Notes, Documents & the Library
Note: desktop feature. This chapter describes the TechieCRM desktop application. The web portal carries a simpler Library: a flat list of items you can add, edit and delete, with a title, a description, a file type and a public/private flag. The folder tree, the document preview (PDF and Word/Excel rendering), opening a document in your own application, attaching a real file, tags, and the toolbars, right-click actions and automations described below do not exist there yet.
Source-CRM equivalents: Notes and Documents, Company Library.
In this chapter - Notes - Documents (and the Document Editor) - Inserting fields, document templates, and creating a document for many clients - Emails filed on a record - The Library (desktop, and on the web portal) - Not yet available
If part of the timeline can't be read from the database, Interactions says so: a red "
could not be loaded" row appears at the top of the list, one per affected section (Notes, Documents, To-Dos, Meetings, Emails, Sales, Service, Agreements…), with the reason. That row is a message, not a record: it can't be opened, selected or deleted. A section that genuinely has nothing simply shows no rows, so an empty history and a failed query never look the same. Reload the client (or reconnect) to clear the warning.The same rule now covers the case where TechieCRM can't even read the shape of a table (connection dropped mid-load, or your sign-in isn't allowed to read the database catalogue): you get the warning row naming the table, instead of a section that quietly shows nothing.
Loading in the background (October 2026). When you click a client in Clients, or a contact in Related, the Interactions list now loads in the background, so the window doesn't freeze while it reads the client's history. The list empties at once and shows one Loading interactions… line until the history arrives, usually well under a second. That line isn't a record: it can't be opened, selected or deleted. You can keep working, or click another client while it loads: Interactions always shows the client you clicked last, never an earlier client's list that happened to finish later.
When the list reloads for the same client or contact, for example when you change the Types filter or Show All, or after you save an email from Compose or Meeting Notes, the rows you are looking at stay on screen, and a small Updating… note appears in the top-right corner of the list until the new list arrives. You can still open, print or delete those rows while it updates: each one acts on the record it shows. If one of them is no longer there in the new list (it was deleted, or the new filter hides it), it simply disappears when the new list arrives. Clicking a different client, or a different contact in Related, still empties the list at once, so one client's rows are never shown as another's.
If the whole load fails, you see a red "Interactions could not be loaded" row with the reason, never an empty list. If the load is stopped before it finishes (for example, TechieCRM is closing), the row reads "Loading was stopped before it finished". Click the client again to reload.
The icons on each row (October 2026). Every Interactions row starts with the TechieCRM colour icon for what it is, the same icon you see for that function elsewhere in TechieCRM, so you can tell the rows apart at a glance:
| Row | Icon | Where you have seen it |
|---|---|---|
| the Email icon | the icon bar's Email button (without the unread count) | |
| Meeting | the Calendar icon | the icon bar's Calendar button (without today's date) |
| To-Do | the To-Do icon | the icon bar's To-Do button |
| Note | the Note icon (a page with a pencil) | the ribbon's Home ▸ Write ▸ Note |
| Document | the Document icon (a page with a blue top) | the ribbon's Home ▸ Write ▸ Document |
| A phone-call note | a green phone handset with an orange arrow going out, or a blue arrow coming in | the ribbon's Home ▸ Phone ▸ Make a Call (outgoing) or Receive a Call (incoming) |
| A text message | a phone with a blue speech bubble | the ribbon's Text (SMS) button |
| A letter or a mail-out | a page in a brown envelope | the ribbon's Home ▸ Write ▸ Letter |
| A fax | a fax machine | a fax record from your source CRM (the ribbon's Home ▸ Write ▸ Fax is greyed until a fax add-on service exists) |
| Sales, Service, Marketing, Inventory, Work Orders, Agreements, Messages, Projects, Quotas | that module's icon | the icon bar |
| Invoice, Project Plan | the ribbon's Create ▸ Invoice and Schedule ▸ Project Plan icons | the ribbon |
| Quote | a page with a gold dollar coin | the ribbon's Sales ▸ Create ▸ Quote |
| Meeting Notes | a silver microphone |
The icons keep their own colours in every theme (Light, Dark and the rest), and they are drawn to fit the row, so a larger text size in Settings gives larger icons the next time the list loads. The right-click Add menu and the Types filter show the same icons beside each type. In the Types filter a type that is switched on has a small green tick on its icon, and a type that is switched off is shown faded.
