Conversations and mail

How mail is grouped into conversations and enquiries, how a copy is recognised, and how mail after a quotation is linked.

16 rules, in register order, from R1 to R117; numbers do not run in sequence. Back to the index.

R1 — One conversation is one thread

Every reply on an email thread joins the same conversation rather than starting a new one.

R2 — A message is never stored twice

A message already held is skipped on any later sync.

R2a — A client email that arrives again is read once

When the same client email reaches FlowOS a second time — forwarded to a second person, or sent twice — one of the two is kept and read, and the other is linked to it as a copy and is not typed or read again. The kept one is the earlier email.

The first sync reads newest first, so the later email can reach FlowOS first: while it has not been typed, it becomes the copy when the earlier one arrives, and the earlier one is read. Once it has been typed, it stays the one kept, and the earlier email is its copy.

A copy joins the enquiry the kept email is on, and the inbox shows it as a copy of that email. It is a copy only when all of these hold:

• it is from the same client;
• it arrives within 30 days of the kept email, before or after;
• it was delivered to the same office; a mailbox enrolled without an office counts as an office of its own;
• it adds nothing: the same files (pictures aside) with the same words or only a greeting or filler, such as “PFA” or “kindly quote”, or, when neither email has files, the same words. A colleague’s reply to colleagues only, with nothing of its own above a client’s email forwarded inside Flowtech and no files, adds nothing when the client’s words match an email already held under the same subject, since a reply never brings the client’s files along;
• if it was forwarded, every colleague who passed it on wrote only a greeting or filler, such as “FYI” or “please check and revert”.

A later email that arrived first becomes the earlier one’s copy only when it too adds nothing to the earlier one; otherwise the earlier one is its copy, as above.

Anything else is not a copy: it is read in full, and R10 applies to it.

That includes a re-send with new files, or with any other words, even “revised qty 10”; a colleague’s “client now wants 20” over the same email; the same RFQ sent again next quarter; and the same enquiry sent separately to two offices, where each office’s email is read.

One email addressed to both offices is held once (R2), and read once.

R3 — Closing a conversation is not built yet

Nothing closes a conversation, so none is reopened. When closing is built, closing means “finished for now”, not “finished forever”, and new mail reopens a closed conversation.

R4 — A closed conversation will be left alone

Once closing is built, a closed conversation is off the open inbox and is not processed until new mail reopens it.

R5 — Every message is typed by its body, not its subject

A thread titled “RE: Enquiry” whose body is a debit note is not an enquiry. The newest message sets the conversation’s type until a person corrects it.

R6 — A person’s correction of the type is never overwritten

Once someone sets the type by hand, later mail does not relabel it. Each message still records what it was judged to be.

R7 — When labelling is unsure of an email’s type, a person decides it

An email the labelling service answers for, but without a clear type, waits in Needs Review with the reason “FlowOS can’t tell what type of email this is”, its type showing the service’s best guess.

No enquiry is opened for it and nothing in it is read, so an unsure answer neither hides an RFQ nor turns a purchase order or a reply into an enquiry. An email a client sent that the service types as a quotation or a sales order counts as unsure too, since only Flowtech sends those.

A person with edit rights picks its type with Reclassify; the email is then processed again as that type, and the service is not asked about it again.

One that FlowOS links by the quotation number it cites, or to a quotation it answers, in FlowOS or outside it, needs no one: it is linked as any mail after a quotation is (R97), and keeps its best guess. A quotation number that matches none of ours leaves it waiting.

Earlier mail fetched for another email, and mail Flowtech sends outside, keep their best guess too. When the service cannot be reached the message is not typed as an enquiry: it is tried again, out of the inbox meanwhile, and one still not typed after the retries goes to Needs Review.

R8 — Mail joins one enquiry by its conversation, then by the client’s own subject or reference

Several conversations can belong to one enquiry. Mail after a quotation is linked by R97, or by a person (R105).

An email whose subject names a product by its own name, such as “Metal Tube Rotameter Enquiry”, opens an enquiry and gathers that product’s lines even when Jev is unsure of it. An email read as an enquiry that names no product Flowtech sells, such as a client’s “waiting for your quotation”, joins the enquiry its conversation already holds as a follow-up; only with no enquiry in its conversation does it wait in Needs Review.

R8a — The useful address is the recovered origin, not the envelope sender

Resolving the customer from from on a forward creates leads against Flowtech staff.

R97 — Mail after a quotation is linked to the enquiry and version it answers, in a fixed order

Any mail that is not an enquiry, and an enquiry email that answers a quotation, is linked to the enquiry it follows and, when one is found, the quotation version it answers. The first of these that matches decides:

1. a quote number the customer cites in their own words: new or forwarded text, their own attachment, or an attachment’s name;
2. a reply to a message FlowOS sent a quotation on, which links the version sent on it;
3. a quote number only in the subject or quoted text, when it names one quotation;
4. a reply to an email already linked to an enquiry;
5. the same conversation as an email linked to an enquiry, the oldest such enquiry;
6. an ERP quote number (Q or T and five digits, a revision prefix such as R3- ignored) that other mail linked to one enquiry carries, linked with no version and as quoted outside FlowOS;
7. one customer reference equal to the enquiry’s or a version’s, from the same client;
8. for a revision request or purchase order only, the same client, or a GSTIN that is not Flowtech’s, plus the model numbers, item codes or tags of one sent quotation’s lines.

