email solutions – state-of-the-art and possibile evolutions

8/20/2019 Email solutions – state-of-the-art and possibile evolutions

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Email solutions – state-of-the-art and possible evolutions

Ricardo Raminhos, Eduardo Coutinho, Nuno Miranda

VIATECLA SA

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Maria Barbas, Paulo Branco

Instituto Politécnico de Santarém

[email protected], [email protected]

Teresa Gonçalves, Gil Palma

Universidade de Évora

[email protected], [email protected]

AbstractIn a digital world, where information exchange is continuous, the use of email for the purpose of

communicating or for digital recording in the professional and / or personal environment is a

constant need. Although there are other ways of exchanging messages (e.g. instant messaging) that

have acquired an increasing role (with the associated volume), the email still keeps all its importance.

On the other hand, the growth on the volume of messages exchanged contributes to the

organization of the information with direct impact on actions taken. These actions are often critical

within a professional environment, where the “time” factor (generally related to an answer request)

is of vital importance. Therefore, in addition to the messaging transmission mechanisms, the

introduction of intelligent mechanisms for classification and visual (and exploratory) representationof emails (both sent and received), is becoming increasingly relevant, contributing to the decision

making process. This is one of the main objectives of the SMART Mail project, in which the

investigation tasks are focused.

This paper seeks to describe the present context regarding existing email management solutions that

have intelligent and/or visual mechanisms that are of help to email users, which is, within the scope

of the SMART Mail, State of the Art elicitation activities.

IntroductionAlthough there are currently several ways of communicating online, from instant messaging, website

platforms, wikis, blogs or online forums, as well as multiple social networks (oriented towards leisure

or more focused on the business environment), the email is still the communication format most

used within the business context [1].

The email has become much more than a tool for sending / receiving electronic mail messages. Its

use has been extended to a digital repository logic (not only of messages, but also of documents), as

well as a list of tasks to perform, manage or cooperate within organizations [2]. An active electronic

mail user spends a significant part of its day searching for information which he know he has but is

unaware of its location / context. Few users know that with fine-tuning or filtering options [1] theycan use to access that information in a more agile way. In fact, according to recent studies, an

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employee sends and receives, on average, a total of 133 messages every day, and spends 21% of its

work time processing and managing all this information [3].

Taking into account the huge number of emails received, email management systems have also been

turning into “to-do” lists, as many users leave messages in their inbox as reminders of tasks to

perform or use markers to classify messages according to their relevance and urgency (depending on

which email management software is being used).

This overload of messages and tasks demands a change on the consumption behaviour, as well as on

the email management platforms that must respond to new requirements. In terms of consumption

behaviour users have to do a set of operations to deal with the emails received, specifically prioritize,

organize, classify, group, filter and inter-relate messages in the inbox [4] and, therefore, need

applications that allow them to optimize those tasks.

Along with the urgency for the optimization of the time spent using the email and with the increase

on the number of messages and (as a result) data processed, organizations, in particular the business

companies, feel the need to have a visual experience of all that information allowing them, tooptimize the time spent using email, as well as to have accurate information about what is being

done (and how) to further improve.

Although users need an immediate measurement on the email flow that need has not been

materialized on the evolution of email management solutions therefore, most plugins and / or

applications development that allow this treatment of information have been performed by third

party entities.

ApproachesAccording to the State of the Art analysis, it has been verified that solutions that try to address the

inclusion of graphical mechanisms and intelligence for the comprehension of email and contacts

navigation available on the market, follow one of three main approaches:

Under the form of a plugin / add-on, using email management platforms already available on

the market, and providing a layer of intelligence on those platforms;

By reinventing the whole email experience, natively integrated on the email application of

the client;

Under the form of an autonomous platform based on the integration of email management

platforms and business analytics / documental platforms.

With the project SMART Mail, VIATECLA [5] aims to potentiate the importance of email, thus

contributing to an increase of productivity to its users, through a functional software prototype that

allows the current standard / static system of email messages to have a certain degree of

intelligence.

Therefore, the main objective is to help the end user on the definition and proposal of priorities for

the messages received, on the application of rules and alarms providing intuitive graphic means to

explore the email historical information and allowing a navigation mode according to the level of

relevance, correction, and proximity.

