Setting up Email Sharing Permissions in Zoho CRM

Setting up Email Sharing Permissions in Zoho CRM

Setting up Email Sharing Permissions

Emails exchanged with customers contain important information that may be required for reference by several other teams who are involved in the business process. For example, a contract agreement exchanged with a firm may be required by the legal team to prepare a partnership agreement. Likewise, the negotiation details discussed in email may be required by the payments team to prepare the invoice.

There are multiple such instances when a customer's email needs to be accessible to more than one person within the organization. To facilitate easy access of emails, Zoho CRM provides email sharing options.

CRM administrators have the privilege to set email sharing options for individual users or specific roles. They can also give users the option to set their own email sharing permissions.
There are four types of sharing options:
  1. Public sharing: Every email sent or received will be accessible to all users across the organization.
  2. Custom sharing: The user can share the emails using the record sharing option. 
  3. Private sharing: Emails will not be accessible to anyone in the organization except the user to whom it is sent. Even if the record is shared with other users the emails within will not be displayed.
  4. User's choice: The users can configure their own sharing permissions (private, public or custom). 
The table below provides a detailed insight on each type of sharing option.

Sharing Type
Description
Private
What does it mean?

  1. If the email sharing option is set as private, then emails received or sent from this email will not be visible to others in the organization. Even if the record is shared with other users, they will not be able to view the associated emails.
  2. In this option, your Email account configured inside Zoho CRM is private. Other users cannot view Emails received from your leads and contacts.

Who can use this option?

CEOs and other Top Management team members who want to keep their communications confidential.
Custom
What does it mean?

Users can share email only through the record-sharing option. They  can choose individual records and select Share Email checkbox under the Email Related List. The administrator while setting the sharing permission you can specify the users or roles with whom the emails can be shared. 


Who can use this option?

Sales Reps and Managers directly responsible for day-to-day customer interaction can share the emails with relevant team members only.
Public
What does it mean?

Emails received or sent to the users whose sharing option is public, will be visible to others in the organization.

Who can use this option?

Sales Reps and Managers directly responsible for day-to-day customer interaction can use this option.
User's choice
What does it mean?

Users in non-administrative role will have the permission to set their email sharing preference as public, private or custom. They also get to decide which domains to exclude. 

Who can use this option?

Users who work independently and may require to share emails with a few of their colleagues or other team members as needed in the course of business. 

How are emails shared in Zoho CRM?

In Zoho CRM, emails can be shared in two ways:
I. Through record sharing:
  1. When the email sharing permission is set as Custom, users can share the emails using the record sharing option.
  2. Emails that originate from CRM such as workflow notifications, approval rejections, send email (directly from a record) etc.
  3. Emails attached through Outlook Plug-in.
II. Through email sharing:
Any email sent or received through integration with other mailing services. For example, emails sent or received from gmail account are synced with CRM and can be seen in the related list. This email can be viewed by other users ONLY through the email sharing option.

Configuring Email Sharing Permission

Admins can define email sharing permission for individual users or roles ( See also Email Preferences). While setting permissions the following details must be mentioned:
  1. Sharing type - For each user a sharing type must be mentioned depending on the business requirement. You can select private, public, custom, user's choice.
  2. Excluded domains - Emails received from the excluded domains will not be shared with others. For example, if zylker.com is excluded then any emails received from or sent to this domain will not be displayed to others. A maximum of 20 domains can be excluded.
Note
The Administrator can view the domains that are excluded for their profile and for other users. They can exclude domains for their own profile. However, super admins or users in the highest role in the org can exclude domains for other users who's email sharing permission is set as "Public".
  1. Email shared with - Except for private sharing, you can mention the roles and the users with whom the user can share the emails. 
Note
By default, emails will be shared with the immediate superior roles. This cannot be edited.
To set up email sharing settings
  1. Go to Setup > Channels > Email > Email Configuration > Email Sharing.
  2. In the Email Sharing page, for each user do the following:
    1. Select the type of sharing: Private, Custom, Public, User's choice.
    2. Click + Exclude Domains, specify the domains to be excluded from sharing.
    3. Under Emails shared with, click Roles and select the roles from the list.
      Click Users and hover on a role, select Show Users and select the users from the list.
  3. Click Save.

Filter users or roles

1. Using user and profile: You can use the search bar under the Email Sharing tab to quickly find the desired users either by their names or profiles. 


2. Using the type of sharing permission: You can use this filter to search for users who have a certain kind of sharing permission.


3. Using the type of configuration: You can use this filter to find users or roles who have a certain kind of email configuration such as POP, IMAP etc.


4. Using the type of role: You can search for users from a certain role. 

Mass updating sharing settings

The mass update option in email sharing allow admins to:
  1. Add or remove domains that should be excluded from the sharing rules.
  2. Change the email sharing permissions to a permission of your choice. For example, if the sharing permission is set to private it can be updated to user's choice or public as needed.
  3. Modify the sharing permission of roles or users based on the current business needs by adding or removing them from the hierarchy.
To mass update sharing settings
  1. Go to Setup > Channels > Email > Email Configuration > Email Sharing.
  2. In the Email Sharing page, select the desired users from the list view.
    Alternately, you can use the search or column filter to find users.
  3. Click Mass update.
  4. In Fields to be update, select a field from the drop-down list.
    1. If you select Exclude domains, check Remove existing domain or Add new domain.
    2. Mention the domains and Click Save.
    3. If you select Emails Shared With, Click to update hierarchy.
    4. Select or unselect roles and users. Click Save.
    5. If you select Email sharing permission, select a permission from the drop-down list under Update permission. Click Save.
    6. In the popup message select Proceed.
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