User Settings Overview

About

User settings are utilized in order for users to make changes to their account to fit their preferences and needs. The changes that are made to user settings do not affect any other users of an Insightly CRM account. 

In this Article

• How do User Settings Work?
• User Settings
  • Email Accounts
  • Email Account Connection
  • Reconfiguring Microsoft Authentication
  • SMTP Connection
  • Email Signature
  • Add an Image to an Email Signature
  • Mailbox
  • How Insightly CRM Links Email Messages
  • User Settings
    • API Key and URL
  • Notifications
    • Notification Options
    • Notification Features
    • Enabling Desktop Notifications
  • Following
  • Contact Sync
  • Calendar Sync

How do User Settings Work?

User settings can be accessed by all users and used to personalize a user's account. To access user settings, click the user profile in the upper right of Insightly CRM and select User Settings from the available options. 

The user name and user icon within the User Profile on the top right hyperlink to the corresponding System User Contact record.

User Settings

User Settings is separated into several sections for ease of access and organization. Details for each section of User Settings can be reviewed below; the changes that are made to an individual users settings do not affect any other users of an Insightly CRM account. 

User Details

The User Details section of User Settings allows users to set their details such as name and applicable notes as well as their preferences for the following:

• User Details: Users can edit details regarding their name and applicable notes.  
• Language Settings: Insightly allows users to create custom fields, tags, and categories in the event that their company has a mix of employees who speak different languages. A best practice is to make these texts bilingual; for example, if a category named Meetings for tasks is created, an English/Spanish version of this category would be Meeting/Reunión. Following languages are supported for CRM: 
  • English
  • Deutsch (German)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Français (French)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • Português (Portuguese)
• Regional Settings:
  • Time Zone: Each user can select their own regional settings for their geographical location to allow for calendar events to display in the correct time zone when viewed by other Insightly users in different time zones. For users utilizing Calendar Sync to display Insightly items on their Google calendar, ensure that the Google time zone settings match the time zone set in Insightly CRM. 
• Date Settings:
  • Date Time Culture: The selection of this field defines what region's localized date and time options are displayed for selection via the Date Format and Time Format fields.
  • Date Format: Once a selection has been made, an example of the format will be displayed below this field.
• Time Settings: 
  • Time Format: Once a selection has been made, an example of the format will be displayed below this field. 
• Number Format: This field cannot be edited manually and can only be changed by the selection made in the Date Time Culture field. 

Email Accounts

By connecting an email account to Insightly, users can utilize email functionality without leaving Insightly CRM. Insightly provides integration with Gmail, Office 365 Outlook, Outlook.com (including Hotmail accounts), and SMTP servers such as Microsoft Exchange. 

• If email aliases have been setup on an email account, these are not accessible from Insightly. 
• If an SMTP connection is being setup, work with the email administrator to obtain the correct login information. 
• As a best practice, users should review whether their email provider has sending limits for their account as some providers only allow a limited number of emails to be sent per day or per hour. 

If errors are encountered with adding an email account, please review the email account connection troubleshooting article. 

Email Account Connection

1. To connect an email account to Insightly, navigate to User Settings > Email Accounts.
2. Select the appropriate email provider from the list in the Add Email Accounts section. Users can select Gmail, Office 365,Outlook.com, or Other.
3. Follow the prompts to connect to the email account and click Add Account to complete the connection.
   1. Some email applications such as Outlook.com will send an email asking the user to sign in to confirm the connection. Once the confirmation is complete, users can return to Insightly and choose the email provider again which will complete the verification. 
   2. If edits need to be made to an account connection (for example, if the user's email login credentials change with the email provider), users will need to delete the connected account from Insightly and follow these instructions to add it again.

Reconfiguring Microsoft Authentication

Office 365 users who have setup an Office 365 email account for sending emails out through Insightly or to utilize Calendar Sync prior to October 1st, 2022 will be required to reconfigure authentication due to Microsoft’s migration from their previous basic authentication process to OAuth. 

