Tracking replies as activities

[TeNNoX]

Hello,

What would be the best way to track responses to Mails send to contacts in CiviCRM?

The only possibility that I found here is:
1. adding a IMAP folder to every staff's Mail Account where they put every email respond to, and then I could somehow configure CiviCRM to register those as activities, am I right?
The problem is, we have many staff members and many are using POP3 and not IMAP and it would be very complicated too...

Aren't there other ways like:
2. sending mails via civicrm@example.org (as FROM-address) and the replies would be handled by CiviCRM and then forwarded to the staff member who sent it.
But then the staff member would receive the mail via his mail program but has to answer via CiviCRM, or how would that work?
3. Can't the +tagging system be used for that somehow?
4. Can the staff member use his own email as FROM-address, and when he gets a reply, he just forwards it to civicrmreplies@example.org and when replying to the reply, specifying civicrmbcc@example.com as bcc address?

What are the possiblities?
Do you have any ideas?
I'm sure I have overseen the solution or something.

Greetz
TeNNoX

[lsmithgo]

Easiest method - and the one that I use - is to configure every staff member's email client to automatically bcc a specific address which is then picked up by CiviCRM's Email Processor, ie what you've written in #4

[TeNNoX]

Easiest method - and the one that I use - is to configure every staff member's email client to automatically bcc a specific address which is then picked up by CiviCRM's Email Processor, ie what you've written in #4

Okay, and what about the emails coming from non-members which are received by the staff members?

[demeritcowboy]

I have a drag-and-drop extension I've abandoned working on, but might be of interest. I've only tested it on civi 4.2, and on a mac it requires two awkward extra steps every time, and it might only work with drupal. Also it only works with desktop email programs (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) not webmail.

It isn't on the internet anywhere but if that sounds useful I can put it somewhere.

[lsmithgo]

Okay, and what about the emails coming from non-members which are received by the staff members?

Have the non-members send emails to an address and configure your email system to forward this address to both a human and CiviCRM

[TeNNoX]

I have a drag-and-drop extension I've abandoned working on, but might be of interest. I've only tested it on civi 4.2, and on a mac it requires two awkward extra steps every time, and it might only work with drupal. Also it only works with desktop email programs (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) not webmail.

It isn't on the internet anywhere but if that sounds useful I can put it somewhere.

It sounds interesting! If you have time to upload it, I would like to take a look at it.

Have the non-members send emails to an address and configure your email system to forward this address to both a human and CiviCRM

Well, we had the idea to write a qmail script, and mails with a specific footer will get BCC'ed to civicrm...

[demeritcowboy]

For the drag and drop, I've put it here:
https://github.com/demeritcowboy/com.physicianhealth.emaildragdrop

[TeNNoX]

For the drag and drop, I've put it here:
https://github.com/demeritcowboy/com.physicianhealth.emaildragdrop

Thanks! This looks pretty useful with some tweaking for my circumstances. (Civi 4.5, clean URLs, ...)
Had no time to try it yet, though.

Thanks,
TeNNoX