How Copper auto-relates your files 📎 📄 🙌


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We are super excited about our new feature: auto-relating files! You can check out our announcement here or continue reading for more details.

 

Here, we’ll cover:

 

What is file auto-relate?

Copper automatically relates files from emails and attaches them to the relevant Person in Copper. No more downloading and uploading, sifting through Google Drive and Gmail or asking someone to re-send a file.

Once a file is auto-related, your team can easily find it from the sender or recipient’s Person record or from their related Companies and Opportunities.

Once a file is auto-related, you can preview it, see its details, or attach those it to future emails!

 

How does it work?

It works hand-in-hand with our Gmail integration. When an email is synced, it automatically detects attachments, embedded images, and Google Drive links. It then relates those files to the People records of anyone included in that email. And if that Person is associated with a Company or Opportunity, you’ll be able to access the files from those records as well.

A synced email must be Visible in Copper for file auto-relate to work. This brings us to the next question!

 

How do I enable file auto-relate?

Simply make your synced emails visible to your team. In the Copper web app, go to Settings > Personal Preferences > Email Settings & Templates > Emails, Files, and Links Visibility.

Once you’ve done that, file auto-relate will start working automatically for new emails moving forward.

 

Note: if an email includes multiple Copper users, all those users must have their emails set to Visible for the files to be auto-related.

In general, we strongly recommend your entire team sets their emails to Visible. This allows your team to use Copper as a complete and transparent source of information!

 

What kind of files does it work with?

It works with:

  • Emails with attachments of any format (PDF, CSV, JPG, etc.)
  • Emails with images embedded in the body
  • Emails with Google Doc URLs or hyperlinks

 

Who can see auto-related files?

Any user who can access a Copper record will be able to see that record’s associated files. If you need to block access to certain files, we recommend either restricting that record’s visibility or removing those files altogether.

 

How do I remove an auto-related file?

Simply hover your mouse over the file and click the X.

 

What about duplicate files?

If the same file is synced multiple times, the system updates its associated date. It does not create duplicates.

Our duplicate detection works with more than just the file name. So if you have multiple files with the same name but different contents, they might look like duplicates when they actually are not. In that case, you can tell them apart based on the date, the file details, or by previewing them.

 

Can I still upload files manually?

Yes! You can do this through the “+” button in the files section for each record.

Manually uploaded files will appear in the Uploads section while auto-related files will appear in the Auto-Related section.

 

Are files visible in the mobile app and Chrome extension?

Yes! You’ll have access to those files in the Copper web app, mobile apps, and Chrome extension.

 

What does Add from Copper mean?

When you go to add a file to an email you’re composing in Copper or in Gmail*, you’ll see an option for Add from Copper. This gives you quick access to files in Copper, either by searching the file name or searching a Person who you know sent or received that file.

*You need to have our Chrome extension installed to see the Add from Copper option in Gmail.

 

Can users disable file auto-relate?

File auto-relate needs two things to work for each user:

  1. Gmail sync needs to be enabled, and
  2. Synced emails need to be Visible by default.

So if someone needs to disable the file auto-relate feature, they can either change their default email visibility settings (Settings > Personal Preferences > Email Settings & Templates > Emails, Files, and Links Visibility) or have an admin disable their Google Sync (Settings > Account Settings > Company & Invite New Users > Edit > Uncheck the box for Google Sync).

 

Does it work with Leads, Projects or Tasks?

Currently, file auto-relate only works with People and their associated Companies and Opportunities. If you have any feedback, please post in our Ideas section for the Product team to consider.

 

More questions?

Leave them as a comment down below or post in our Community forum! We’ll be happy to help you out.


14 replies

Is there a way to disable the attachment dialogue in gmail? I still use the copper chrome extension a lot for other purposes, but this dialogue interferes with native gmail feature and adds an extra step to the experience. I do not use the files sync, so it’s only making the experience frustrating for me. Having more ways to customise what elements for the extension to switch on would be great.

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Hi @tubik! We don’t currently have a way to disable the “Add from Copper” option. I have given your feedback to our Product team for consideration.

Would you mind giving us more details on what you said here: this dialogue interferes with native gmail feature.

I’d like to understand what exactly it’s interfering with. Sometimes if you have another Chrome extension, they can interfere with each other. We did deploy fix for a similar-sounding bug recently so let me know if you’re still facing this issue.

Thank you tubik!

Not facing it anymore, thank you. 

 

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Great thank you @tubik! If you see any other issues, please let our technical support know through the in-app chat.

How do I remove this option please, it is really annoying? I just want my normal Windows files window to pop up on clicking the paperclip and not have this extra step.

If there’s no option to remove it, there needs to be!

Thank you.

 

I have a growing number of associated files that keep populating in a person’s file.

 

It is the same .png file which is a company logo. It will even log multiple times a day as a new .png file (I thought I’d read that his doesn’t happen however its capturing the same image over and over).

Is there a way to avoid this as this specific image is responsible for prob 80% of the associated files for that contact creating a lot of irrelevant stored files. 

 

-Andy 

Hi, thank you for this great update. It looks promising.

“Add from Copper” is not working in Gmail when using Spanish language and connecting from Spain. We tried with 4 different computers and 3 Copper CRM tenants. It is not a recent issue. It never worked for us. We thought that we had to wait until this update was rolled up. 
Is this update available for all of us no matter the language or location?

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@enrique_EADEA ah, it sounds like this issue might be specific to the Spanish language. Can you get in touch with our technical support team using the in-app messenger icon? They can help you more with this.

 

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I have a growing number of associated files that keep populating in a person’s file.

 

It is the same .png file which is a company logo. It will even log multiple times a day as a new .png file (I thought I’d read that his doesn’t happen however its capturing the same image over and over).

Is there a way to avoid this as this specific image is responsible for prob 80% of the associated files for that contact creating a lot of irrelevant stored files. 

 

-Andy 

@Andel We’re currently deploying a solution for this and it should be available on all accounts next week. If it continues to be an issue after next week, I recommend reaching out to our technical team through the in-app messenger. Thank you for your patience!

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How do I remove this option please, it is really annoying? I just want my normal Windows files window to pop up on clicking the paperclip and not have this extra step.

If there’s no option to remove it, there needs to be!

Thank you.

 

@RaceRat we don’t currently have an off-switch for that particular feature. I have forwarded your feedback to the Product team. If you’d like, you can post it as an Idea so that we can ping you if we have an update.

Hi

“Add from Copper” is not working in Gmail when using Spanish language and connecting from Spain.

Thanks in advance for your help.

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Hi @Fatima Haftari, thank you for posting. This sounds like a technical issue - could you reach out to our technical team using the in-app messenger icon?

 

Hi @Fatima Haftari the problem definitely has to do with the Spanish language. If you set the language of your Google account to English, you will see that it already works for you. At some point in the future the developers will see the bug and fix it.

@Michelle from Copper I have already contacted support. You can see the conversations with them and what they propose. Thanks.

I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but it’s not attaching the emailed files to my company records. I do have the “sync” button selected under Email Settings & Templates. Is there anything else I need to do to activate this feature? Thanks.

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