1. Navigate to User Settings > Email Accounts.
2. Delete all Office 365 accounts that have been configured by clicking the trash can icon to the right of each account.
   1. A warning message will appear at the top center of the screen: Are You Sure You Want To Delete This Email Account? Click OK.
3. Follow the instructions in the Email Account Connection section to reimplement any accounts that were removed in this process.

SMTP Connection

SMTP is a protocol used for sending email; users who are not familiar with the process of SMTP should ask for assistance from their email provider. If information for POP or IMAP protocols are entered they will not work as they are used for retrieving messages. 

1. For SMTP connections, navigate to User Settings > Email Accounts.
2. Select Other from the list in the Add Email Accounts section. 
   1. Users will be prompted to enter their port number and login information. When all details have been entered, click Add Account. 
   2. Insightly will send a verification email and the new account will appear in the Email Accounts list. 
      • If a verification email is not received, delete the SMTP connection and then add it again. 

Email Signature

Customizing an email signature can help reduce the chance of emails ending up in recipient's spam folders when sending an email from Insightly CRM. Email signatures can contain up to 500 characters; it is a best practice to include name, company name, title, and phone number. 

1. To customize an email signature, navigate to User Settings > Email Signature.
   1. Via the text box in the Email Signature section, design the email signature as it should appear to recipients; the text editor toolbar can be utilize for formatting options and an image can be added as well. 
   2. When the design of the email signature is complete, click Save Email Signature and the signature will automatically be included when sending emails from Insightly CRM.

Add an Image to an Email Signature

Image files that are saved to an image hosting service or a user's own server (if publicly accessible) can be added to email signatures within Insightly CRM. Images cannot be directly uploaded to Insightly CRM. 

1. To add an image to an email signature, navigate to User Settings > Email Signature.
   
   1. Via the text editor toolbar in the Email Signature section, click the HTML option.
   2. Within the HTML code, locate where the image should appear. Utilizing the HTML img tag, paste the URL for the image.
      • Example:
        Image URL: http://your.image.url/folder/filename.jpg
        HTML Code: <img src="http://your.image.url/folder/filename.jpg">
   3. When the image URL has been added to the HTML code, click the HTML button in the text editor toolbar again to return to the email signature and save the addition of the image. 
      1. The image that was added will display where it was added in the HTML.

Mailbox

Users can locate their Insightly mailbox address by navigating to User Settings > Mailbox. 

Each user has an Insightly CRM mailbox that is unique. This mailbox address is not an email inbox or a mail application (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) where emails can be sent and/or received. The Insightly CRM mailbox is an email address that can be included on emails and will allow Insightly to automatically scan the email addresses and domains and automatically link the message to matching contacts and organizations. If Insightly CRM does not find matching records, new records for contacts and organizations will be automatically created. 

• EMAIL TO CONTACT
  When a designated email address is CC'd or BCC'd, it would create a new contact and organization in Insightly CRM if a corresponding contact with that email address does not already exist, automatically attaching the email to the newly created contact. If the contact already exists within the instance, the email would be attached to the existing contact. 
• EMAIL TO LEAD
  When a designated email address is CC'd or BCC'd, it would create a new lead in Insightly CRM if a lead and contact with that email address does not already exist, automatically attaching the email to the newly created lead. If the lead already exists within the instance, the email would be attached to the existing lead.
• CHANGING YOUR MAILBOX ADDRESS
  If you're getting spammed, you can generate a different mailbox address by clicking on the link provided. 

How Insightly CRM Links Email Messages

Insightly only supports email headers in English, therefore, they must read To, From, CC, BCC; if a different language is utilized, Insightly may not recognize the fields and will be unable to complete linking the email to the proper records. Insightly expects the first several lines of an email body to look similar to the example below:

Adding an Insightly mailbox address in the To, CC, and BCC fields yields different results:

User Settings

The User Settings section of User Settings allows users to define settings for functionality such as emails, tasks, calendars, APIs, etc. 