Right-click opens the button pad (26 Oct 2026). Right-clicking a row, or empty space, in Interactions opens a small pad of icon buttons instead of a list: Add (press it for a row of Note, Document, Task, Meeting, Email, Meeting Notes…, Sale and Ticket buttons), Open, Select, Print, Save as .eml…, Delete (and Delete Selected when several rows are ticked), Properties, the group items (Link as a Group…, Add to Group, Groups, Undo Last Group Change) and, in a sale's or ticket's own Interactions, Unlink from This Sale / Ticket and View in Clients. They are the same choices, in the same order, greyed or left out as the list would be; the icons are the ones the list shows. Add to Group and Groups open as a list from their button once your groups are listed by name. Rest the pointer on a button or read the strip along the bottom of the pad for its name. Hold Shift while you right-click, or press ☰ in the pad's corner, for the classic list that one time; to keep the list, choose Classic menu in Setup ▸ Settings ▸ Theme Layout ▸ Right-Click Menu (Appendix A5). The Add ▸ Service item now reads Add ▸ Ticket, the word used for service records everywhere else; it opens the same new ticket as before.
The Interactions toolbar (September 2026). The buttons on the right of the Interactions title strip all work now; until this release Refresh and Close were on screen, looked enabled and did nothing when clicked.
- Refresh: re-reads the whole timeline for the current client or contact.
- ⚙ Settings: says plainly that Interactions has no Settings page of its own yet, and names the pages that do govern it.
- Close: closes the current interaction: the highlight goes away and the panel stays on screen. Nothing is deleted. (Until October 2026 Close hid the whole panel.)
The ↑ / ↓ arrow buttons have been removed (September 2026). They briefly did move the highlight up and down the list, but nobody used them and the keyboard does it better.
Keyboard. Click any row, then ↓ and ↑ move the highlight to the next / previous interaction and Enter opens it, the same as double-clicking. Both stop at the first and last row instead of wrapping, and skip rows the type filter is hiding.
See Chapter 3 for the same cluster on the Clients and Related panels, and for the full list of keys.
A table your database simply doesn't have is different: that is a feature this database doesn't carry, so the section stays empty and silent, which is the honest answer.
Not signed in to the CRM database is not a fault. If you are running without a SQL connection (a TechieCRM Cloud-only sign-in, or you closed the login without connecting), Interactions no longer fills the list with red "could not be loaded" rows for every section it was never going to be able to read. It simply shows what it can read (your synced text messages and meeting notes, which live locally) and stays quiet about the rest. Before the September 2026 update a perfectly healthy Cloud-only session showed twelve alarming warning rows on every client. A database that is connected but cannot answer still warns you, loudly, exactly as described above.
Saving a note or a document has the same rule. If TechieCRM cannot read the shape of the notes or documents table when you press OK, the save is refused with the real reason ("The schema of 'AMGR_Notes_Tbl' could not be read from the database: …") rather than the bare SQL error the earlier builds produced, which named a syntax problem and never mentioned the dropped connection that actually caused it. Nothing is written either way, so nothing is half-saved.
Notes
Notes appear in a record's Interactions (type Notes). Add: right-click ▸ Add ▸ Note, or the
ribbon Note button. The note dialog ("Note Details for '
Note times on the web portal and phones (October 2026 update). The office CRM keeps a note's date and its time of day in two places, in the office's local time. TechieCRM now carries both into its own database as one moment, converted with the office database's time zone, so a note typed at 2:35 in the office shows at 2:35 for a colleague in the same office and at the matching local time elsewhere. A note that has a date but no time of day keeps its date and is shown without a time, never as midnight. Internal Messages keep their own times unchanged. (Before this update the time of day of a note written in the office CRM did not reach the web and phones at all, and the date could show on the previous evening west of Greenwich.) The notes copied before this update are converted once, a step an administrator approves on the Database page (Chapter A14).
