XCELSOFT OfficeX
 Inbox and E-Mail
World Wide Web Info Page

The OfficeX Inbox provides complete and comprehensive electronic mailing capabilities through the corporate intranet and the Internet. It functions as a universal inbox that handles all e-mail, proposals, and bulletin envelope types.

All items that require your personal attention whether they be private e-mail, an approval for a proposal in progress, or a public bulletin arrive in your personal Inbox. The Inbox is the one-stop location where you can check any activities that you are required to give attention to.

The e-mail capabilities of OfficeX are extensive supporting sequenced recipients and groups, status of each recipient (read, unread, pending, etc.) and attachments of any document type in OfficeX (including users, schedules, documents, internet sites, and more).

The Universal Inbox is the most important section. The reason why it is termed "universal" is because documents of type proposals, bulletins, and e-mail can all be sent to the one Inbox location. OfficeX maintains a very strict concept of folders and documents as its design structure. As mentioned, everything from a word processing file to a schedule entry is considered a document to OfficeX.

There is one special type of document called an "envelope". The envelope is special to OfficeX because it is allows other documents to be attached to it (by way of attachments) as well as attaching a recipient list. In order to send document from one user to another, it must first be packaged in an envelope and given a recipient list before it can be sent. Envelopes are used in the Inbox section, the Proposals section, and the Bulletins section.

The below screen image shows what the Inbox section looks like:

Screenshot of Inbox section

The Inbox provides the following features:

  • E-mail reading and writing capabilities between OfficeX users (integrates Rich Text) and Internet e-mail via SMTP.

  • Preview area shows the contents of the envelope before actually opening the item.

  • Attachments of existing OfficeX documents (ie: word documents, powerpoint, multimedia, voice, OfficeX users, schedule information, internet urls, etc.).

  • Proposals that can be sent in order of importance and have approval requirements.

Closeup of Inbox

The Inbox folders have the ability to view:

  • Incoming mail.
  • Outgoing mail.
  • Custom folders for organizing mail.
  • Public folders viewable by the entire intranet.
  • Private folders viewable by only the current user, with options to permit other user's access.

The Inbox section allows you to send and receive e-mails. In addition, any proposals that require your review or approval will be sent to your Inbox. Any bulletins that require your review will also be sent to this Inbox section. Any item that requires your attention is sent to your Inbox.

The Inbox items are divided into folders. There are 3 special system folders that are created for every new user. These are the Inbox, Outbox, and Sent Items folders. The Inbox folder is where all incoming items are placed. The Outbox folder is a temporary folder to place any outgoing envelope items. And the Sent Items folder contains all sent items. You can create additional folders private or public folders that can be shared amongst other users. See the OfficeX Folders section of this document for more information regarding folders and permissions.

The Envelope viewer has the following capabilities:

  • Mail proposals in specified orders.
  • Display e-mail status. (ie. read, approved)
  • Attach files to messages (including voice, multimedia, user info, schedules, internet links, etc.).
  • Provide Rich Text box editing of e-mail.
Envelope Viewer

As shown above, envelopes are divided into three major sections. The envelope cover, main message, and the attachments. The envelope cover consists of the subject area and the recipient list. The main message can be any free-format message in rich-text format. The attachments section allows you to attach any OfficeX document in your envelope which means you can attach OfficeX user/contact information, schedules, internet links, in addition to real documents.

OfficeX allows you to type in recipients manually or select from a list. If you type in the recipient name manually, you can type in either the user name or the group name and then press CTRL+K to verify that the name is correct.

You can also choose to select from a list of users and groups. Simply click on the To button and another dialog box will display showing the recipient list information. This recipient window not only shows the recipient list but also the sequence of who to send the envelope to next.

In addition, a sequence number is provided in the recipient list allowing you to send the envelope from one user to the next. Users in higher sequence numbers will not have the envelope delivered to their Inbox until the prior users (in previous sequence numbers) have all seen and sent the envelope.

Furthermore, you can specify whether or not a particular user must approve the envelope before sending it off to the next recipient. Approval requires that a digital "signature" be validated before proceeding to the next recipient. The below screen image shows what the recipient list looks like:

Once the envelope has been sent and is in progress, the recipient list cannot be modified. Only the original creator of the envelope can modify the contents of the envelope including the main message as well as the attachments list.

The recipients window provides a convenient location to view the status of an in-progress envelope whether it be an e-mail, bulletin or a proposal.

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