E-Mail Loader
MasterFile's E-mail Loader and Express Load modules are very similar and if you've used one, the other will be familiar to you.
However, the e-Mail loader is designed to import email from MSG/EML files, Outlook, Outlook PSTs, Notes mail, Notes databases, and webmail via IMAP into MasterFile. And to import documents from any other Lotus Notes database besides Notes mail that might be provided as part of an e-discovery request, for example.
The E-mail Loader also creates a PDF file of each item being imported preserving the native Notes or Outlook appearance of the original, and an RFC 2822 format EML file. Both are saved in the imported e-mail's profile.
We'll import EML/MSG files to show the basic steps.
The E-mail Loader has two modes which let you load e-mail messages semi-automatically or automatically.
In either mode, you can set default values for fields and speed up your work.
Note that if you set defaults for field values that are being extracted from native emails, those will be overwritten by your values. We do not recommend you do so, especially during Batch Load.
Power Assist Mode
In Power Assist mode, as each e-mail is processed, manually complete any required fields, or make changes to information automatically retrieved from the e-mail.
The E-mail Loader creates the document profile, attaches the native email, a PDF version and extracts attachments,the email text and meta data and then advances to the next email in your selection.
Continue importing or click Cancel (or press <Esc>) to stop.
To see the just imported emails, use the [L+ Miscellaneous > by Entered date] view. In the [L+ Documents > by Date] view, you may have to scroll by date if they were not the most recent documents imported and therefore not at the top of the list.
Open one of the imported emails by double clicking its row.
If you expand the 'OCR/Transcript/Full Text of Document' section, you'll se ethe to see the text of the e-mail message, and following that, the e-mail's meta data. This is also attached as an RFC822 text file at the top of the 'OCR/Transcript/Full Text of Document' section.
Batch Load Mode
Batch Load works like Power Assist Mode, but automatically loads all e-mail messages you've selected at one go.
- Any required profile fields for which defaults are not specified, or could not be filled from e-mail information, are automatically filled by MasterFile with standard internal values.
- Profiles missing required field values are shown in the "by Issue/Topic" views from which they can be selected and quickly corrected using [R+ Review and Revision Tools > Power Assisted Review] or [R+ Review and Revision Tools > Global Replace].
In Batch Load, the grey/blue profile area also displays the setting: 'How many messages to load' which is set to the number of emails you selected to import.
The E-mail Loader's operation is controlled from the Settings section and is where you select the source, the folder and the messages themselves.
- By default, the Email loader lets you select and load messages from a folder in your own e-mail box. Set that in [R+ Administration > User settings > Mail system]. The grey/blue area will change accordingly.
- For Notes e-mail boxes, the Domino server and database names are displayed at the top of the grey/blue area. Choosing 'Notes DB' lets you select other Notes e-mail boxes, such as those provided as part of an e-discovery request or from your client, or other Notes databases.
- The red panel contains the required fields for a document profile and the optional section below it contains the remainder of the document profile's fields.
- You can also set default values for each e-mail message to be loaded by completing the profile and clicking on "Set defaults".
- Once set, 'Settings' can be hidden away. This lets you see more of profile details in the window.
If you wish to extract e-mail attachments and store them in their own profiles, select "Yes" for "Extract attachments" when loading e-mails. You can also extract the attachments later, or extract attachments of e-mails already loaded using [R+ Profile Maintenance > Attachment processing].
When attachments are extracted, the attachments are profiled and doc-links between the attachments' profiles and the source e-mail are automatically created. These are now shown in Attachments field rather than the attachments themselves as shown below.
At this point, the attachment's profile summary and other details will be 'unknown' since the new attachments' profiles will be prefilled with information from the source e-mail.
We suggest you then select and revise those attachment profiles, updating relevant information like the date, summary, etc. using Power Assisted Review. Once that has been done, update the doc-link descriptions in the source documents by selecting the attachments in a view and using [R+ Profile Maintenance/Process attachments].
Note that the contents of the 'Attachments' field will be replaced when 'Process attachments' runs and updates the attachment names, so we suggest you use [R+ Profile Maintenance/Process attachments] and update the attachment doc-links before you edit or add any other information to the "Attachments" field.
