The CloudExtend team has been working around the clock on this release with the primary focus on improving speed and reliability by attaching emails and files in an asynchronous manner. In short, this means more speed and reliability, and support for larger file attachments up to the max allowed by NetSuite.
This update also includes the back end infrastructure updates for Autopilot, the major feature in our upcoming release.
Admin Notes
In order to maximize performance please ensure that your users all have the ‘use access tokens’ feature enabled in their account. Once enabled, users will login one time with a password and then a token / secret will be automatically generated for subsequent logins. Not only is this faster, it is also NetSuite’s recommended approach for being more secure.
Please also ensure that REST calls are enabled on your Exchange server. If REST calls are not enabled CloudExtend will fall back to the current synchronous approach and your users will miss out on improved performance. If `you are running Exchange online this is typically enabled by default.
More Details
Get back to work faster after attaching
Prior to this release users would click 'attach' and then wait for NetSuite to confirm that the message was attached. While this generally took 1-2 seconds it could take longer if your NetSuite account was busy.
With the new release, users can click attach and then move on to other emails without having to wait for a confirmation from NetSuite. After clicking attach, CloudExtend immediately adds the email and files to a processing queue in NetSuite where it ultimately gets attached to the desired NetSuite record. Admins take note - we are leveraging NetSuite's asynchronous process and this will reduce the amount of time requests occupy in your concurrency slots compared to the previous method.
New record types available for attaching to
We’ve added support for attaching to RMA's, Vendor RMA's, Customer Deposits, and Expense Reports. Note, a bundle update is required for this and is expected to be pushed in mid July, 2020.
Improved reliability for file attachments
We’ve eliminated many of the technical complexities and prerequisites that led to file attachment issues and have leveraged new API’s made available by Microsoft for further improvements. Previously users that moved an email to their inbox from another folder had to wait for their Exchange Server to catch up before attaching their email. Users can now attach emails immediately after moving them.
File attachment locations and file names
Previously file attachments were stored under the CloudExtendFiles folder which, in some cases, caused permission issues. File attachments will now be stored in the default NetSuite folder called ‘Attachments Received’ under the name of the user that attached them. The previous edition also had a restriction on the length of the file name. With this update that restriction has been removed.
Support for more and larger attachments
This new release also includes support for larger file attachments. The previous 4MB limit is now 10 MB, the max allowed by NetSuite. Our Enterprise Edition customers can continue to leverage our OneDrive for Business and SharePoint integration to include file attachments up to 150 MB in size and to associate files up to 100 GB (yes GB) in size with NetSuite records. We've also eliminated the restrictions on the number of attachments.
Introduction of a new UI
We're making a few small changes to the UI in this release. We think you'll like them. This is just the beginning of a larger change that our UX team is working one.
Help text has been added to the login flow explaining how to locate your NetSuite account number.
The bundle icon (lightning bolt) from the bottom of the welcome page is now moved inside the settings view. We will now show a red exclamation icon on the menu and at the bottom of the settings view only if you are 'not' connected to the bundle.
We now show associated records in a separate section at the top in the contextual view. This will help users identify the records that they have already associated with their emails with ease.
The support chat button has now been moved to the footer section on the welcome page
A change in the UI flow where we now navigate a user to the welcome screen after they have attached records, showing the details of the records that they have attached. We are doing this initially for contextual view of messages and events in read mode.
Usage Reports
With this release you will be able to get analytics and learn how often the Cloud Extend App is being used and by who. Check out this article to learn how to see your stats.
Better support for shared mailboxes
With this update users can move seamlessly between mailboxes without getting logged out. Learn more about shared mailboxes here.
With this update users can also attach files from shared mailboxes
Better support for Outlook on the web users
Prior to this update Outlook on the web users would often get logged out of the CloudExtend App after periods of inactivity in Outlook. Users now remain logged in even after periods of inactivity.
Status Log
Since you no longer need to wait for confirmation for every email attached we wanted to be able to alert you if any issues occur during background processing. If there is an error you will see a red dot on the status icon. Click on the status icon and you can see the status of your messages over a 14 day period.
We're far from done!
After this release the team will be putting the finishing touches on Autopilot which will automate attaching email threads to NetSuite. We're also working on a surprise new feature!
Changes to categories
We've added two new categories that will be automatically applied to your emails. Learn more about categories here.
EXISTING -> 'Attached to NetSuite' indicates that your email has been successfully attached to NetSuite via our previous attach process. As of the August release this is also the default mode if your version of Outlook allows for categories to be created automatically in compose mode.
NEW -> 'Synced by CloudExtend' indicates your email was attached using our asynchronous attach process available with our August 30, 2020 release.
NEW -> 'Failed to Sync' - this category is applied to an email if NetSuite returns an error message after the asynchronous process is complete. Users may first see the 'Synced by CloudExtend' category. If NetSuite returns an error the status check icon at the top of the CloudExtend add-in will also have a red exclamation mark on it showing each time you open the add-in.