Office 365 two-way sync with Front features [legacy]

⚠️ Legacy two-way sync applies to some Front companies with a start date before Aug 16, 2023.

This article contains the expected behavior for legacy two-way sync behaviors with various Front features.

By default, any Office 365 user mailboxes will have their threading mode set to Office 365.

This will allow for full two-way sync for all inbound and outbound email, open/archived status, and tagging. If you change the threading mode to any other option, the status of messages and tags will not be synced.

Default Office 365 threading: Whenever possible, you will maintain a full two-way Office 365 sync including open/archived status, tags, and inbound/outbound emails. There will be cases where syncing will not be possible, explained here.

All other non-default threading options: If you choose any non-Office 365 threading options such as Regular threading, Regular + Subject-Recipient threading, or No threading:

• What will sync: inbound/outbound emails with Office 365, tags from Office 365-to-Front direction.

• What will not sync: tags from Front-to-Office 365 direction, open/archived status of emails. The reason is to respect the separate status of these emails that are now threaded differently from Office 365.

Front has one-way sync for user-created Office 365 private folders, which sync to Front as private tags (including nesting) within an inbox. Folder/tag changes will continue to sync after the initial import.

If you are moving messages in a Office 365 channel, your channel's threading mode is important. With Office 365 threading, there is usually a 1:1 relationship between Front conversations and Office 365 conversations. When you move a message, you create multiple Front threads for a single Office 365 conversation. When you tag, archive, or delete one of the threads, the others can be tagged, archived, or deleted by mistake because Office 365 syncs that action back to all of them.

If you frequently use the Move message feature, we suggest changing your threading mode to another option, which will disable the sync of archiving, deleting, and tagging with Office 365. All emails will continue to show up in both Front and Office 365 so you can access them in both systems.

There is a two-way sync between Trash in Front and your trash folder in Office 365. However, permanently deleting a message or conversation in Front will not sync back to your Office 365 inbox outside of Front.

If you are switching from an SMTP email provider to Office 365, you will now have the option of utilizing two-way sync between Office 365 and Front. Going forward, you can also add new Office 365 inboxes to Front with two-way sync.

The two-way sync means that both inbound and outbound emails will be synced between Front and Office 365. If you send in Front, you'll see it in Office 365; if you send in Office 365, you'll see it in Front. Open or archived conversation status will also be synced both ways — so when you archive a conversation in Front, it's also archived in Office 365, granted that your settings have not changed the sync, explained here.

If you want to transition your SMTP shared inboxes to the Office 365 sync, you will need to be a Front admin and have the Office 365 login credentials to make the changes.

You will first remove the SMTP channel you've been using. Do not delete the inbox if you want to keep your conversation history in Front — just remove the channel. You'll then add a new channel for that email account using the new sync channel option. See instructions below for the detailed steps.

As long as you do not delete the inbox when you remove the channel, existing conversations in Front will not be affected when you make this switch. If you update a conversation (like archiving it) after you reconnect with sync, the conversation will sync that action at that time.

Important: Any drafts you composed using your existing channel will not be retained, so be sure to send or delete any remaining drafts before proceeding.

See this article to review actions that break the status and tag sync between Front and Office 365.