- The MasterFile Uniform Selector is not required when importing Notes e-mail or Notes databases as that default presentation looks the same. A list of folders in the selected Notes database is displayed, and after selecting a folder, its contents is displayed. Select the messages to load in the selection margin and click "OK".
- The user option "Select Outlook emails in Outlook" controls whether you select Outlook emails from Outlook itself, or from the MasterFile Uniform Selector. You can set it [R+ Administration > User Settings]. If you elect to select emails in Outlook, MasterFile will start Outlook. After selecting the emails to import, manually switch back to MasterFile to begin importing. Do not use Outlook until you have finished processing all e-mails.
- 'Required Information' fields are automatically completed with details from the e-mail, including the document type, date, summary (as the subject of the mail) and the e-mail box its original location..
- Notice too, that the 'From/Author' and 'Recipient' fields, e-mail addresses of the sender and all recipients are filled; the Email Loader also attempts to match them to MasterFile players by comparing each e-mail address found in the e-mail with e-mail addresses specified for each player. If a match is found, the player's name and organization (if specified) is filled. If a match is not found, then the e-mail address is used. To later convert e-mail addresses to player names, add their e-mail addresses to the player profile, select profiles to revise, click on [R+ Administration > Database Fix-up Utilities] and choose "Convert e-mail addresses to player names".
If your database is on a Domino server imported emails need to be 'refreshed' which is done periodically by the MasterFile's Extract Refresher agent. If needed, you can run the agent immediately by clicking on [R+ Profile Maintenance > Extract Refresher].
- Click on the MSGs/EMLs radio button, and
- Click on Select folder & Messages to navigate to the folder containing the email files you want to import.
Select the folder as shown (EMLs here), and then
a select a file and click 'OK' or 'Open'.
Next, you will be prompted to choose whether to include any sub-folders or not. This is is asked only for an MSG/EML file import. All other email import options act only on a selected folder and its content.
We'll click 'Yes' to include subfolders.
MasterFile's Uniform Selector is displayed next. You'll use it for all import and production load processes.
- The root folder is displayed last. Files there are prefixed with the 'root' indicator ".\".
- Subfolders appear first. Files there are prefixed with their folder path, relative to the root. In the example below, the large red box shows the one subfolder's path as '4 EMLS\'.
We'll select the 5 emails we want to import in the selection margin and click 'OK'
The email loader window is redisplayed.
- The number of messages being loaded is shown. The 'Messages remaining to load' count will run when we start.
- All meta data is populated from the MSG/EML file. This includes CC recipients, routing headers and other information, attachments, etc.
- This section is blank. If we leave that, since we are running a batch load here, MasterFile will set that field as 'Unknown'. Since the emails are 'Ours', we set that.
- We can optionally link the batch to a specific issue or topic as shown.
- Finally, since we're setting defaults for the batch, we click 'Set defaults' to set those set in #3 and #4 above.
Click OK to import.
Here are the 5 imported emails. (This is the [L+ Miscellaneous > by Last edit date] view).
The top part of an email's profile, shown below, contains
- The native EML file and PDF version
- Any attachments are extracted into this field (they can be separated and linked during import or processed later).
- Email metadata (more detail and other info is shown in another section of the profile).
The lower part of the email's profile, shown below, the "OCR / Transcript / Full Text of Document" field contains the native email's full text, headers and routing information. A plain text RFC822 file of the extracted text is also attached at the top of the field.
If you continue to load emails from the same folder, the next time the MasterFile Uniform Selector is displayed, previously loaded emails are marked in orange/red as shown below.
A MasterFile .DIR file in the folder controls that display to show you what you've loaded from the folder so far. It's filename will include your MasterFile user name and look similar to "MASTERFILE -- E-mail Loader -- Administrator -- completed.DIR".
Although several users can import from the same folder simultaneously, MasterFile tracks each user's activity independently via the "-- completed.DIR" file as explained above. To avoid duplicate file import, either designate a date range for each user to load, or split large folders into subfolders and designate each to specific users. The "-- completed.DIR" serves to let users quickly see what's been loaded and what remains in an Express Load or Email Loader session as a visual aid. It is not an indicator of what's been loaded in total from a folder by multiple users. Note that if you delete this file, any tracking is lost.