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Technical

Architecture

There are three different components involved in every request:

  • The mail client (Outlook or Gmail)
  • Lime mail service, which is hosted in AWS. Uses a Mongo DB to store data regarding the accounts, but never any data regarding user triggered requests. Read more about this under GDPR.
  • The customer's Lime CRM solution. This may be in the Lime CRM cloud (AWS) or run as on-premise on another server somewhere.

The Lime mail service acts as a proxy between the mail client and the Lime CRM solution, i.e., the Outlook add-in or Gmail add-on connects to the Lime mail service which in turn passes the information on to Lime CRM, using the Lime CRM REST API.

Example

This diagram shows the flow for one example:

architecture

  1. Outlook sends a request to https://mail.lime-crm.com/addin/searchContact?email=<[email protected]> (request headers include Access-Email and Access-Token).
  2. Lime mail service passes The information along to https://<domain.of.lime.server>/api/v1/limeobject/person/?email=<[email protected]> (request headers include api-key).
  3. Lime CRM REST API returns a person (or null).
  4. Lime mail service formats and forwards person to Outlook.
  5. Outlook displays the person found.

Network Openings Needed

In the case that either of the Lime CRM solution and the customer's email service are run on-premise (most often an Outlook Exchange Server then) in the customer's network, the respective server will need to open up its network to access and be accessible by the Lime mail service, which is in AWS.

Email Services

Outlook

  • The Outlook add-in is installed using Microsoft's web platform and is using Outlook REST API and/or Exchange Web Services (EWS) to fetch data from e-mail messages/calendar appointments.
  • The add-in to Outlook is installed in one place and available through Outlook desktop client, web client and iOS app (if using Office 365).
  • The synchronization of saved calendar appointments to Lime CRM uses Office 365 webhooks.

Gmail

  • The Gmail add-on is installed through Gsuite Marketplace and is built using Google Apps Script.
  • The add-on is installed in the users Gmail account and available in Gmail regardless of browser.