Solved About those meeting invites

[N_G]

This thread is to clarify how meeting invites work and what changes we will make going forward.

First off - meeting invites must be sent by the organizer. This is the correct way to do it. here are the scenarios:

a. Google Mail, Microsoft 365 online, Outlook online - works perfect. The invite will be added to the calendar and you can add participants and everything will work perfect.

b. Microsoft 365 online & Outlook locally installed - works perfect - select Microsoft 365 and it will ask you to login in to your Microsoft 365 account and the meeting will be created there. Information will be synced with the locally installed Outlook.

c. Microsoft Outlook locally installed WITHOUT Microsoft 365 (i.e. onsite exchange server) - you will need to download the iCal/ics and open it up on the desktop. The default mail client (outlook if so configured) will be opened and the invite created. Its an extra step and a little clunky (just like full fat outlook), but there is little we can do about this.

The above are the recommended options. Now if you want to have 3CX mail out the invites, this is possible but there will be big limitations. The mail will be sent out from your mail server or the 3CX smtp service. The RSVP will not work and the email looks terrible. It will possibly end up in spam folders at your invitees.

Now the good news for the users that insist on having 3CX send out the invites that we are going to revert the ics invite back to the way it was. Furthermore we are going to update the schedule meeting interface and document the options better. This change should be available as update 7a in the coming week.

V18

For V18 we are studying the Microsoft 365 and Google Calendar API to be able to create the meeting directly in Microsoft 365 or Google. The nice thing about this is that if the meeting time changes, then we can update the meeting on 3CX automatically. This is something we are researching and is likely to be part of the new version unless we hit some road block.

Furthermore we will include the ability for admins to set a default behaviour for scheduled meetings.

The screenshot shows how it looks if you use Gsuite and you select it from the drop down for the meeting

I am closing the other threads. If you comment please include what exactly mail and server you are using.

 

[FridayIT]

@FridayIT If you are using office 365 you must use the office 365 option in the drop down, not the ICS file. Outlook users without Office 365 should use the ical option - which will be renamed to Outlook desktop. You should not use the ICS file and no there will be no changes to it.

My apologies, please ignore my usage of the word "ICS", you are correct, Ical is the option we are currently using.

initially we did tell our clients to use your official option which launched the "web" version of office 365 and pre-populated the meeting. However at one point there was a change on microsoft's end so we were forced to change to using the ical option as the 3cx implementation did not work for a bit. (for clarification this is now fixed)

I'll wait and see how the new implementation plays out, in our environment, we use office 365 as the main backend, but our clients prefer to use ical so they can ensure that the meeting is set correctly as they primarily use the outlook desktop client (busy, 15 minute reminder, and location).

 

[JLSeagull]

@Nick Galea As I said in some prior thread I have been using the 3CX Web Meeting as a way to answer to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been used for Doctors to make online medical appointments as our business is a medical clinic. It have worked since then.

We've always used the option "3CX (direct eMail)" and our Mail Server is "3CX SMTP Server".

But even using scheduled meeting (for assure that an invite e-mail has been sent, because are sent two e-mails, one to organizer and the other to participant), some participants have reported that they didn't received the invite email. This event happened recently on Saturday, 23rd, January ( I am aware about the updating on Webmeeting Platform on this day), but the Doctor that has hold webmeeting on Saturday confirm that she's received her invite email.

Is there a way to assure that the participant really have received the invite e-mail and once he/she say the opposite we are able to resend the invite e-mail quickly?

Note: I've tested the option "Google", but I find that the more options are available to set up the invitation email, the more the doctor (organizer) and the participant (patient) are confused.

 

[NickD_3CX]

Hi @JLSeagull !

Is there a way to assure that the participant really have received the invite e-mail and once he/she say the opposite we are able to resend the invite e-mail quickly?

Yes, I can think of 2 ways that you can have a better handle on what emails are, or are not, delivered:

1. Use your own SMTP. I am in no way saying the 3CX SMTP is not working as intended, but with your own SMTP you can always go in and check the logs yourself at any time.
2. Use the "Google" calendar option for which RSVP works. Yes, it is maybe 1-2 clicks more for the doctors, but for the participants there is no difference, they will get an email to which they respond Yes/No/Maybe.
   If the doctors don't see an RSVP answer from the participants then they know that they have either ignored the options or have not read the email.

 

[JLSeagull]

Thank you for your reply @NickD_3CX ! Let me clarify my understading:

1.Use your own SMTP: Do you mean use any other SMTP, different of the 3CX SMTP, or build my own SMTP? As I use a Standard License for use my own SMTP I must change my License to PRO/ENTERPRISE, right?

RSVP is not my objective. I'd like to be able to check logs and confirm if the invitation has deen delivered to the target participant, no matter if he/she read it or not.

 

[NickD_3CX]

Thank you for your reply @NickD_3CX ! Let me clarify my understading:

1.Use your own SMTP: Do you mean use any other SMTP, different of the 3CX SMTP, or build my own SMTP? As I use a Standard License for use my own SMTP I must change my License to PRO/ENTERPRISE, right?

RSVP is not my objective. I'd like to be able to check logs and confirm if the invitation has deen delivered to the target participant, no matter if he/she read it or not.

When I said "use your own SMTP" I meant use something other than the 3CX SMTP which you can't check the logs yourself. One option is what you said, to set up your own SMTP. Another option would be to use a company that offers this as a service, like SendGrid (first name that came to mind, there are others too).

You would then configure your 3CX installation to use the SMTP of that service, and anything that goes wrong, you could use the logging of that service.

Having said this though, using an SMTP other than the 3CX SMTP, you would need either a Pro or Enterprise license key.

Obviously we can also check the logs of our SMTP server, but you would need to open a ticket to our Support Team to investigate this, but this is a small cost per ticket plus it would need some time for the request to get processed, so I wouldn't suggest this if you would want to check this quite often.

 

[JLSeagull]

When I said "use your own SMTP" I meant use something other than the 3CX SMTP which you can't check the logs yourself. One option is what you said, to set up your own SMTP. Another option would be to use a company that offers this as a service, like SendGrid (first name that came to mind, there are others too).

You would then configure your 3CX installation to use the SMTP of that service, and anything that goes wrong, you could use the logging of that service.

Having said this though, using an SMTP other than the 3CX SMTP, you would need either a Pro or Enterprise license key.

Obviously we can also check the logs of our SMTP server, but you would need to open a ticket to our Support Team to investigate this, but this is a small cost per ticket plus it would need some time for the request to get processed, so I wouldn't suggest this if you would want to check this quite often.

OK! Thank you very much, @NickD_3CX

 

[Ahab]

I asked a question and John referred me to reply here. Now you say I should start a new thread. Well this is confusing...

1. The mail clients are not the problem but the company policy
2. Many companies in Europe do not automatically forward attachments to smartphone clients in order to reduce data traffic
3. Customers (but also employees) who are on the road usually do not want to search for a long time, but want direct information.

 

[NickD_3CX]

I asked a question and John referred me to reply here. Now you say I should start a new thread. Well this is confusing...

This was probably a misunderstanding of your request, let me try and set it straight.

Currently the date/time information is included in the ICS file. No option exists for this information to be in plain text in the email body.
This is something that you would need to ask a 3CX Partner to open in the "Ideas" section for you.