Table of Contents
Setting up
Email and Diary Synchronisation
Outlook.com, Windows Live, Hotmail.
Rentman can connect to MS Outlook, MS Exchange and Office 365 or Google to send and receive emails and to synchronise appointments and tasks. If you use another mail server (e.g. Yahoo, Outlook.com or your own company mail server) Rentman uses SMTP/POP3 for emails only.
Note that the google calendar interface can be used alongside any of the other email interfaces selected – e.g. if you use MS Outlook but want to synchronise with a google calendar select Outlook as your email interface then follow the instructions below for setting up the google calendar alone.
The Yahoo and Outlook.com interfaces use the standard SMTP and POP3 interfaces and Rentman defaults the server settings to those published by the provider. These settings may change over time so if the default settings aren’t working search the internet to discover if the required settings have been changed.
e.g. a google search such as this
All the following are true:
ü Rentman is running on your PC (as opposed to a remote desktop or Rentman RDS server)
ü You use MS Outlook as your usual email client
ü You are NOT using the “New Outlook” that began rolling out Sept 2023.
Go to the Email tab of User Preferences and select either Default or Outlook as your email interface. (The default setting will use Outlook anyway if it is available but if that fails will go on to try other means - e.g. MAPI - to send the email).
Having configured to send emails as above
simply go to the Receive Tab and set the “Fetch Receive emails…” to, for
example, 30. Every 30 minutes Rentman will then look for emails in the outlook
folders (both inbox and sent items folders) and will attempt to match the email
address with a landlord, applicant, tenant or
contractor’s email address.
If it finds a match a new journal is
created for the landlord/applicant/tenant/contractor with the body of the
email. If a match is not found you can optionally have
Rentman import the email anyway and it will appear in a special folder under
Journals in the main desktop treeview – “Emails with
unknow sender”.
If you have multiple accounts setup in Outlook and want to limit rentman to
searching only one account set the “Default PST” to the account you wish
searched.
Go to
the diary tab of User Preferences and see the Outlook tab at the bottom of the
screen. Tick synchronise diary and set the time
interval. You must also choose which outlook calendar you want to synchronise
with.
Upon
uploading and downloading appointments Rentman will compare Rentman’s
last modified time with Outlook’s last modified time and overwrite the oldest
with the newest.
Do not
have more than one Rentman user synchronise with each outlook calendar (e.g. a shared public calendar) – appointments may be
duplicated. And it shouldn’t be necessary….. use the
Rentman diary to see other people’s appointments; the reason to upload to
Outlook is to have Outlook then synchronise your own appointments with a mobile
device.
Having setup the diary as above you can have Rentman upload tasks
to Outlook by ticking the checkbox and choosing the outlook folder.
ü You use Office 365
And any of the following is true:
ü You access Office 365 through a web browser
ü You don’t use MS Outlook
ü You are using the “New Outlook” that began rolling out Sept 2023.
ü You are using remote desktop or Rentman’s RDS (cloud) server (i.e. Rentman is not running on the same PC as MS Outlook).
Select “Office365 (Rest API)” as your email interface in the email tab of the user preferences screen.
You do not need to enter a username or password here. When Rentman tries to access Office365 you will be taken to a login screen in your default browser. If you enter your username and password rentman is given access … and remembers that authorization for subsequent access (it’s an industry standard “oAuth2” mechanism also used by google diary and Docusign.)
There is no interface to retrieve your
Office365 signature…. so it should be replicated into
Rentman using the ‘signature’ button.
Having configured to send emails as above
simply go to the Receive Tab and set the “Fetch Receive
emails…” to, for example, 30.
Every 30 minutes Rentman will then look for emails in the Office365 folder and
will attempt to match the email address with a landlord, applicant, tenant or contractor’s email address.
If it finds a match a new journal is
created for the landlord/applicant/tenant/contractor with the body of the
email. If a match is not found you can optionally have
Rentman import the email anyway and it will appear in a folder under Journals
in the main desktop treeview.
If you have multiple accounts setup in Office365 and want to
limit rentman to searching only one account set the “Default Inbox” to the
account (store) you wish searched.
Having
selected Office365 as your Email Interface go to the Diary tab of User
Preferences and see the “Office365” tab at the bottom of the screen. Tick synchronise diary and set the time interval. You must also
choose which Office365 calendar you want to synchronise with.
