makes the most of the space in dialogues. We have prepared our own color scheme for each module. But it is not just about visual differentiation of the individual modules. To the last detail, we dealt with the shades of the buttons after hovering the mouse and the like. I think that even new users will quickly find their way around eWay-CRM.
What other features did you work on?
For example, new features in the Administration Center, such as module permissions or creating and editing fields. But the most interesting and time-consuming innovation I worked on was the Outlook 365 add-in.
How did the idea for the Outlook 365 add-in come about?
Jan Lalinsky (CEO of eWay System) came up with the idea to create a preview panel in which users will have all of the information about a contact or a deal available immediately when opening an email in Outlook. As we developed his idea, it was essential to unify the design and control of the desktop, web, and mobile applications in line with our vision to develop a comprehensive CRM for Microsoft 365 users (formerly Office 365). This was a big development challenge because every application that the add-in is running in works differently. I often worked through the night. But in the end, it worked, and I think the users can switch from one platform to another at any time.
How does the application work?
After opening the email, the add-in finds out which item in the eWay-CRM email address is linked to. The contacts or deals, which are then displayed in the sidebar, are interactive. So all you have to do is click on the phone number to start calling via Skype, FaceTime and so on. Or click on the company address to find it on the map. The user can also go directly to the contact card in eWay-CRM via the edit button with the pencil symbol.
What about the second tab “HUB”?
As many users already know from eWay-CRM, HUB offers an overview of activities such as tasks, calendar, emails or journals that are linked to the selected contact or deal. If there is a lot of items in a contact, details can be found using a search function and filtered by item type or by time. Whether historically or as in the case of tasks in the future.
This is great, for example, when a manager wants to have a quick overview of what his colleagues are working on. All you have to do is open the HUB in the sidebar next to the list of colleagues in the Users module in the eWay-CRM Web and simply click through them.
What devices are the add-ins compatible with?
The add-in for the web version of Outlook works on both Windows and Mac, it also works on the mobile Outlook app, a sidebar similar to the add-in is also available in the eWay-CRM Web by default, and of course we can't forget the desktop version of Outlook.
How do you install the application?
Since the application works as an Outlook add-in, you only need to have Outlook and eWay-CRM installed, log in to AppSource with your Microsoft account and install the add-in there. It is then automatically activated in all versions of Outlook. No need to download any installation files from Google Play, Apple Store or to laptop.