What kind of note TechieCRM saves. A note you type in TechieCRM (in the note dialog, on a ticket, in a Connect session note, or as a Note Template), an internal Message and a filed text message are all saved as a typed note (the source CRM lists the kind as Manual), the same kind the source CRM saves when someone types a note there. (Corrected 24 October 2026.) Before that date TechieCRM saved them as the source CRM's automatic activity log kind, so in the source CRM they looked like entries the system wrote by itself, and on a ticket they did not count as its first response (Chapter 11). Notes saved before the correction keep the old kind; your administrator can find them, and a repair is being decided.
A note's date and time are the office's local time. The source CRM keeps a note's date and time of day in the office's local time, and TechieCRM now saves every note the same way: a note you type, a history entry, a filed text message, the note filed with an email, a Note Template and a meeting's description. The note dialog shows a note's date and time exactly as they are kept, with no time-zone change, so a note shows the same time in TechieCRM as in the source CRM. Internal Messages are the one exception: they are kept in UTC and shown in your local time, because the Messages window orders and checks them by that time. (Corrected 24 October 2026: before that TechieCRM saved notes in UTC, so they read 7 or 8 hours late in the source CRM, and the note dialog moved every note by the same amount. Notes saved in TechieCRM before the correction keep their UTC times and still read 7 or 8 hours late; your administrator can count them, and nothing changes them automatically.)
Who can add, change and delete notes
Notes you add, change or delete yourself follow your notes rights in the source CRM (the user's Notes access rights), separately from your rights on client records. Notes TechieCRM logs automatically, such as the note filed with an email, are not restricted (see Not covered by this rule below).
| Right in the source CRM | What it lets you do in TechieCRM |
|---|---|
| Read | Open and read notes. Anyone can always open a note; no right is needed to read it here. |
| Insert | Add a new note. |
| Modify | Change an existing note (its text, date or access) and press OK. |
| Delete | Delete a note: from the note dialog, or right-click ▸ Delete / Delete Selected. |
- What you see when a right is missing. The note still opens and you can read all of it. When you press OK or Delete, a box titled "Not permitted for your user ID" explains that your source-CRM user ID lacks the permission; nothing is saved or deleted, and the dialog stays open, so you can copy your text first. Add ▸ Note (and Add ▸ Meeting Notes…) are greyed out when you may not add notes, and are refused with the same box if reached another way. An administrator changes these rights in the source CRM's user access settings.
- Clients rights no longer apply to notes. A user who may only read client details can still add notes if their notes rights allow it. A user who may edit client details can no longer change notes without the notes Modify right. (This follows how the source CRM separates the two rights. It is a team ruling of 28 September 2026, open for Shannon to overrule. Before that, notes simply followed the Clients right, and the notes right was never checked.)
- Add is not change. A user with Insert but not Modify can add notes but cannot edit them afterwards, including their own. This is the same as the source CRM.
- Deleting a mix of rows. If Delete Selected includes notes and other items, both the notes Delete right and the Clients delete right are checked first. If either is missing, the box explains why and nothing in the selection is deleted.
- The same rule covers every note you write yourself:
- Connect session notes.
- Your Note Templates, including undoing a template change.
- Meeting Notes (Chapter 26), which are refused before recording starts, not after the meeting.
- Not covered by this rule:
- Automatic activity logging isn't restricted by a user's rights. When you send an email to a client, or file a received email on one (Chapter 12), TechieCRM files the email in the client's Documents and adds its paired note ("An email has been sent to …" / "An email has been received from …"). That is TechieCRM recording activity, not you writing a note, so it happens for every user, including one without the notes Insert right. Rights still apply to what you do by hand afterwards: changing or deleting that note needs the notes Modify or Delete right. (Shannon's rule P-28, 28 September 2026.) History notes are the exception: nobody can change or delete those at all (next section).