• Email Address Links in Insightly:  
  • Include My Insightly Mailbox Address in the BCC Field: Enabling this setting will automatically insert a users Insightly mailbox address to the BCC field when an email is initiated from Insightly CRM 
• Email Mailbox Settings: 
  • Save Email File Attachments to Insightly: Enabling this setting will allow email attachments to be saved as files. 
  • Make my Emails Visible to Others by Default: Enabling this setting will allow all emails saved to Insightly visible to all other users of an Insightly CRM account.
  • Automatically Add and Link Contacts Included in the Email CC Field: Enabling this setting will allow Insightly to scan the CC field for email addresses and automatically link the email to corresponding contacts within Insightly CRM.
• Connected Application Settings:
  • For Google integrations such as Contact Sync and/or Calendar Sync, Google will occasionally update how third party applications (such as Insightly) can access user data through Google APIs. When these updates occur, if users experience an error regarding issues authorizing with Google, the Google API key in this section can be disabled and then reactivated. 

API Key and URL

A user's API key and API URL can be located via navigating to User Settings > User Settings and reviewing the API section. 

Once an API key has been shared, access can be revoked by clicking Generate New API Key; changing a user's administration permissions will also reset their API key. Once a new API key has been generated, users must update any applications with the new key in order for them to maintain access to Insightly data. 

Notifications

Notifications are alerts that Insightly sends to a user via email. Notification settings allow users to have control over which notifications are received and which records are automatically or manually followed; in order to receive a notification for a record, users must be following the record. For calendars triggering Google notifications, users can review their Google calendar notification settings. 

Notifications can be accessed via User Settings > Notifications or by clicking the bell icon in the upper right of Insightly CRM and clicking Notification Settings from the three dot menu. 

We've enhanced the Insightly Notifications System, improving both its visual design and functionality by organizing notifications (bell icon) into three distinct categories for better management that will be displayed as three tabs on user interface:

• Mentions Tab: Displays all notifications where the user was mentioned in a comment (@mention). It includes only entities where Comments are enabled through object settings. A comment preview is available, showing the first 100-150 characters of the original comment, without displaying inline or attached images. Clicking on the notification takes the user directly to the comment.
• Following Tab: Displays record change notifications to records you’re following, similar to Mentions in appearance and functionality.
• System Tab: Lists system-generated notifications, such as when an asynchronous process like a file import or bulk update completes. Some notifications, such as those related to bulk actions affecting multiple records, will not contain links or underlined text when hovered over. Notifications that involve a specific file or record, such as a file download from an export, will have a working hyperlink.

All notifications within each tab are arranged in chronological order, with the most recent notifications displayed at the top. Within each tab, notifications are grouped by date:

• TODAY: Notifications received today.
• YESTERDAY: Notifications received yesterday.
• OLDER: Notifications received before yesterday.

Note: We only display notifications from past 30 days. 

Notification Options

Users have the flexibility to choose how they would like to receive notifications for each type of notification. The available options include:

• In-App (Application) Notifications: These are notifications displayed in the notifications panel within the Insightly app.

• Email Notifications: Notifications sent via email.

 Note: All email related user notifications will be unchecked/ disabled  by default so users need to opt in   manually.  

• Mobile Push Notifications: These are notifications sent to iOS and Android devices, requiring the Insightly mobile app to be installed.

 If none of the options are selected for a specific notification type, that notification will not be sent in any  form.

Note: If users enable mobile push notifications but do not have the Insightly mobile app installed, these notifications will not be delivered.

Notification Features

All notifications will have following characteristics: 

• Avatar & Record Link: Each tab displays the avatar of the user associated with the notification, along with a link to the relevant record and an icon representing the record type.

• Notification Blocks: Each notification block is a hyperlink to the corresponding record. Clicking on it will open the record in full screen. On hover, the block turns grey, and the link to the record is underlined.

• Unread Indicators: Unread notifications have a blue dot to the right. 

