New Feature Spotlight: Gmail Integration and Email Improvements

We are excited to announce a brand new feature available now in Builder Prime… Gmail integration! You can now connect your email account from Gmail or Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) for seamless emailing to your contacts from within Builder Prime using your own email address. Not only that, any emails that you send to your contacts or receive from your contacts directly in your Gmail web client will automatically be imported into Builder Prime so you can see all email communications with that contact in the client details section of Builder Prime.

How to connect your Gmail or Google Workspace email account  

To connect your Gmail or Google Workspace email account with Builder Prime, just head over to the new integrations screen under ‘Admin > Integrations’ in the main menu. This is a new screen that will show all of your connected or available integrations in one place. You will see the Gmail integration at the top and you can simply tap the button to initiate the connection. From there you will need to accept the permissions and you will be redirected back to the Builder Prime integrations page showing the updated status of your connection. Within a few minutes of connecting, any emails to your existing Builder Prime contacts from the past 7 days will be imported, and you will see them in the client details screen.

Sending emails using your Gmail address in Builder Prime  

You could already send any email to a contact in your clients list using Builder Prime by clicking the ‘Email’ button in the Client Activity section. Prior to this update, there were a few reasons why you would want to send the email from Builder Prime instead of from your other email client:

• 1. You can use pre-defined custom templates that automatically populate variables for your clients, meetings, projects, and work orders. This makes sending standard emails super quick and easy.
• 2. The email message that you send through Builder Prime is automatically captured in Builder Prime so you can see the record of that email in the Client Activity section of Builder Prime.
• 3. The system automatically tracks when the recipient opened or clicked a link in an email when it is sent from Builder Prime and displays each of these events together with the message.

Up until now, the emails you sent in Builder Prime would use an email address created for your company based on the subdomain you use to access your Admin Console. If the URL you use to access Builder Prime is ‘https://mycompany.builderprime.com,’ then your email address would be ‘mycompany@mail.builderprime.com.’ When sending with this email address in Builder Prime, a separate ‘reply-to’ address is used so any replies will go back to the email address of the user who initiated the email in Builder Prime. In the event that the recipient decided to send an email directly to your ‘mycompany@mail.builderprime.com’ address, it would be forwarded to the email address of the Builder Prime account owner.

With this new update, you have the option to send these emails directly from your Gmail or G Suite account. The emails that are sent in Builder Prime will arrive in your recipient’s inbox from your Gmail or G Suite address, and not from your ‘mycompany@mail.builderprime.com’ address. The email will even show up in your sent mail folder in your Gmail web client so that the email will live everywhere you might want to look for it. You still get all of the benefits listed above including use of the predefined custom templates, the open and click tracking, and the automatic capture of the email message with the client record in Builder Prime. Furthermore, if you connect a Gmail or G Suite account for the email integration, most other standard email templates, like those for emailing proposals and invoices, will also use your Gmail address. The only exception is for emails that have sensitive information that would allow a recipient to log in, directly eSign a contract, or reset a password. For security reasons, these emails cannot live in your sent mail folder, so these will still get sent with your ‘mycompany@mail.builderprime.com’ address and will work the same as it did before this update.

Other General Email Enhancements

There are several other enhancements to go along with the Gmail integration.

The ability to include attachments to the emails you create in Builder Prime has been significantly enhanced. There is a brand new screen under ‘Admin > Company Files’ where you can store any files related to your company. These may be sales presentations, pre-meeting documents for prospective customers, or anything else. When you send an email in Builder Prime, it will show you the different files from this section to attach to your email that you send to your contact. The system will now present you with many other options for attachments as well. If you are sending an email to a client, you will be able to select from any files that have been uploaded to the client record. If the email is also related to a project, you will be able to select and attach files from that project, including contracts, invoices, photos, and documents. You will automatically be presented with the relevant options for attachments based on the context of your email.

Besides the enhancements for attachments, you can now more easily include inline images in your emails and email templates. Just click the image button in the editor for the body of the message to insert an inline image using a link or upload.

Automatic Import from Gmail

Builder Prime will also automatically import any email messages to or from your contacts in your Gmail account, even if they were not sent from within Builder Prime. These emails will get attached to the appropriate client record and will be displayed in the client details screen. This will help you to keep all communications activity together in one place with less manual effort. We only import emails related to existing contacts you set up in the Clients list and the access you grant to Builder Prime is only used to make your job easier. We do not use the access for any other reason. We do not read the emails or use the contents in any other way than what is described here.

Next Steps

We have several future updates planned to build upon this new email functionality described here.

This update is intended for you to connect the Gmail or S Suite address that is assigned to you, as opposed to a shared inbox that might be used by more than one person. Each employee user with permissions to manage this integration will be able to connect their own Gmail account. The ability to include one or more shared email addresses will be coming in a future update.

An upcoming enhancement will also add the ability to automate emails. You will be able to set rules for sending different email templates based on events that occur in the system. For example, the system can send a specific email once a contract is signed, or send a different email if a lead is sitting in a particular status for one hour, one day, one week, or 1 year. This will help introduce further automation and efficiencies to help your business to stay organized and grow.

Let us know if you need help setting up your Gmail integration, setting up more complex email templates, or if you have any other questions about anything else!

Also let us know your feedback on these enhancements and what else you would like to see in the future!

‍