- The licence still applies to automatic logging. Rule P-28 is about a user's rights only. On a copy with no active licence (read-only), or on a plan where Clients is read-only, TechieCRM does not file the email or add its note, and tells you filing was refused and why. (Confirmed by Shannon, 2 October 2026.)
- Internal Messages between users are stored alongside notes, but they are not client notes and are not gated by the notes right.
- Notes removed automatically when you delete a whole sale or ticket follow that record's own delete right.
- Always allowed: the MASTER user. An unlicensed (read-only) copy blocks every note change, and a read-only plan blocks adding and changing notes but not deleting them. Both show their own explanation instead. (MASTER cannot change or delete History notes either; see the next section.)
History notes are locked
A History note is the permanent activity log: entries the source CRM writes automatically (for example "status changed…" on a sale or ticket) and those TechieCRM writes, such as the note logged when an Entrepreneur Dashboard target is changed (Chapter 1). Nobody can change or delete a History note by hand: not the person it is about, not the person who caused it, not an administrator and not the MASTER user, whatever their notes rights. (Shannon's rule P-40, 29 September 2026.)
What you see:
- Opening one. The note opens read-only, with only a Close button (no Delete, no OK), and a line under the date that says: "History notes are a permanent activity log and can't be edited or deleted." You can still read and Print it.
- Right-click ▸ Delete on a History note shows a box with that same sentence. You are not asked "Are you sure?", and nothing is deleted.
- Delete Selected with one or more History notes in the selection deletes nothing and says so, for example: "Nothing was deleted: 2 of the selected items are History notes." followed by the sentence above and "Unselect the History notes and try again to delete the rest." This matches how Delete Selected treats a missing right: the whole selection is either deleted as confirmed or not at all, never partly.
- The lock is also enforced underneath the screens, so any other way of asking TechieCRM to change or delete a History note gets the same refusal.
Deleting a whole record keeps its History notes too. Deleting a client entry, contact, sale or ticket asks what to do with its connected records, including its notes. Whichever you choose, History notes are kept: choosing to delete the connected records removes the other notes and leaves the History notes in the database as the permanent log; choosing to move them moves the History notes along with the other notes. The delete window lists them on their own line, marked kept, and says "(History notes are kept)" on the delete choice. (Shannon, 29 September 2026: see Chapter 3, Deleting a client, contact or user, and Chapter 4, Deleting a sale or a ticket.) Deleting a client is itself discouraged: TechieCRM suggests changing the client's status instead (Chapter 3).
History notes TechieCRM writes about changes and deletes (October 2026)
TechieCRM keeps its own copy of your office CRM's records, and some events are recorded on the record as a History note, locked like every other History note. They are written in the office CRM and in TechieCRM's copy alike, so they show in the Interactions list on every computer (filter by the History type to see only them), except the one kind noted below. An administrator chooses which of them are written, for the whole office, on the History notes page of the Configuration window (Administrator Guide A14, The History notes page).
| What happened | The History note goes on | Written |
|---|---|---|
| The same field of a record was changed both in TechieCRM and in the office CRM | That record. Each line reads "Label: the replaced value -> the value kept", with which side's change was kept and when. The newer change wins; a tie goes to the office CRM. | When Log conflicts and refused changes is on (the default). |
| The office CRM refused a change for lack of rights | That record: "Not saved to the office CRM: |
Always. |
| A contact is deleted | Its company or individual: "Contact deleted by |
Always. |
| A company or individual is deleted | Your own user record, not a client: "Deleted company: |
Always. |
| A note, meeting or to-do is deleted (from Interactions, the note window or the Activities list) | Its client entry (for one on a sale or ticket, the sale's or ticket's client entry), with who deleted it and the start of its text. | Always. |
| A sale or ticket is deleted | Its client entry: "Sale deleted by |
When Log every add, change and delete is on (off by default). |
The delete result message says where the note was saved ("A History note about this delete was saved on “Acme Ltd”." or "... on your user record."). The note is written after the delete is done: if it cannot be written, the delete still stands and the message says why the note was not saved.