A quote number without a revision means the quotation’s newest version issued or sent before the mail arrived; one with a revision, such as -R1, means that revision, received once it was issued before the mail, even with no send record.

A revision never issued, or issued after the mail, and a quote number with nothing issued or sent before it, link the newest version sent before the mail, flagged “cited revision was never sent”.

Steps 4, 5, 7 and 8 link the enquiry’s newest version sent before the mail: with several quotations sent, the one whose lines the customer names most, and none while nothing was sent. A send or issue after the mail never counts. A version past its validity when the mail arrived stays linked and is flagged.

An enquiry email linked to a version, or by a quote number, is typed as a revision request and is not read as an enquiry.

Two quotations cited in the customer’s own words, sent quotations tied on the lines the customer names, several enquiries with the customer’s reference, or ERP quote numbers carried on mail of several enquiries send the mail to Needs Review as ambiguous_quotation or ambiguous_enquiry; a revision request or purchase order that matches nothing goes there as quotation_not_found.

An enquiry email with several matches is read as an enquiry instead. Mail Flowtech sends to someone outside Flowtech is never sent to Needs Review and never moves offices: it is linked when one match is found and left unlinked otherwise.

Other linked mail follows its enquiry’s office and owner, unless it was reassigned by hand or the enquiry has no office. A link a person made is never changed. Our own quoted offer and documents are never read as the customer’s words.

R98 — A lead portal’s domain never identifies the client

TradeIndia relays many buyers from one address, so when post-quote mail is linked (R97) its domain is never matched to a client, and its address is not used to find the client’s sent quotation lines.

A customer reference still links mail from the portal’s exact relay address to an enquiry that holds mail from that address, since the reference names the buyer. The pre-quote join by subject (see Inbox) is unchanged.

R105 — A person can link mail after a quotation by hand

Mail in Needs Review for a link reason, and mail already linked, can be linked to an enquiry the person may edit: to one of its issued quotations, as Quote not in FlowOS, or with no quotation yet.

FlowOS suggests the enquiries it weighed and up to five more the same client started, by the email’s recovered address, whole on webmail and by company domain otherwise, never a lead portal’s (R98).

One press links an enquiry to the quotation FlowOS weighed, else its newest quotation issued before the email, else as Quote not in FlowOS when the email cites an ERP quote number or is a purchase order or revision request, else with no quotation yet. The email that started an enquiry cannot be moved.

The link takes the email out of Needs Review and gives it the enquiry’s office and owner unless it was reassigned by hand; FlowOS never changes it (R97).

A client’s revision request, purchase order, follow-up, later enquiry or other email is then read again for what it asks to change within five minutes; mail typed as a quotation or a sales order is not. See Linking mail after a quotation.

R110 — A linked email is checked against its enquiry, and doubt is shown, never decided

Every inbound email linked to an enquiry by something FlowOS recorded is compared with it in five rows: product, tags, quote, project and client. The email that started the enquiry, mail Flowtech sends, and links saved before FlowOS recorded how an email was linked are not checked.

The email is doubtful when the product, tags or client differ and nothing strong agrees: a shared tag, a quote number the enquiry knows, a shared project reference, or the same conversation (a reply in its thread, or to Flowtech’s quotation email or query).

It is partly outside when some of its products or tags are on the enquiry and some are not. A free-mail address, a lead portal (R98) and Flowtech’s own mailbox domains never stand for the client.

A person who may edit the inbox can confirm that the email belongs (It belongs here), which also settles every copy of that email on the same enquiry, whichever one is confirmed, or relink it. See Does it fit its enquiry?.

R111 — A change the client asks for applies only to the tags they named, and is compared with what the enquiry stated

A change reaches only the tags the client named, and a code is a tag only when a line of the quote or the enquiry holds it; a tag on two enquiry lines names both. A code no line holds shows on the line the comment sits beside, in its own row, and is not applied to that line’s tags.

If the enquiry holds the asked value on other tags of that line, FlowOS says where and moves nothing. A tag’s own replacement outweighs a change to the whole line on the same field: “for LG-201 the service is sludge” beats a whole-line “also include wastewater”; a tag’s own addition keeps the whole-line change and adds to it.

FlowOS strikes out a value only when it quoted it, so nothing is struck on a quote that was not attached. “As enquired” and “new ask” compare the asked value with the value the enquiry stated, never with an assumption; where the two cannot be compared, no chip shows. Nothing on the column changes the enquiry or the quotation.

See Changes the client asked for.

R117 — A client’s answer to our question fills only the empty field it answers; every other change waits for a person

Each change a client asks for is recorded with its email and a state taken from when the email arrived: held once a purchase order came before it, on the revision list of the quotation it answers once one was issued, and otherwise to confirm, marked when the enquiry’s quote was made outside FlowOS.

Before any quotation is issued, an answer to a question sent with Raise query, in a reply to that query, fills the line’s field when it is empty: the value is stated by the client, with the reply’s sentence as its source, and a line FlowOS confirmed goes back to review.

It never replaces a value the team set or checked, or one the client stated differently before, and fills nothing on a line a person confirmed; those answers wait with both values.

A value is filled only from one figure with its unit, converted to the field’s unit where it can be, or from the words of a text field; an answer about the fluid waits for a person to pick it. A change nobody asked for waits, marked as not asked.