Office 365 history import and sync

Support Program Manager
Helena_Li
updated 2 mths ago

Overview

When you connect an Office 365 individual inbox or shared inbox to Front, you will have the option to import your history and Front will maintain a two-way sync of statuses with Office 365 whenever possible. The cases where status syncing will stop are explained here, which is to be expected since Front and Office 365 have different features, and thus why you are using Front. Continue reading to understand the details of how history import and syncing work between Front and Office 365.

For the same information on Gmail channels, see here. Note that SMTP forwarding channels will not have history import and syncing.

Office 365 history import

History import	Shared inbox	Individual inbox
	Optionally import 50K most recent messages upon adding inbox	Optionally import 50K most recent messages upon adding inbox
	Conversations archived by default and found in the Archived tab of shared inbox.	Conversation read/unread and open/archived status mirrored in Front.
Individual inboxes	Status in Office 365	Status in Front
	Read in Inbox	Read in Inbox
	Unread in Inbox	Unread in Inbox
	Open in Inbox	Open in Inbox
	Archived in Inbox	Archived in Inbox
	Flagged in Inbox	N/A
Folders	Location in Office 365	Location in Front
	Inbox	Inbox
	Drafts	Does not sync
	Deleted folder	Not imported initially, but will sync post-connection
	Junk folder	Not imported initially, but will sync post-connection
	Outlook folders	Imported as private or shared tags

Office 365 sync

Action in Front	Sync	Effect in Office 365
Email is read or unread	✅	Email is read or unread*
New message received in Inbox	✅	New message received in Inbox
Email is sent	✅	Email appears in Sent
New draft is started	❌	Does not sync
Email is trashed	✅	Email moves to Trash
Email is permanently deleted	❌	Does not sync
Email is archived	✅	Email moves to Archive
Email is unarchived	✅	Email moves to Inbox
Email is marked as spam	✅	Email moves to Spam
Email is snoozed	✅	Email moves to Archive
Snooze expires	✅	Email moves to Inbox
Tag is added or removed	❌	Does not sync
Tag is created or deleted	❌	Does not sync
Move conversation	❌	Move will break status sync
Assign and comment	❌	Does not sync
Delete inbox	❌	Does not sync
Mass archive inbox	✅	Emails move to Archive

*See the FAQ Why isn't the read status syncing? for exceptions.

FAQ

How do Office 365 folders sync to Front exactly?

When you connect an Office 365 channel, Front will try to fetch as many folders as we can from Office 365.
Front will add up to 500 tags to your sidebar, retaining the original nesting structure. If you already have other tags added, then Front will add as many more as possible up to 500.
Front will add tags to your sidebar regardless of whether there is content in the tag.
Tags that are created but not added to your sidebar are accessible through the tag menu.
Folders that couldn't be translated into tags will fall into the normal workflow in which a Front tag is created when a message belonging to the Office 365 folder comes into Front.

Why isn't the read status syncing?

Read status will only sync for individual (personal) Office 365 channels, and for shared conversations when marked as read by the assignee. We use this behavior for shared inbox conversations since many teammates may read a conversation before the assignee, and we wait to sync read status until the teammate handling the conversation reads it.