The first time TechieCRM compares a record with the office CRM, any differences it settles are not written as History notes; an administrator gets one report instead, announced on the red Issues bell (Chapter 13, Sync).
Where to read the notes on a user's record (October 2026). Select your own user entry in the Clients list: its Interactions list (Notes type) shows the History notes kept on your record, newest first; they open read-only. An administrator sees any user's in Administrator ▸ Manage Users: select the user and press History Notes… for the list, with the full text of the selected note below it.
Also connected (October 2026). The conflicts TechieCRM finds are turned into History notes on the office computer that runs the 15-minute refresh, right after each refresh, and the notes for every add and change are written once Log every add, change and delete is switched on.
Sent-email notes on the web portal and phones (October 2026)
Each time an email is sent to a client, the source CRM files a note with it ("An email has been sent to …"), and TechieCRM does the same when it files a sent email (Chapter 12). The desktop has always listed these notes in a client's Interactions and in Notes. From the October 2026 update they are on the web portal too, in the client's Interactions (type Sent emails) and in the Notes list, and they reach phones with the rest of a client's notes. Until then the cloud held every one of them back, because the web kept its Journal under the same note type. The Journal now has its own store (Chapter 19), so a journal entry still never appears among notes, on any screen. A sent-email note opens, changes and deletes like any other note.
How they look and how to hide them (October 2026). On the web portal a sent-email note is labelled Sent email with an envelope icon, in the Notes list, on the note itself, in a client's Interactions and in Recent Activity on the Dashboard. In a client's Interactions they are their own type, Sent emails, in the All Types drop-down: choose Notes to see the typed notes without them, or Sent emails to see only them. The typed notes and the sent emails are read separately, so a client with hundreds of sent emails still shows all its recent typed notes. On phones, sent-email notes have their own limit: a client's timeline brings the 25 most recent typed notes and, beside them, up to 25 sent emails, so the emails never push a typed note out (Chapter 25).
On the desktop (October 2026). A sent-email note is labelled Sent email with the Email icon from the icon bar, in a client's (or a sale's or ticket's) Interactions: the row's icon, the icon's tooltip and the Properties window all say Sent email. The row's text still reads "An email has been sent to …", so you can see who it went to; a sent-email note with no text is titled Sent email. In the Type column of a sale's or ticket's History list (with Show every note on this record ticked) it also reads Sent email. On the desktop the sent emails are listed under the Notes type in the All Types drop-down; there is no separate Sent emails choice there yet. A sent-email note opens, changes and deletes like any other note.
Documents
Interactions type Documents lists the record's documents. A Word, Excel, CSV, PowerPoint, PDF, image, audio, video, code or archive file keeps its own file-type icon, because those tell you what will open; any other document shows the ribbon's Document icon, a document whose category is Letter or Fax shows the Letter or Fax icon, and a saved email message (.eml, .msg) shows the Email icon. Emails filed on the record are not listed here; you find them under Emails (next section). Open shows Document Details (description, date, creator, type, category, client, contact) with Edit → the Document Editor: description, category (General, Correspondence, Contract, Proposal, Invoice, Report, Presentation, Technical, Legal…), full rich-text editor with a Source tab and Insert Field, File menu (New, Open, Save, Save As, Export as HTML, Print, Print Preview), Edit menu, View toolbars, and a Template menu (Use Template, Save as Template, Insert Field, Preview, Create for Selected Clients, Create from Word Template). The Preview and Create for Selected Clients buttons sit beside Save at the bottom. See Inserting fields and Document templates below.
