Set up email
File customer email against the right job, and set how long it is kept.
What this is for
Once email is set up, a Sign OS panel appears beside your emails in Outlook or Gmail. Open a customer's message, pick the job or quote, and the email is saved against that job for the whole shop to see, instead of sitting in one person's inbox. From Outlook its attachments come too.
What is on this screen
Each part of the screen above, top to bottom, and what changing it affects.
Top of the page
- Connect · Sent emails · Emails to file
- The three tabs of the Email page. Connect is this one. Sent emails is every email Sign OS sent for you; Emails to file is incoming email waiting for you to say which job it belongs to. You only see the tabs you are allowed to open.
Connect tab
- 1 · Connect your inbox — Outlook / Microsoft 365 · Gmail / Google Workspace
- Outlook shows Connect Outlook, or After trial on a free trial (a plan switches it on); once connected it shows the mailbox and Disconnect. Gmail shows No connection needed: the Gmail panel reads only the email you have open.
- 2 · Add the Sign OS panel to Outlook or Gmail — Copy setup link · Sign OS on the Google Workspace Marketplace
- The add-in that puts the Sign OS button beside your emails: the setup link once per computer for Outlook, and the Marketplace listing once for the whole team for Gmail.
- 3 · How long to keep emails — Keep emails for · Remove the message text
- Retention of the copies saved in Sign OS; your mailbox is never touched.
Before you start
- You are signed in as an admin.
- Both panels are live: Outlook through the add-in setup link on this page, Gmail through the Google Workspace Marketplace.
- On a free trial the Outlook panel files emails, but connecting the mailbox (so attachments come with them) waits until you choose a plan.
Step by step
- 1
Open Settings → Connections → Email. The Connect tab is the one that opens.
- 2
Step 1 — Connect your inbox. On Outlook / Microsoft 365, click Connect Outlook and sign in to Microsoft. In a business on Microsoft 365, your Microsoft admin may need to approve Sign OS once. Gmail needs nothing here.
Note: Connecting Outlook lets a filed email bring its attachments and thread with it. Gmail's panel reads only the email you have open, and attachments don't come across from Gmail yet: forward artwork to the job's own email address (Files & sync). Neither one reads your inbox in the background.
- 3
Step 2 — Add the Sign OS panel. For Outlook, copy the setup link on the page and follow the numbered steps, once on each computer you use. For Gmail, your Google Workspace admin adds Sign OS for the team from the Google Workspace Marketplace, then each person opens an email, clicks the Sign OS icon on the right and signs in once.
- 4
Step 3 — How long to keep emails. Set how long filed email and message bodies are kept in Sign OS, then save. This only affects the copies in Sign OS; your real mailbox is never touched.
Tips & gotchas
- Leave the retention fields blank to keep filed email indefinitely. If you do set them, the clock starts when Sign OS captured the email, not when it was sent.
- Email that arrives at your Sign OS address is filed against jobs without any of this setup — anything it can't place waits on the Emails to file tab.