Outlook Helper

Owned by Karen McDonald
Last updated: Sept 11, 2024 by Queenie Flores
6 min read

Wise Owl Legal integrates with Microsoft Outlook to give you the Outlook Helper.

This allows the user to save emails directly from Outlook into Wise Owl to give a clear and concise trail of communication.

The Outlook Helper works with the Documents Module in Wise Owl Legal and can be installed and setup by the Wise Owl Legal HelpDesk at your request.

Please click the links below to take you to the relevant section.

Installing the Outlook Helper
Logging In
Outlook Helper#Troubleshooting
Setting Up the Outlook Helper
Using the Outlook Helper
Saving Individual Emails
Saving Bulk Emails
Saving Attachments

Installing the Outlook Helper

To install the Outlook Helper:

  1. Open Wise Owl Legal in your preferred browser.

  2. Click on the Tools and Settings Cog from the menu bar
     

    image-20240911-032749.png

     

  3. Click on the Outlook Helper link. This will start a download that will download the Outlook Helper as a setup.exe file.

  4. Please ensure that Outlook is closed before you install the Outlook Helper.

     

  5. Click on the downloaded setup.exe file to install the Outlook Helper and follow the prompts to install the Outlook Helper. 

  6. Open Outlook

  7. Once you have restarted Outlook, you should have an WOL Actions bar on the top right of your Outlook.

You can now move on to the Logging in section.

Logging in

Once your Owl Outlook Helper has been installed, you will need to login to your database.

To do this, from the Helper, choose Other > Options

Select ‘Login’ from the pop up screen

  1. Enter in the database web address

  2. Select Set

  3. Enter in the Username and Password normally used to login to the database

Once this is successful, it will close down the login pop up and update the ‘Current Username’ as who you are logged in as.

Please close outlook and re-open it to ensure the settings have taken effect.

Troubleshooting

If you have issues at this point with the install of the Outlook Helper or the login, please follow the troubleshooting instructions below.

If you cannot login to the Outlook Helper after completing the two sections above, please complete a Factory Reset on the Outlook Helper.

  1. Click on Other > Options from the Outlook Helper Actions bar

  2. Click on Advanced Options at the top of the pop up and then choose Factory Reset.

     

  3. This will reset your application back to the defaults.

  4. Close Outlook and re-open

  5. Check to see if you can now login

If this troubleshooting did not work for you, please send your logs and a brief description through to the HelpDesk for us to troubleshoot.

Setting Up

Matter Column

There are many columns that are available to see within Outlook that allow you to easily identify what has and hasn't been saved to the OWL and where it has been saved to.

To easily see what has and hasn't been saved in your email, we recommend that you add in a column to show the saved status.

To do this, you will need to ensure that your categories are turned on and then add in columns for the matter details that you would like displayed.

For more information on this, click here.

Defaults

Once you have logged in to the Outlook Helper, you are able to set save defaults by clicking on the Other tab > Options and then setting the Metadata defaults.

These will be used to pre-populate your save fields for each document. They can be edited at any time on individual documents or by changing the defaults.

You can set details for Emails IN and Emails OUT and you can also see further advanced options if needed.

Using the Outlook Helper

There are two ways in which to use the outlook helper. The first is to save individual emails to the Owl and the second is to save bulk emails to the Owl.

Before you start saving, we recommend you set up defaults for saving your emails as above.

Saving Individual Emails

You can save individual emails from the root of Outlook (i.e. inbox) or from an open individual email.

Either click your email in the main inbox view or open your email to select it.

From here, click on the Save to Owl button on the top right of the page.

This will open a pop up for you to set the details of the email. It's default Title will be the subject line of the email. This can be edited to reflect what you wish it to be called.

You can search for the matter with the matter number, client name or matter name or any part thereof.

The client attached to the matter will populate down to ensure that you have chosen the correct matter.

You can set the Keywords to be anything that you wish to be able to search on.

See the section below about the Attachments.

You can view additional information by clicking on the View Details button and you can see the defaults that have populated through by clicking on the Edit Metadata button.

Once you are happy with your entries, select the Save to WOL button.

After your email is saved, it will display a Peach coloured bar across the top saying 'Saved to WOL'. This colour is changeable in the settings.

Saving Bulk Emails

Saving of bulk emails is very similar to saving individual emails as above.

The main difference is when selecting emails, it will be done from the main email interface and the selected emails must all relate to one matter.

Use the Control (Ctrl on keyboard) + Left Click on your mouse to select multiple emails at once. 

Once you have selected the emails to save, click on the Save to WOL button on the top right of the screen.

Set the Matter for all the matters, set the keywords and attachment options.

You can view the default save information by click on the three dots to the right of the emails

When you are finished entering these details, click on the Save X emails to WOL button.

After your email is saved, it will display a Peach coloured bar across the top saying 'Saved to WOL'. This colour is changeable in the settings.

Attachments

As with documents uploaded through the Wise Owl Legal Document Module, you have several options when saving attachments.

-        Do not extract Attachments                          This will save the email with the documents attached to it but they will not be saved in to WOL separately.

-        Extract Attachments and Keep Original        This will save both the attachments and the email separately

-        Extract Attachments and Remove Original   This will save the attachments and not save the original email

 

These options allow you the flexibility of different ways to upload documents/emails and their attachments if relevant. The customisation allows the user to save time and means they do not need to individually upload all attachments to an email.