Documents are stored in the source database, on the client's record (or the selected contact's): - Add: right-click ▸ Add ▸ Document (a client must be selected). Enter a description, pick a category, write the body, then File ▸ Save; the document is written to the source CRM and appears in Interactions as an HTML Document. (File ▸ Save As still writes a local file instead.) - Add from the Clients list or the Related tab (24 Oct 2026): right-click the company, individual or contact ▸ Add ▸ File opens the same Document Editor for that entry, and File ▸ Save files the document on it (on the contact itself when you right-clicked a contact). Before this change the editor opened from there did not know which client it was for, so saving filed nothing. - Edit: Document Details ▸ Edit reopens a document made in the editor and Save updates it in place. Files attached from other applications (Word, Excel, PDF…) can't be edited in the built-in editor; Edit says so and points you to Open / Save As. - Open: extracts the document and opens it in the application registered for its file type. - Save As: exports the stored document to a file you choose. - Delete: on Document Details, or right-click the row ▸ Delete / Delete Selected. Deletes ask for confirmation and need delete rights on Clients.
New documents appear in Interactions straight away (October 2026). When a document is filed on the client whose Interactions you are looking at, the list updates by itself: a document saved from the Document Editor, the copies made by Create for Selected Clients or Create from Word Template, a Word letter made from the Template Library or from a sale or ticket, and an email filed from the Email window (with its email note). Only the documents, filed emails and notes are read again, so the rest of the list does not flicker or lose its place, and a long run for many clients updates the list once, not once per client. Documents filed on other clients show when you open those clients, as before. If the type filter hides Documents and Emails, nothing is re-read.
Inserting fields
In the Document Editor, click Insert Field on the Insert toolbar (or right-click and choose Insert Field, or press Ctrl+Shift+F, or use Template ▸ Insert Field). Pick a field from Clients, Sales, Service, Marketing, My details, Date and time or User-defined fields, or type in the search box, then click Insert. The field appears in square brackets, for example [First Name], with a coloured background (a light tint of the Accent colour from Settings ▸ Theme; it changes with your theme). When the document is filled in for a client, each field is replaced with that client's details; a field with no value is left blank and listed in the preview. A field with a wavy red underline is not known (for example a user-defined field that was renamed or deleted); pick it again with Insert Field. Text in square brackets that is not a field name, such as [see attached], is left as you typed it. Notes do not have an Insert Field button. (The email window gets Insert Field in a later update.)
Saving a document that still has fields. When you save a document with fields to its client (Save or Save & Close), TechieCRM asks first:
- Fill In: the fields are replaced with that client's details, and that is what is saved.
- Keep as Typed: the document is saved with the fields still in square brackets.
- Cancel: nothing is saved.
A document with no fields is saved without the question.
Document templates
A document template is a letter you write once and reuse: for example a welcome letter with [First Name], [Company] and [Name and Address] in it. Document templates are kept in TechieCRM's own template list (they are not part of the source CRM's lists), and every user can use every template.
- Save a template: write the letter in the Document Editor (with fields where each client's details should go), then Template ▸ Save as Template and give it a name. If a template with that name already exists you are asked whether to replace it. Only the person who made a template, or a global administrator, can replace or delete it; anyone else is asked to choose another name.
- Use a template: open the Document Editor (for example right-click a client's Interactions ▸ Add ▸ Document), then Template ▸ Use Template and pick one. If the editor already has text you are asked before it is replaced. The template's name becomes the description when that is empty.
- Manage templates: Setup ▸ File Management ▸ Template Library ▾ ▸ Template Library, then Document Templates (see Chapter 28).
Previewing and creating a document for many clients
- Preview (button, or Template ▸ Preview) shows the document filled in for its client and then for each client selected in Clients, with Previous and Next to walk through them. The list on the right names the fields that will be left blank for that client: This field has no value for this client, Not available from this database yet, and Unknown field (left as typed).
- Create for Selected Clients makes one copy of the document for each client you selected or marked in Clients, each filled in with that client's details, and files each copy on its client's record as a document (exactly as a document you save from Interactions). You are told how many will be created, and any field that is not known, before anything is written. You need the right to add records in Clients.
