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If you are using Microsoft Outlook or Top Producer, you have the option on both the Treo and in Outlook or Top Producer to leave messages on the server.  If your Treo and Outlook are configured correctly to receive email from your main email server, this article will show you how to correctly sync the two so that you see the same thing on both devices, and can purge emails from either Outlook or the Treo.

To configure Outlook: 

• Tools
• Email Accounts
• View or change existing e-mail accounts (Click Next)
• Highlight your account and click Change
  Click More Settings...
• Click the Advanced tab
• You have the choice (box) to leave messages on the server, and to optionally delete those messages if you delete them in Outlook and then empty the deleted items. (I recommend this.)

• Go to the Main Menu
• Tap Email
• Press the Menu button (to the right of the Alt button)
• Tap on Options
• Tap on Preferences
• Tap on Server (Under Advanced)

For the last several days, I have been evaluating Top Producer's new email link, the Outlook Connector. The results, in my opinion, are a mixed bag.  It does allow Top Producer users to send and receive email using Microsoft Outlook.  It should be made clear, however, that any mass emails that the user wants to send will still be sent from Top Producer, not from Outlook.  Overall, I would say that the integration and speed are fair, but any agent using the Outlook Connector will get better performance by leaving Outlook open all the time, and minimized when not in use.

• The user will have the feel of Outlook, including custom columns, lots of folders, the ability to search and find emails and many other Outlook features.
• The option to copy existing Inbox or Sent items to a Top Producer contact's history if that contact exists.
• The option, when composing an email,  to send the email through Outlook and copy it to a Top Producer contact's history if that contact(s) exists.
• Attachments in Outlook can be larger than Top Producer attachments.
• In Outlook, attachments can be opened by simply double clicking.
• The Top Producer contact list can be accessed from within Outlook, allowing emails to be sent to TP contacts along with non-contacts.

• Outlook can be slow to open; leaving it running helps.  It seems to take extra time when it loads the new Top Producer toolbar and connects to the TP database.
• One can only choose Top Producer contacts by First Name, Last Name or Company.  In Top Producer, I can select contacts by most any criteria, such as Category Type.
• Once an email is copied to Top Producer, it does not appear to be marked as such. Therefore, it is easy to copy an email more than once, putting it into a contact's history more than once.  This can be cleaned up in Top Producer, but it is still an annoyance.
• In Outlook, emails are copied to the appropriate contact by matching up the email address on the email with the primary email address in Top Producer.  In Top Producer's email, you can link multiple email addresses (e.g., a contact's home and business email addresses) to the contact record; using Outlook Connector, you cannot do this.
• You must manually link (send) each email message to Top Producer from Outlook every time.  In the Top Producer email, you link an email address once, and it automatically puts all future incoming and outgoing emails into the appropriate contact's history.
• Only one message at a time can be copied to Top Producer.  Since the Top Producer email automatically links incoming emails to known contacts on arrival, I found this step in Outlook to be particularly cumbersome, especially because you can only copy one email at a time from Outlook to Top Producer.
• You cannot create a contact in Top Producer from within Outlook.  If an email cannot be sent to Top Producer because the contact does not exist, you must go back to Top Producer to create the contact, then return to Outlook to copy it over.  Again, in Top Producer email, this is all done at one time in one place.
• You cannot jump directly to a Top Producer contact record from an Outlook email.  You can do this with the Top Producer email, and I use this feature all the time.  If I receive an email in Top Producer that requires me to schedule a follow-up phone call, I can view that contact by viewing their record directly from the email, schedule the call and bounce back to my emails, all in about 20 seconds.

• Most of the folders that agents make in Outlook are not needed in Top Producer, as Top Producer can automatically link emails to contact histories.  Those histories, to me, are better than an email folder.
• Top Producer still allows for rather large attachments.  Even though Outlook itself will not limit the size of attachments, the email provider that an agent uses may very well limit attachment size, so an agent should check this out.
• If an agent wants to send out a lot of mass emails, the Outlook Connector does not handle this; you will still mass email through Top Producer.

The following is reprinted from TopProducer 7i

 

In our ongoing commitment to provide you with the very best sales and marketing productivity system, we have updated Top Producer 7i to include the following new features and enhancements.  

     

ZIPFORM® INTEGRATION

Top Producer 7i now works with ZipForm®Online! Click here for more information.

