The Outlook Plugin provides two methods for creating new items from within Outlook. The first method is to use the Plugin Toolbar. The limitation with this method is that only New Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities and Leads can be created using this method. See below for a more standardized way you can have your users create new items.
Using the above method from the main Outlook Flex Toolbar will launch a form, where the relevant information can be entered into the form by the user.
The second method is to add the item once it is verified the item is not in Flex. To use this method first Convert the Email to an Interaction or Task or simply Save the email.
In the above top screen shot the Create New options have been removed from the Outlook Plugin Toolbar making the process more streamlined for the users. See below for setup.
Using the method of Converting to a Task/Interaction or Saving the Email, the Plugin attempts to locate related item(s). If the email address and details cannot be located, a blank search result page is displayed where the user can click the appropriate New item button launching a split page to enter the item details.
Note: Flex will attempt to copy as many details from the email and pre-populate the New Item form.
New Item Setup Configuration
The Outlook Plugin is managed by the CreateNewAndSearchManager setting. By default the first 8 items will be used in the New Item section of the Plugin Results Pane (as shown above). To prevent New Items from being created use the EXCEPTIONS section of this Master Setting as shown in blue highlights below.
- If there is either a blank or the word “none” in the exception section then the Create New Item will appear. Please note that ONLY Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities and Leads will ever appear on the Main Ribbon Bar in Outlook regardless of the list item row displaying the exception “none”. As an example, in the above screen shot the Issues list has “none” as the exception. Because the Issues list will never appear on the Main Outlook Ribbon Bar it will appear on the Plugin Results pane as the 4th item.
- To stop a new item from displaying ONLY in the Plugin Ribbon Bar add “plugin-ribbon” instead of none. This applies only for Accounts, Contacts, Leads & Opportunities as no other list will ever appear in the Ribbon bar.
- To stop a new item from displaying in both the Plugin Ribbon Bar and the Search Results pane add “plugin“.
- If you would prefer to create New Accounts, Contacts, Leads & Opportunities ONLY from the Ribbon Bar then you would add the exception “plugin-results“.
Note: There is space for only 8 New item buttons on the Plugin Search Result pane therefore reorganize the list items to suit your needs for creating New Items.