The documents are created in the background, so a long list (thousands of clients) does not hold you up: the editor's status bar shows Creating documents: 12 of 3,400 with a progress bar and a Cancel button, and you can go on typing, previewing, or working in the rest of TechieCRM. Cancel stops after the client being created at that moment; documents already created are kept. When the run ends, a summary opens (it does not block the window) saying how many were created, which clients could not be done and why, how many were not started because you cancelled, and which fields were left blank. One run at a time per editor: while one is going, Create for Selected Clients and Create from Word Template are greyed out.
Closing the editor during a run. TechieCRM asks first. No keeps the editor open and the run going. Yes stops the run after the current client; the editor closes by itself a moment later and the summary opens over the main window.
Word templates
TechieCRM can fill in a Word letter for one client or for every selected client. There are three ways in:
- In the Document Editor, Template ▸ Create from Word Template: a document for each client you selected or marked in Clients (the same clients Create for Selected Clients uses).
- In the Template Library, the Word Templates page: choose a template and click Use (see Chapter 28, Word templates).
- In Sales or Service, right-click a sale or a ticket and choose Create Letter from Word Template: one document for that sale's or ticket's client, with the sale or ticket fields (such as the objective or the ticket number) filled in from it.
Two lists are offered: the shared Word templates already in your database (read only) and TechieCRM's own list, where you can add any Word file (.docx, .dotx, .docm, .dotm) with Add Word File.
Putting fields in a Word template. Either use the fields your existing templates already contain, or simply type a field's name in square brackets, for example [First Name], [Company], [Name and Address] or a user-defined field by its folder path such as [Accounting\Invoice #]. Type the name in one go; a field that is split by a line break is not recognised. Any bracketed text that is not a field name, such as [see attached], is left as it is.
Creating the documents. Preview shows the letter for the first selected client as text, lists any field that has no value for that client, any field that needs a sale or a ticket, and any unknown field, and Open Preview in Word opens the same copy in Word. Create Documents makes one copy per selected client and files each under that client's Documents as a Word file (.docx); you can cancel part way, and the summary names any client whose document could not be made. Started from the Document Editor, the window closes as soon as you confirm and the documents are created in the background, exactly as Create for Selected Clients above: progress and Cancel in the editor's status bar, and a summary at the end. From the Template Library or from Sales and Service the progress and Cancel stay in the Word template window.
Sale and ticket fields. A letter made from Clients or the Template Library has no sale or ticket to read, so a sale field (such as the objective or a sales user-defined field) is listed as needs a sale and a ticket field as needs a ticket, and is left blank. To fill them, make the letter from the sale or ticket itself (right-click in Sales or Service).
What happens to empty fields. An empty field is left blank; a line that would be left empty (such as a missing second address line) is removed, so address blocks stay tidy. Postal codes are written in capitals.
Good to know. Fields are replaced by their values in the copy; the copy does not contain fields any more. A template with macros is read as a file only: the macros are never run and are not carried into the copies. The shared list cannot be changed from TechieCRM; templates you add here go into TechieCRM's own list. When this computer is connected to a TechieCRM cloud workspace whose cloud supports template lists, that list is synced like the rest of your TechieCRM data (until the cloud supports it, the list stays on this computer and goes up in full the first time it can): a Word template added or removed on one computer is added or removed on every other computer in the workspace at its next sync (see Chapter 28, Where the templates are stored). You need the right to add records in Clients to create the documents.
