External Email Logging

We know that a lot of the communication between institutions and employers is happening outside of Handshake, often in individual career services team member's email inbox. With External Email Logging, you can capture and save these emails by including a special BCC (blind carbon copy) contact to your emails. This will show when an email was sent to that contact, and a note will be added to the employer’s activity tab.

The purpose of this feature is to ensure that all of your communication with your employer contacts can be captured in Handshake with ease! Other staff members at your institution will have access to this information as well. As long as the BCC token link is used and the contact is connected to an employer, the email will be listed in the employer’s activity tab. If the contact is not in Handshake, the information will be provided on the External Email Logging page.

With this feature, you'll be able to easily capture your email communications in Handshake, regardless of whether the person you emailed already exists as a contact in Handshake or not.

Topics:

• How to use External Email Logging
• How to read logged emails in Handshake
• Emails that are not listed on the Employer page
  • Unresolved email addresses
  • Add a contact
• FAQs

How to use External Email Logging

1. Select your name in the upper-right corner of the page and choose User Settings.
2. Using the menu on the left, select External Email Logging. 
3. At the top of the page, the copy your BCC email address section provides an URL available for you to click and copy. This is your unique BCC email address, you cannot use another career services staff member’s BCC email address during this process.

4. Using your email provider, compose a message and use the Bcc function to paste the link. The image used shows Gmail’s interface:

Note: You will need to send from the email address that is associated with your Handshake career services account.

5. Create your message and send the email to the correct contact(s).
6. After you’ve sent the email, you can go to the contact’s employer account on Handshake and select the Activity tab to display the note for the record of this email. 

How to read logged emails in Handshake

To read the email log for a contact that is associated with a specific employer, take the following steps:

1. Select Employers from the left navigation menu.

2. Search and select the employer you'd like to read email logs for.

3. On the Activity tab, you will have access to the email log.

Note: You can also filter the Activity type to Email tracked. This will show email logs only.

Emails that are not listed on the Employer page

If an email does not appear on an employer’s activity tab, and the individual that was emailed is not an user or contact in Handshake, the email activity will be listed in the External Email Logging page. 

Use the steps in How to use External Email Logging to access the External Email Logging page.

Unresolved email addresses

At the bottom of the page, you will have access to Unresolved email addresses.

This table provides information for every email that was sent to a contact that doesn’t have sourced information in Handshake. The table includes the unresolved email address, Employer (if applicable), Email date, and Subject line.

There are four specific situations that a recipient can be categorised in:

Existing contact:

• The email will not be listed as unresolved
• The email will appear on the associated employer’s activity tab

Exiting Handshake user:

• The email will not be listed as unresolved
• The email will appear on the associated employer’s activity tab
• Handshake will automatically create a contact for this individual

Unknown person at known employer:

• The email will appear on the employer activity page
• The email will appear in the unresolved email queue for each unknown recipient 
• CS user may create a contact for the unresolved recipient

Unknown person at unknown employer: 

• The email will not appear on any employer pages
• The email will appear in the unresolved email queue for each unknown recipient
• CS user may create a contact for the unresolved recipient 

Add a contact

To add a contact from this list, click the person and + icon on the right hand side of the table.

A pop-up box will appear. Add the user’s first name, last name, and employer (if applicable). Click Save and the contact will be created.

FAQs

Can I send an email using the BCC email address with HTML formatting and/or including attachments? Yes, both HTML formatting and attachments can be used in emails where you include a BCC link. 

How can I use the BCC email address with an email that was sent to me?
Simply forward the email you received to the BCC email address. If the email was originally sent to you and many other recipients, the email details will be logged in Handshake accordingly.

What if I send an email and forget to add the BCC email address?
No worries! You can simply forward the email you sent to the BCC email address. This will capture the information in Handshake.

Is there a way to make this process automated? 
Many email clients and systems have features such as “Auto-BCC” rules. Check your specific email provider to see if such a feature exists. Oftentimes they can be configured to Auto-BCC only when sending emails outside of your work domain.