The SMART Mail [6] project, is being developed by VIATECLA [5] and supported by Universidade deÉvora [7], Instituto Politécnico de Santarém [8] and GTE Consultores [9], and is co-financed by QREN

(Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional) [10].


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State of the Art analysisDuring the survey of the state of the art here presented, we tried to identify different approaches,

either at a graphic level and related to artificial intelligence, or supported by heuristics (of higher or

smaller mathematical complexity), forms that could be used on the (i) presentation of metrics, (ii)

visual and graphic representation, (iii) capability of exploitation and handling of information (in an

interactive versus a static way), (iv) mechanisms of message prioritization or (v) proposal of relevance

mechanisms (i.e. mostly applied to emails and contacts).

As a result, 10 relevant applications capable of helping the end user on the email management

process, by their visual / “intelligent” features, have been identified. The analysis focused only on

these features, rather than on the standard “send and receive” email functionalities, or on the

calendar management that are normally supported by all email management applications, and taken

as “standard”.

Clear Context is a plugin that works integrated within Microsoft Outlook, and allows email

administration in terms of time management as well as efficiency. Some of its functionalities are:

automatic aggregation of emails so the user will not be distracted from the main subjects (theseaggregated emails are sent to the inbox once every day so they can be viewed); conversion of emails

into tasks, thus guaranteeing that the most important messages are treated and processed

accordingly, which allows, for example, to track emails with follow up reminders; and organization of

tasks, meetings and emails into projects, so the status of those projects can be controlled, by

checking which tasks or actions need to be performed [11].

Figure 1: Statistics presented by the Clear Context application–

i) average sent and received emails, ii) average reply times,iii) internal predicted metrics based on statistical data and levels

In terms of metric analysis it is possible to measure the use of email efficiency based on aspects like

the answer time, control of the inbox and communication processed (i.e. how well the user is

processing and answering to messages). The set of statistics generated by this application includes

the number of sent and received messages (monthly view), the average reply time, and the efficiency

and work volume associated to emails (Figure 1).

Bells & Whistles application [12] is another plugin for Microsoft Outlook. It simplifies existing Outlook

functionalities by automating the addition and adequacy of rules, signatures, disclaimers and

“subject” labels of each email aiming at saving the end user time during the process of messagecomposing. The metrics collected are rather common, as they do not offer any kind of innovation,

either on the data nor on the form of its presentation. However, the possibility of keeping and


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sharing those results allows the creation of detailed historic data with all available information and

the comparison of data with other specific users. Every time users wish to look at specific

information, they can select the time frame and the indicators to include. Figure 2 shows one of the

charts generated regarding the daily email traffic where the red line represents the received emails

and the blue line represents sent emails.

Figure 2: Chart containing the daily email traffic (Bells & Whistles)

The Gmail Meter is a third-party application developed for Gmail, using Google Apps Scripts. Being a

script that works on the client side through a Google Drive account, it does not have any access to

the contents of emails, thus being safe concerning privacy. In short, this application does the analysis

of the email account and sends, monthly, by email, a report with measurements and statistics. On

that report, a set of information, like the number of conversations (threads) and number of sent and

received emails is shown, highlighting the senders and receivers with the higher volume of messages.It is also shown a chart with the daily, weekly and monthly traffic (Figure 3 – left) that allows to look

at the volume of messages within a given period of time - from a few hours to certain days of the

week or month.

Figure 3: Example of temporal charts sent by the Gmail Meter report (on the left) and chart with the reply times by the user

and their contacts (on the right)

Other sets of data presented on the report are more specific, such as the users (and their contacts)

reply times (Figure 3 – right), the average word count by message or the number of attachments andtheir formats, amongst others.


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Although it presents some interesting and relevant data about the use of email, this application is

exclusive for Gmail users.

GetResponse [13] application offers the ability, not only to storage and present metrics about sent

emails, but also to suggest and/or apply changes to the way messages are sent in order to maximize

productivity and efficiency. One example is the automatic delivery of emails at a predefined time, todifferent groups of subscribers, depending on the time most people are available or receptive to

receive those emails (Figure 4)

Figure 4: Chart of time metrics on the GetResponse platform

Other functionalities of GetResponse include the ability to show global results side by side - Figure 5 –

and monitor which devices are more used by clients and which social networks have more email

content shared frequently than others. This, combined with the drilldown of data feature, helps on

the decision making process. The application has more functionalities, but the visualization of data,

even though it uses standard charts, presents itself more intuitively than others.