• Marking Notifications as Read: When a notification is clicked, it will be marked as read, and the blue dot will change to a blue circle. Clicking "Mark all as read" next to the date header will mark only the notifications of that specific type as read. To mark all notifications across all tabs as read, users can click the three-dot menu and select "Mark all as Read."

• Empty State Message: If there are no notifications available in a tab, the message "You have no new [mention | following | system] notifications" will be displayed.

Note: The “Open Notifications” option from the three-dot menu will not be supported.

Enabling Desktop Notifications

Once users have selected what items they required notifications for, the next time a notification is triggered the browser will ask for permission to allow the notifications. Allow should be clicked and notifications will then appear in the upper right of the user's primary monitor. 

If Block is clicked, notifications can be allowed at a later date by accessing the site settings and allowing Insightly to send notifications. 

Following

Users can define settings that will automatically activate the following of an item that has been created, updated, or assigned. In contrast to the auto follow settings, users can also manually follow items. To define how and when notifications for followed items are received, users can review the Notifications section of User Settings. 

Auto Follow

Users can define what Insightly CRM items will be followed automatically by navigating to User Settings > Following. Various notifications can be enabled for records modified by a user, assigned to a user, or records that the logged in user assigns to others. 

• Records I Modify: Automatically follow records that the logged in under creates, updates, or comments on.
• Records Assigned to Me: Automatically follow records that the logged in user is responsible for to receive notifications when another user updates or changes the record. 
• Records I Assign to Others: Automatically follow records that the signed in user has assigned to another user in order to stay up to date on progress. 

To view a list of items being followed, View Items I'm Following can be clicked via User Settings > Following or by clicking the bell icon in the upper right of Insightly CRM and clicking Items I'm Following.

Manual Follow

User can manually following records of their choice my accessing the record and clicking the star icon to the right of the record name. A yellow star indicates that the logged in user is following a record.

To view a list of items being following, users can navigate to User Settings > Following and click View Items I'm Following or click the bell icon in the upper right of Insightly CRM and click Items I'm Following. 

Contact Sync

In order for users to enable Google Contact Sync, System Administrators will be required to enable this functionality for their Insightly CRM account by navigating to System Settings > Feature Settings > Google Contact Sync.

Google Contacts Sync is an Insightly feature that syncs all Insightly contacts and contact updates to a users Google Contacts list. Users are not required to have an Insightly for G Suite account to be able to use this functionality as it is available for any Gmail account for users who have an Insightly paid plan. 

• This is a one way sync to Google, therefore changes in Google Contacts will not be synced to Insightly.  Once synced, Insightly recognizes when a change is made to an Insightly contact and will update the corresponding Google contact.
• Each Insightly contact that a user has access to (except for Insightly users) will be synced to Google Contacts.
• Once enabled, contacts will be queued for syncing. Insightly customer data is synced on a first come, first serve basis. When the sync begins, the page will display a sync progress and the number of contacts synced. 
• Once synced, Insightly CRM contacts will appear in a Google Contacts group titled Insightly Contacts and they can optionally be added to the Google Contacts My Contacts group as well. 
• When deleing a contact from Insightly, it will also be deleted from Google Contacts for any user who has the contact synced. 
• If a Google account reaches the limits set by Google Contacts, Insightly will be unable to copy additional contacts to Google and the contact sync will be disabled automatically. 
• Up to 25,000 contacts can be saved or 20 MB, not including photos.

Once contact sync is enabled, users can learn about disabling it via the Disabling Google Integrations article. 

1. To enable Google Contact Sync, navigate to User Settings > Contact Sync.
   • If a user's Insightly account is not connected to Google, click the Setup Google Integration link to allow Insightly access to the Google Contacts list. Only click Allow after confirming that the browser is logged into the correct Google account; if the wrong account is connected, users can view and remove connected applications from their Google account security settings. 
2. Select On to enable Google Contact Sync. If contacts in Insightly already exist in Google Contacts, they will be duplicated on the Google side; synced contacts will appear in the Insightly Contacts group in Google Contacts but preexisting Google contacts will not. 
   1. If synced Insightly contacts should be added to the My Contacts group in Google, enable the Add Contacts to your Google "My Contact" Group checkbox. Many mobile devices and applications pick up contacts only from the My Contacts group in Google therefore enabling this setting can ensure all appropriate contacts are gathered by mobile devices and applications. 