Upon
uploading and downloading appointments Rentman will compare Rentman’s
last modified time with Office365’s last modified time and overwrite the oldest
with the newest.
Do not
have more than one Rentman user synchronise with each Office365 calendar (e.g. a shared public calendar) – appointments may be
duplicated. And it shouldn’t be necessary….. use the
Rentman diary to see other people’s appointments; the reason to upload to
Office365 is to have Office365 then synchronise your own appointments with a
mobile device.
Having setup the diary as above you can have Rentman upload tasks
to Office365 by ticking the checkbox and selecting the Office365 task folder.
N.B. this interface isn’t fully functional at time of writing – the Microsoft
documentation says it is in Beta but it doesn’t appear
to be working.
ü You use MS Exchange Server
And either of the following is true:
ü You do not use MS Outlook
ü You are using the “New Outlook” that began rolling out Sept 2023.
ü Rentman is not running on the same PC as MS Outlook (e.g. you are using remote desktop or Rentman’s RDS server).
Go to the Email tab of User Preferences and
select MS Exchange. Enter your email address, username
and password. Rentman uses the email address to look up the Exchange Server’s
internet address. Emails sent using this interface will appear in your Exchange
‘sent items’ folder.
Having configured to send emails as above
simply go to the Receive Tab and set the “Fetch Receive emails…” to, for
example, 30. Every 30 minutes Rentman will then look for emails in the Exchange
folders (both inbox and sent folders) and will attempt to match the email
address with a landlord, applicant, tenant or
contractor’s email address.
If it finds a match a new journal is
created for the landlord/applicant/tenant/contractor with the body of the
email. If a match is not found you can optionally have
Rentman import the email anyway and it will appear in a special folder under
Journals in the main desktop treeview.
If you have multiple accounts setup in MS Exchange and want
to limit rentman to searching only one account set the “Default PST” to the
account (store) you wish searched.
Having
selected MS Exchange as your email API go to the Diary tab of User Preferences
and see the “MS Exchange” tab at the bottom of the screen. Tick synchronise diary and set the time interval. You must also
choose which Exchange calendar you want to synchronise with.
Upon
uploading and downloading appointments Rentman will compare Rentman’s
last modified time with Exchange’s last modified time and overwrite the oldest
with the newest.
Do not
have more than one Rentman user synchronise with each Exchange calendar (e.g. a shared public calendar) – appointments may be
duplicated. And it shouldn’t be necessary….. use the
Rentman diary to see other people’s appointments; the reason to upload to
Exchange is to have Exchange then synchronise your own appointments with a
mobile device.
Having setup the diary as above you can have Rentman upload tasks
to Exchange by ticking the checkbox and choosing the Exchange folder.
ü gMail is your preferred email account.
And any of the following is true
ü You usually access gmail through a web browser
ü You don’t have your Gmail Inbox configured in MS Outlook
ü You are using the “New Outlook” that began rolling out Sept 2023.
Note. gMail and
Google calendar are configured independently so it is possible to setup and
synchronise with the google calendar but use a different email API (e.g. Outlook).
Go to the Email tab of User Preferences and select gMail as the Email Interface. You don’t need to enter any other details as the oAuth mechanism will determine all settings when you try to connect.
.
Note.
Rentman uses the Gmail API which will prompt you for authorisation when Rentman
tries to connect.
Rentman uses the Gmail API and again there are no special settings as oAuth takes care of everything when rentman connects..
So simply go to the Receive Tab and set the “Fetch Receive emails…” to, for example, 30. Every 30 minutes Rentman will then fetch new emails from google and will attempt to match the email address with a landlord, applicant, tenant or contractor’s email address. If it finds a match a new journal is created for the landlord/applicant/tenant/contractor with the body of the email.
If a match is not found
you can optionally have Rentman import the email anyway and it will appear in a
special folder under Journals in the main desktop treeview.
ü You want to synchronise the
Rentman diary with your google calendar.
Note. gMail and
Google calendar are configured independently so it is possible to setup and
synchronise with the google calendar but use a different email API (e.g. Outlook).
Go to
the Diary tab in User Preferences and click on the google tab at the bottom of
the screen.
Tick the
“synchronise diary..” checkbox. As with Gmail the
authorization process will kick in and Rentman will display your googe diaries. Select the one you wish Rentman to sync
with.