Figure 5: Graphic presentation of the comparison of metrics between two messages

Xobni [14] presents the most common metrics available as the previous applications, but the

visualization of data is not the main focus. Its key role – search and quick creation of people’s

contacts, even when those persons are not on the contact list – is allied to data visualization. This

fusion of functionalities allows to have a detailed knowledge on the source of each email and look at

the metrics associated to each email author, regardless of the previous knowledge of the sender (i.e.

having or not previously classified contacts). Figure 6 presents the contacts which more emails have

been exchanged and the quantity of sent and received emails during the last 24 hours.


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Xobni was, in fact, an innovative application and was acquired by Yahoo in 2013. Although some

features were incorporated in the Yahoo products, one year after the acquisition of Xobni , the

original project would come to an end, with the shutting down of its servers from Yahoo.

Figure 6: Xobni Summary

Politemail [15] is an Outlook plugin that makes a set of metrics and tools available with the intent of

helping businesses with the management of email. The data visualization is not revolutionary

concerning the way of sent emails’ metrics representation, as all is done in a simple way and

integrated with Outlook, which is more appealing for someone who does not want to learn a whole

new interface.

Figure 7 presents, on a bar chart, the activity related to emails of the type “newsletter” in terms of

how many persons have received, opened and replied to the email, as well as how many of them

have showed interest and shared it, in addition to presenting those metrics in a numeric form; the

Open Rate represents how many emails have been opened in total; the Undeliverables are the emails

that have never reached their final destination; the percentage of people that have unsubscribed the

newsletter is showed on the Opt-out metric; click-Thru, Response and Interest Level statistics relate

to the quantity of internet links that have been followed, the total number of replies sent by the

subscribers and the replies regarding the number of emails, respectively.

Figure 7: Politemail Bar Graph


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One other tool, Lookeen [16], allows searching for messages within Microsoft Outlook and in the

Exchange Server, through a direct integration with Outlook as a plugin. Apart from the message (or

attachment) searching tool in the client’s email account, this software can also be integrated with the

operating system, which allows doing a search on the entire hard drive of the system (e.g. files,

folders). It is also possible to create advanced filters and to present a preview on the documents and

images searched. In the case of documents it is possible to edit them in the preview mode (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Lookeen Interface with some of its features highlighted

Although this tool is very complete, especially with its search and email indexation with quick and

consistent results, it has its own limitations regarding the reports/analytics side. It is considered a

useful tool for the optimization of the time spent managing emails, however it does not include a

central element on the project: metric and data analysis on a visual form.

Similarly, ReliefJet is an application that is integrated with Microsoft Outlook and is, generally,

categorised in two perspectives. The ReliefJet Essentials tool has a set of functionalities for the

import and export of items and messages under a set of formats, or even the capability of converting

messages between MSG and EML formats; additionally, it includes some customizing options as well

as the edit and backup of the information.

On the other hand, the package ReliefJet Quicks is a set of 6 add-ins that aim to optimize the time

spent using and managing emails. The first (Quick Tweaks) allows to automatically mark deleted

messages as read messages, and to define the format (HTML, Plain Text or Rich Text) of the emailreplies, or to repair hyperlinks and to embed images on those message replies. The second one

(Quick Warnings) notifies the user on a set of situations, like a possible missing element (the

“subject” field not filled in, or the attachment not included in the message) before the message is

sent. The third one (Quick Folders) allows the folder management, like the immediate search of

messages, or copy and move Outlook items, and includes support for the Exchange Server. The

QuickText allows inserting pre-configured strings of text through a simple mouse-click or a keyboard

shortcut, as well as other elements as date and time or a list of the shortcut names already sent. The

QuickNotes allows the creation and edition of notes by attaching them to the messages, or the

search for notes in all emails, and allowing the user to read those emails in both web and mobile

email accounts. Finally, the QuickReports add-in allows the user to create reports related to Outlookfolder items (for example a report on the tasks to perform) having a total integration with Microsoft


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Excel (Figure 9). Although this application is not as visual as other examples on this paper, is already

an application that allows a thoroughly analysis of data obtained from the client’s email [17].