 

ZipFormOnline users can now import data directly from Top Producer 7i. This integration will make the creation of electronic contracts fast and simple and eliminate duplicate data entry. Real estate professionals can import buyer, seller, and other transaction participant data from Top Producer 7i into ZipFormOnline. This connectivity will save time and help ensure accurate and reliable data, all of which will result in a better customer experience.

 

ZipForm is a powerful suite of solutions designed with a strategy for your success in mind. With ZipForm as the cornerstone of your electronic Transaction Process, you'll have the tools - and the time - to create a business built on efficiency and productivity.

     

To enable this service within Top Producer 7i, point to Setup > Data services setup and then enter your ZipFormOnline UserID.  

     

 7i DASHBOARD

The 7i Dashboard is just another great way to maximize your productivity; giving you an easier way to manage your contacts, time and tasks! The Dashboard features include: 

     

• At-a-glance viewing of your activities as well as your team members'.
• An overview of the day's new leads.
• Entire contact list including a Quick contact search and access to both a Quick and Full view of each contact record.
• Quick Entry feature that lets you enter essential new contact information or schedule new activities on the fly.
• Instant access to the Dashboard from the new "Home" main menu item.

     

You can also easily set up the Dashboard to automatically display when you log in by pointing to Setup in the main menu and clicking Preferences > General.

     

     

TRY OUR NEW CONTENT

Community and School Reports

Now you can provide even more community and school information to your prospects and clients - and in a classy new "Blue Skies" design theme. The new reports include:

     

·         A standalone Community Report that contains more community data, including detailed amenities information of the services in the area and an Amenities Map.

·         A standalone School Report that includes test score data, school subjects offered and a School Map

·         Microsoft Virtual Earth Maps.

·         The ability to create a report with multiple schools as well as perform school comparisons.

·         Enhanced radius searches for amenity and school information.

·         And, many more enhancements!

     

To try these reports, point to Presentations > click Create presentations > select Community report.

     

Spanish Marketing Content

Top Producer 7i now provides a Spanish set of letters and emails - with over 350 Spanish letters and emails and 40 Spanish Action Plans.

     

To access the Action Plans, point to Setup > Plans setup > and select a Spanish plan from the Action plan name drop-down list box.

     

To access the letters/emails, point to Mail > Communication library > and select the Spanish content found under the List of categories drop-down list box.  

     

All New Agent and Team Flyers

Advertise your listings and services with all new flyers - over 250 new flyers in five attractive design themes. These flyers, which cover all the main prospecting and marketing scenarios, are perfect for communicating helpful information to contacts and leveraging your sales success into more business. The flyers come in both agent and team versions.

     

To view these new, professional flyers, point to Flyers > click Create flyer.

     

     

IMPROVED CUSTOMER WEB PAGES

Top Producer 7i's Customer Web Pages have been updated with a clean, classy look that is sure to impress your clients. Your clients can still view all of your Service Report activities from your web page, as well as now have access to the Community and School Reports that you generated for them. 

     

In addition, if you are already subscribed to the Top Producer Website product you can add your Customer Web Pages to your Web site. Top Producer makes it even easier to keep your online branding consistent and instantly recognizable with these new enhancements.

     

     

HISTORY MANAGER

The new History Manager will enable you to better manage your "marked done" activities and sent mass emails for easy reference and tracking purposes. Additionally, when mass marketing campaigns are appear in your History Manager, you'll be able to delete one mass email and have it removed from all applied contacts, a real time-saver.

     

     

Additional Program Improvements

     

·         Address Sorting has been fixed so that sorting by address will now sort by: Street Name, House Number, City, and State.

     

·         Sent/Received emails, where the email address does not match one in your contact database, will no longer create a blank contact record.

     

·         A Showing Agent who is added to the "Shown by" field is no longer automatically added to the user's contact database.

     

·         A phone number field has been added to the "Add showing" dialog.

     

     

We hope you enjoy these new time-saving features and welcome any other program suggestions you may have. Please email us at programsuggestions@topproducer.com

Imagine sending your clients and prospects professional-quality, great-looking flyers with your logo, your portrait and even pictures of your properties. but in an EMAIL. Don't think you can do it? You CAN and it's EASY with High Impact Email 3.0. 

High Impact Email (HIE) is a powerful email marketing tool that will allow you to send graphical email messages that look and act like a web page with colors, pictures and hyperlinks.  In this class, students learn the basics of e-marketing with HTML email, and they learn how to add text and graphics into easy to use, pre-designed e-mail templates.