Actionstep offers an add-in that will appear on your Outlook as long as you have a business Office 365 account. The plugin allows you to see basic details about your matters, save emails in Outlook to those matters and to create new items on you matters from within Outlook. In this article, we will cover how to use the Actionstep add-in for Outlook 365.
Note: Users must have Office 365 to use the add-in. If you do not have Office 365, you can use the Actionstep Office Plugin for much of the same functionality.
See the plugin on Actionstep Marketplace: https://www.actionstep.com/us/marketplace/integrations/microsoft-office-windows/ |
Use these links to skip ahead to the topic you want to know more about:
- Viewing the Actionstep add-in for Outlook 365
- Assigning an email to a matter
- Seeing details about your matter in Outlook
- Saving attachments from your email into Actionstep documents
- Creating new Contacts, File notes, Tasks and Time entries within Outlook
- Bulk assigning emails to Actionstep
- Unlinking an email from ActionstepAccessing your profile Actionstep add-in for Outlook 365 profile
Viewing the Actionstep add-in for Outlook 365
Make sure you are on the Home tab of your Outlook. Look for the Actionstep Actionstep button. You may see two buttons or the two buttons may be grouped under one.
Choose the Open Actionstep option.
TIP We highly recommend you click on the pin icon in the top right of the Actionstep panel to ensure that the Actionstep add-in always displays. |
There is a slightly different way to open the Actionstep Add-in for Outlook 365 if you are using Outlook Online (viewing Outlook on your browser). For more details on see Viewing Actionstep's Outlook add-in for Office 365
Assigning an email to a matter
If an email has not already been assigned you will be prompted to select or search for a matter to assign it to.
Actionstep will give suggestions for matters you may want to assign the email to based on the contacts in the selected email. If Actionstep cannot find a matter based on the email contacts, it will show your recently accessed matters.
You can search for a matter to assign the email to using the search box. You can search by the matter's name or number.
TIP You must hit the enter key after typing in your search before you will see any results. |
Once you have assigned an email, the details of the matter will display in the Actionstep add-in.
You will also see that the email has been given an Outlook category of "Actionstep so that you can easily see which emails in Outlook have been assigned.
Seeing details about your matter in Outlook
Once you have assigned an email to a matter, you will see basic information about that matter in the Actionstep add-in panel.
The panel has four tabs displaying different information about your matter. Click on Home, Parties, File Notes, Time Entries and Tasks to see these details.
Saving attachments from your email into Actionstep documents
If the email you have assigned to the matter has documents attached to it, you can choose to save those attachments in the documents section of your matter.
- Click on the paperclip icon
near the top of the Actionstep add-in panel.
- Choose the attachments you wish to save and click the Next button in the bottom right.
- Choose the folder you want to save the files to (or save them to the root folder on the matter).
- Click Choose this folder once you have the right location.
- Review the number of attachments and their destination and click OK if correct.
Creating new Contacts, File notes, Tasks and Time entries within Outlook
As well as being able to see items on your matter within Outlook, you can also create new items.
Click on the plus icon near the top right of the Actionstep add-in panel and choose if you are going to create a new contact, file note, task or time entry.
Bulk assigning emails to Actionstep
Open the bulk assign option by clicking Bulk Assign. All emails in the inbox will be displayed.
Select those you want to save by ticking the box beside them. Click Next: Select a Matter.
Search for and Select the matter to assign to and click Select a Matter.
Unlinking an email from Actionstep
Once an email has been linked to a matter, you can unlink it. To do this, click on the unlink icon at the top of the Actionstep plan in Outlook.
You will be asked to confirm before unlinking. If you want to delete the email from the matter as you unlink it tick the box to do so.
If you choose not to delete the email then a copy of this email will still appear on your matter in Actionstep but the email in Outlook will not show as assigned to a matter.
You can save a copy of an email to more than one matter by linking it to one, unlinking it but not deleting it from the matter, then linking it to a different matter.
Accessing your profile Actionstep add-in for Outlook 365 profile
The Actionstep add-in has a profile page where you can view what Actionstep account you are linked to and what user you are accessing Actiontep as.
Through here you can log out of Actionstep through the plugin.
To access the Actionstep add-in for Outlook 365's profile page, click on the Profile button towards the top right of the panel.