Email & Calendar

HotCRM integrates with Gmail (Google Workspace) and Outlook (Microsoft 365) so that every customer email and meeting flows into the right record automatically — no copy-pasting.

What you get

• ✉️ Two-way email sync — emails to/from customers appear on the contact, account, and opportunity records.
• 📅 Two-way calendar sync — your meetings appear in HotCRM and vice versa.
• 👀 Email tracking — see when the recipient opened your email or clicked a link.
• 🤖 AI-drafted replies sent straight from your inbox.
• 📥 Inbound case email — support@yourcompany.com becomes a case automatically.

Connecting your inbox

1. Click your avatar → Settings → Email & Calendar.
2. Click Connect Gmail or Connect Outlook.
3. Authorise the integration in the OAuth pop-up.
4. Choose what to sync:
   • All email (default) — every conversation with anyone in your CRM.
   • Tracked email only — only emails you explicitly add a tracking pixel to.
   • Whitelist domains — only emails to/from specific customer domains.
5. Choose what to sync to calendar:
   • Customer meetings only — events with at least one external attendee.
   • All events — including internal meetings (more noise).

How email logging works

When the connector sees an email between you and a known contact (matched by email address):

• The email body is stored on the activity timeline of the contact, account, and any open opportunity / case.
• Attachments are saved as files.
• The email shows up to anyone with sharing access to those records (so reps can see what their predecessor sent).

You can also manually log an email by forwarding it to a personalised address (e.g., you@hotcrm-log.io) — it'll match contacts and link automatically.

Email tracking

When composing from within HotCRM:

• ✅ Track opens — get notified when the recipient opens.
• ✅ Track clicks — get notified when they click a tracked link.
• ✅ Schedule send — pick a time.
• ✅ Reminder — bump back into your inbox if they don't reply in N days.

Tracking events are stored on the email activity, the contact, and the originating campaign (if any).

AI-drafted emails

On any record, click ✍️ Draft Email to have the Sales Copilot or Service Copilot draft a contextual email:

1. Pick a goal ("discovery follow-up", "renewal pitch", "resolution").
2. Review the draft — edit, replace, regenerate.
3. Click Send — the email goes through your connected inbox, not a HotCRM relay, so it preserves your sender reputation.
4. The conversation is logged automatically.

"Send Email" from a contact or case

Anywhere you see the Send Email action (on a Contact, a Case, an Opportunity) the flow is:

1. The action opens a modal with To / Subject / Body pre-filled from the record (and from any email template you select).
2. On submit, the email is queued through the platform sys_email service. It does not go directly to your inbox — the queue worker handles retries, bounces and rate limiting.
3. The new email row is linked back to the source record under Related Object, and a corresponding entry shows up on the Activity tab of that record with the current delivery status (queued / sent / bounced / failed).
4. Once delivered, replies are matched back via the regular two-way sync above and threaded onto the same record.

Admins can see all queued / failed emails in Settings → System Email Queue and re-drive a failed batch from there.

"Log a Call" from any record

The Log a Call action records an outbound or inbound call without leaving the record. On submit, an entry of type completed is written to sys_activity (kind = call), with subject, duration and outcome. It appears on the record's Activity tab and is counted in the rep's activity metrics on the Sales / Service dashboards.

Save reusable email templates in Settings → Email Templates:

• Merge fields ({{Contact.FirstName}}, {{Opportunity.Amount}}).
• HTML + plain-text versions.
• Per-team folders.
• Approval-gated templates for legal-sensitive content.

Templates can be personalised by the AI Copilot — pick a template, add a goal, and the Copilot fills it in with the right context.

Calendar sync

After connecting your calendar:

• HotCRM creates a HotCRM Events calendar in your Google/Outlook account.
• Events created in HotCRM appear there.
• Events created in your native calendar with CRM contacts as attendees sync into HotCRM as events on those contacts/accounts.
• Conflicts (two events at the same time) are flagged.

Inbound case email

Setup at Setup → Email → Inbound Case Email:

1. Pick an address (e.g., support@yourcompany.com).
2. Forward that address to the inbound address shown.
3. Set the default queue, priority, and assignment rules.

Now every email to support@ becomes a case:

• The sender is matched (or auto-created) as a contact.
• Subject → case subject; body → case description; attachments → case files.
• Replies on the case thread go back via email to the customer, preserving the thread.

Privacy & policies

• Email body content is stored in the same DB as your CRM records and follows your sharing rules.
• You can exclude specific addresses or domains (HR, personal).
• BCC / hidden recipients are not logged.
• For GDPR — you can purge a contact's email history via the contact's Delete Personal Data action.

Tips for reps

• ✅ Connect your inbox on day one — it eliminates 80% of CRM data entry.
• ✅ Use Schedule Send for emails after hours — better response rates.
• ✅ Watch the open + click notifications for hot signals (a prospect clicked 3 times in 5 minutes → pick up the phone).

Tips for admins

• ✅ Push everyone in sales / service to connect their inbox — the platform's value grows with email coverage.
• ✅ Set a clear policy on what's logged (all vs domain-whitelisted) — clarify with HR/legal first.
• ✅ Use templates aggressively — consistent voice + 10× faster than hand-writing.