Then
select the time interval or click “Sync Now” if you wish to synchronise
manually. The “weeks in future” value restricts rentman’s
downloading to that number of weeks in advance. The fewer weeks in advance the
quicker the download will be.
Do not
have more than one Rentman user synchronise with each google calendar (e.g. a shared calendar) – appointments may be duplicated.
And it shouldn’t be necessary….. use the Rentman diary
to see other people’s appointments; the reason to upload to google is to have
google then synchronise your own appointments with a mobile device.
Avoid
sharing google calendars with other staff members. Rentman may not be able to
distinguish between your calendar events and those in the shared calendar again
leading to duplication. And again use Rentman to
examine each other’s diaries…just sync with the google calendar (and a mobile
device) for when you are out of the office.
ü Yahoo is your preferred email
account.
And any of the following is true
ü You access Yahoo through a web browser
ü You are using the “New Outlook” that began rolling out Sept 2023.
ü You are using remote desktop or Rentman’s cloud (i.e. Rentman is not running on the same PC as MS Outlook).
Go to the Email tab of User Preferences and select Yahoo as the Email Interface. Enter your Yahoo email address, username and password. The email and username will be something similar to me@Yahoo.com.
Note.
Rentman uses a standard SMTP interface to the yahoo server and will default the
server address, port and ssl settings to those
published by yahoo.
Rentman uses the standard POP3 interface to fetch emails from Yahoo and when you select Yahoo as the email interface will set the published POP3 settings for you.
So simply go to the Receive Tab and set the
“Fetch Receive emails…” to, for example, 30. Every 30 minutes Rentman will then
fetch new emails from Yahoo and will attempt to match the email address with a
landlord, applicant, tenant or contractor’s email
address. If it finds a match a new journal is created for the
landlord/applicant/tenant/contractor with the body of the email. If a match is
not found you can optionally have Rentman import the
email anyway and it will appear in a special folder under Journals in the main
desktop treeview.
ü One of these Microsoft’s services
is your preferred email account
And any of the following is true
ü You access the Microsoft service through a web browser
ü You don’t use MS Outlook
ü You are using the “New Outlook” that began rolling out Sept 2023.
ü You are using remote desktop or Rentman’s RDS Server (i.e. Rentman is not running on the same PC as MS Outlook).
Go to the Email tab of User Preferences and select Outlook.com as the Email Interface. Enter your Microsoft email address, username and password. The email and username will be something similar to me@outlook.com.
Note.
Rentman uses a standard SMTP interface to the microsoft
server and will default the server address, port and ssl
settings to those published by microsoft.
Rentman uses the standard POP3 interface to fetch emails from Microsoft and when you select Outlook.com as the email interface will set the published POP3 settings for you.
So simply go to the Receive Tab and set the
“Fetch Receive emails…” to, for example, 30. Every 30 minutes Rentman will then
fetch new emails from Microsoft and will attempt to match the email address
with a landlord, applicant, tenant or contractor’s
email address. If it finds a match a new journal is created for the
landlord/applicant/tenant/contractor with the body of the email.
If a match is not found
you can optionally have Rentman import the email anyway and it will appear in a
special folder under Journals in the main desktop treeview.
ü You use none of the email
services mentioned so far. This will be the case for a private company email
server or Apple.
And any of the following is true
ü You access the mail servicer through a web browser
ü You are using the “New Outlook” that began rolling out Sept 2023.
ü You are using remote desktop or Rentman’s cloud (i.e. Rentman is not running on the same PC as MS Outlook).
Go to the Email tab of User Preferences and select SMTP/POP3 as the Email Interface. Enter your email address, username and password. The email and username will be something similar to me@somewhere.com.
Discover from your IT admin the server name, and port numbers you should use. If in doubt try with both the smtp and pop3 server as “mail.somewhere.com”, the smtp port as 25 and the pop3 port as 110.
On the Receive Tab you will need to enter the POP3 server name and the port number
Then set the “Fetch Receive emails…” to,
for example, 30. Every 30 minutes Rentman will then fetch new emails from
Microsoft and will attempt to match the email address with a landlord,
applicant, tenant or contractor’s email address. If it
finds a match a new journal is created for the
landlord/applicant/tenant/contractor with the body of the email. If a match is
not found you can optionally have Rentman import the
email anyway and it will appear in a special folder under Journals in the main
desktop treeview.