How do I import Scanned or Digital Mail?

You can import your hard copy correspondence directly into the Scanned folder where you can then sort and process the mail. The Scanned folder can contain faxes, scans, and digital mail.

NOTE: Faxes can now be imported directly from the Outlook mailbox. Contact support@iconstituent.com if you'd like faxes configured to import for your office. Faxes follow a slightly different process than the one outlined below. See our article How do I import faxes? for more information.

Scanning and Saving Your Hard Copy Correspondence

To import your scans into the system, you must first scan them and save them to your shared drive. All files must be saved as .tif.

Scan and save each letter as constituent’s last name, first initial (“smithj” for John Smith) to the shared drive. (Go to My Computer, and it is generally the X, Y, or Z drive. Look for the scanned documents folder. If you don’t see one, please contact your systems administrator or iConstituent Support.)

Digital Mail for the House of Representatives

If you are participating in the House's Digital Mail program, your hard copy postal mail will be scanned and saved to the correct folder in your shared drive for you, so you can go directly to the next step of "Importing Your Scans from the Shared Drive."

Importing Your Scans from the Shared Drive

Select Mail from the top navigation menu, and then select Scanned from the left navigation panel.

1. Expand the Scanned folder by clicking on the orange arrow.
2. Select Tiff Import. (If you are looking for digital mail, select the Digital Mail folder.)
3. On the far right, click the More button, and then select Import New Records.
   
4. If you are importing scanned documents, you will be asked if you want to import new files. Click Import.
5. If you are importing digital mail, you will be prompted with a calendar to select the start and end dates for the documents you’d like to import. Set the start date as the date from the last time you imported your Digital Mail. Set the end date to yesterday’s date. Then click Import.
   • NOTE: You can now set daily automatic Digital Mail imports between the hours of 6 am EDT - 10 am EDT. This will need to be configured by our support staff (support@iconstituent.com). The automatic daily import will import mail that was scanned on the previous day.

Working in the Scanned Folder

You will see all of the records listed with the contact’s name, any default correspondence fields completed, and a small portion of the incoming message. On the right, you will see an arrow in each row pointing to the right.

1. Click on the arrow to view the scanned image.
2. To assign correspondence information to a record, select the row, and click the Assign button. (To assign values to more than one record, check all of the desired records, then click the Assign button.) Then click Save.
   NOTE: For more information about assigning correspondence activity information, see the article How do I create new correspondence activities? 
3. Once you have updated all the records and deleted ones that don’t need to be entered, click the Create Activities button. The records will then become correspondence activities, leave the Scanned folder, and appear in the assigned staff member’s My Mail folder.

Editing the Record Details

If you need to edit more information for the constituent or the message description, or if you want to see a larger image of the document, click on the contact’s name to open the record details.

1. Complete the desired information for name and address, and edit any correspondence information.
2. Click the Arrow on the top right to move on to the next record. (Your changes will be saved.) When you are ready to return to the list of scanned items, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the form, which will save the changes to this record and close the window.

When you've finished making your changes, be sure to select the items and click Create Activities. Creating activities will clear the items from the Scanned folder and send them onto either the assigned staff member or the inbox (depending upon your office's configuration).