After the initial sync occurs, users can resync if necessary by clicking Resynch all Contacts Now. This will delete all contacts previously synced (even if they are also in the My Contacts group) and Insightly will perform a new sync and all contacts will be synced to the Insightly Contacts group (as well as the My Contacts group if Add Contacts to your Google "My Contact" Group is enabled). 

• For Google integrations such as Contact Sync and/or Calendar Sync, Google will occasionally update how third party applications (such as Insightly) can access user data through Google APIs. When these updates occur, if users experience an error regarding issues authorizing with Google, the Google API key via User Settings > User Settings > Connected Applications can be disabled and then reactivated. Users will then be required to re-enable Contact Sync. 

Calendar Sync

Calendar sync is a feature of all paid plans that allows users to sync their Insightly calendar with Google Calendar or Microsoft Exchange calendars (including many Outlook installations). By syncing with Insightly, any events added, edited, or deleted in one calendar will be instantly updated in the other (synced items from an external calendar cannot be edited within Insightly). After connecting to an external calendar, users will see their Google or Exchange calendar items on their Insightly calendar and vice versa. 

• This feature can be used with any Insightly and Gmail/G Suite account; a connection from G Suite to Insightly isn't required. 

Users can define whether to sync Insightly milestones and tasks as well; when enabled, Insightly will add two new calendars to the user's external calendars named Insightly Tasks and Insightly Milestones (tasks require a due date in order to be displayed on a calendar). Tasks and milestones cannot be edited from an external calendar - edits to these items can only occur from Insightly. 

• Exchange calendar sync is supported for Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 and above. 
• Insightly will sync to and from a user's default calendar; custom calendars will not be synced with Insightly. 
• Free email services with domains such as yahoo.com or hotmail.com cannot be used with the Exchange calendar sync. 

Once calendar sync is enabled, users can learn about disabling it via the Disabling Google Integrations article.

1. To enable calendar sync, navigate to User Settings > Calendar Sync and select a calendar to sync with from the drop-down menu. Users can select Do Not Sync, Google, or Exchange.

2. Once a calendar is selected, the option to sync Insightly tasks and milestones is available to enable as desired. 

   1. If a user's Insightly account is not connected to the necessary calendar provider, click the Setup Google Integration or Setup Microsoft Exchange link as applicable to allow Insightly access to the Calendar. 

      • Google: Only click Allow after confirming that the browser is logged into the correct Google account; if the wrong account is connected, users can view and remove connected applications from their Google account security settings. 

      • Exchange: When setting up a connection to Microsoft Exchange, clicking the setup link will cause the Exchange Settings section to appear on the page. Enter the user’s Exchange email address and click Add Office 365 Account. Once the Exchange account has been authenticated, a message of Exchange Settings Saved will appear.

3. Click Save Calendar Sync Settings to save the changes; the initial sync will take a few moments to complete.

   1. For Google integrations such as Calendar Sync and/or Contact Sync, Google will occasionally update how third party applications (such as Insightly) can access user data through Google APIs. When these updates occur, if users experience an error regarding issues authorizing with Google, the Google API key via User Settings > User Settings > Connected Applications can be disabled and then reactivated. Users will then be required to re-enable Calendar Sync. 

   2. Office 365 users who have setup an Office 365 email account for sending emails out through Insightly or to utilize Calendar Sync prior to October 1st, 2022 will be required to reconfigure authentication due to Microsoft’s migration from their previous basic authentication process to OAuth. The Reconfiguring Microsoft Authentication section above can be utilized by users affected by this change.