Figure 9: Example of a .XML file open in Microsoft Excel with the report generated by Reliefjet

By making an integrated analysis of metrics from social networks and emails available, the SumAll

application [18] works as a real time aggregator of data from several sources. The charts presented

by this application allow the analysis of simple (and cross-checked) data, even between different

services, like the relationship between open emails and PayPal transfers in a certain time of the day.

The tool also processes data from other marketing / analytics tools, allowing the user to choose the

most suitable tool for each circumstance, not having to lose the global view of data. The user can

even unify similar data from different sources. All these features are available on the client webappon every computer, whilst the mobile app only allows analysing a subset of the data. Figure 10 shows

data collected from Google Analytics, Facebook ads and BigCommerce.

Figure 10: SumAll chart l


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Similar to the SumAll application, the Silverpop Engage is an application developed by Silverpop [19]

that joins data from social networks and other sources of information, with the objective of getting a

visual representation that is not directly available. In particular, the Silverpop Email insights [20], a

Silverpop Engage add-in, gathers email metrics and presents the gathered data on the most common

charts. However, this solution has more than 23 other optional add-ins [21], like Adobe Analytics,

Silverpop Revenue Analytics, IBM Core Metrics, amongst others, capable of analysing a huge amount

of information, supported by specialized charts, which significantly increases the way of visualizingdata. Figure 11 shows the data from a marketing campaign in a non-traditional graphic form but of

quick and easy understanding. Figure 12 corresponds to Silverpop Revenue Analytics where the chart

shows the gains generated by webevents through a certain period of time, allowing to explore the

data through that time period, in an interactive way, either by a more global view or in more detail

given a specific time interval.

Figure 11: SilverPop App Adobe Analytics Funnel

Figure 12: Silverpop Revenue Analytics

Conclusions and possible evolutionsFrom the state of the art analysis, it is observed that there are not many tools that address the email

management and optimization of time spent using the email. The number of applications is even

lower when it comes to solutions available that are capable of visually representing the results of the

analysis made.


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From the technological point of view, there is a large dependence of Microsoft Outlook under the

form of plugin creation for processing, visualization and interaction with the information. In relation

to the approaches on the web visualization of email indicators, these are also limited to a specific

client (Gmail in the case of Gmail Meter) or by using internal resources (GetResponse) that do not

allow to work with services or clients of external emails.

Finally, from the point of view of the set of information to process, it is observed that, with theexception of the application GetResponse (with different features), it is focused on the context of a

unique user that sends and receives email messages.

Based on these conclusions, some considerations and proposals of possible evolutions on this

domain are presented next:

1.

Change of paradigm – from the current one, which is focused on an isolated email message,

to an email message “in context”. Each message should be put in historic context, in case it

exists (the history), especially with regards to other Contacts and Organizations also present

in the conversation;2. Integrated interface – following the suggested change of paradigm, the way these

implementations are put in place cannot be seen as something that is secondary / optional,

but as a new area that is always present and visible in the user interface;

3. Higher intelligence – through reflection on which artificial intelligence capabilities can be

applied to emails, either on the proposal of relevance levels, or on the correlation of those

levels;

4. Exploratory and Interactive – by making graphic controls that go beyond the graphic

representation of the information, and enable the user to have a certain degree of

interaction through: (i) filtering, (ii) search, (iii) definition of temporal scope of the search, (iv)

drilldown / roll up mechanisms on the universe of data selected to be analysed;5. Collaborative – through the construction of repositories (e.g. of Contacts, Organizations)

which information can be constructed and consulted in a collaborative way in the context of

one entity (e.g. a company) or even in a general / global way;

Considering the mentioned points above, it is noted that there is urgency and concern with these

subjects, as it is an element that, for businesses and organizations, involves many working hours of

their employees. The possibility of optimizing that use is entirely relevant, knowing that at any

moment, through metric analysis, whatever is being made (whether well or not), and what can be

changed, and / or amended to reduce the distraction factor of email and maximize its benefits and

inherent productivity.

References

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[2] N. Ducheneaut and V. Belloti, “E-mail as habitat: an exploration of embedded personalinformation management,” Magazine Interactions, vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 30-38, 2001.


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email solutions – state-of-the-art and possibile evolutions

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