Old letters (October 2026 update)
Letters written in the previous CRM's own word processor (saved as .mxd files, usually with a
blank type in the list) are stored in the database as a binary file, not as HTML. Opening one from
Documents now shows the letter viewer instead of Document Details: a read-only window with
the letter's text in its original fonts, sizes, bold, italic, underline and colours, paragraph
alignment and indents, the header and footer, and any pictures that were pasted in (bitmaps are
shown; a Windows metafile or an embedded spreadsheet shows as a labelled placeholder). Fields the
letter was written with, such as {First Name?} or {First_Name}, are shown the way the Document
Editor shows fields: in square brackets in TechieCRM's words, for example [First Name], with the
same coloured background, and the status line says how many there are. A field name TechieCRM cannot
find is shown as it was typed. The letter itself is not changed: Save as RTF and Save original
file keep its own text; Save as HTML and Print give what is on screen. The viewer
offers Print, Save as HTML, Save as RTF (opens in Word with its pictures) and Save
original file (the stored bytes, unchanged). Nothing in the viewer writes to the database. A
letter whose file is damaged says so plainly and still offers Save original file.
The same letters open in the viewer from the Document Editor's File ▸ Open (choose Old letters, view only). The editor no longer loads an .mxd as if it were HTML, and Save As no longer offers an .mxd name: what the editor saves is always HTML. To use an old letter's text in a new document, open it in the viewer, copy, and paste into the editor. Details for a letter that was opened in the viewer (creator, date, Delete) are still on right-click ▸ Properties and Delete.
Emails on a record
To find an email you saved to a client, open the client in Clients, then pick Emails in the Interactions Types filter (or leave it on All Types). You see two kinds of row there: - Filed: an email saved on the record, from any source: the ones the desktop files when you Send Email (Chapter 12), the ones you file from your mailbox, and the ones filed in the source CRM. The Description column reads Filed. Double-click it, or right-click ▸ Open, to read it: Subject, From, To, CC, Date and the full message. - Queued: an email still waiting in the source CRM's outgoing mail queue. The Description column starts with Queued and shows who it is going to. The queue does not keep the message text, so Open shows the subject and recipient only.
To delete either kind, right-click the row ▸ Delete (or select several and Delete Selected). Deleting a filed email also removes its paired "An email has been sent to…" note, and removes that one record only: an email filed on several entries (Chapter 12, Filing an email on a client) keeps its other copies, and the message stays in your mailbox. Deletes ask for confirmation and need delete rights on Clients. Right-click ▸ Print prints a filed email with its message text.
Right-click ▸ Add ▸ Email opens Send Email… for the current client (Chapter 12); the sent message is filed on the record and appears here as Filed. The Email icon-bar module (Chapter 12) is your live mail: a click on the current client's name above its list files the email you are reading on the client selected here (one .eml with its attachments, plus the activity note), and it appears here as Filed. Opening a filed email (double-click) shows Email Details with Reply, Reply All and Forward at the top; what you send from there is saved here by itself, on every entry the original is filed on (Chapter 12, Replying and forwarding).
Saving a filed email as an .eml file
An .eml file is one complete email, with its attachments inside, that any mail program opens (Apple
Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, and Gmail through import). To save a filed email as one:
- right-click its row under Emails ▸ Save as .eml…, or
- open it (double-click) and click Save as .eml… at the bottom of Email Details.
Choose where to save it; TechieCRM suggests a name made of the subject and the date, for example Site visit follow-up 2026-08-01.eml. The option is only offered for Filed emails: a Queued email has no stored message to save.
TechieCRM builds the file from the email as the source CRM stored it: subject, sender, To, Cc and Bcc, date, the message text and every attachment (pictures shown inside the message stay inside it). It works for emails filed long before this option existed. Nothing in the database is changed; the email is only read.
If some parts could not be carried over. Now and then a stored email is missing something, for
example an attachment whose file was never stored, a recipient written as a name with no email
address, or a record with no date of its own. TechieCRM still saves the file, then lists what could not
be carried over exactly. The same notes are written inside the file as lines starting
X-TechieCRM-Conversion-Warning:, so whoever opens it later can see them too (in most mail programs,
use View ▸ Message ▸ Raw Source or Show original). A missing date is replaced by the date the email
was filed, and the note says so. Nothing is ever left out without a note.
If the stored email cannot be read at all, nothing is saved and TechieCRM says what it found instead of an email.
Filed emails on the web portals (October 2026)
On the cloud portal and the local portal, a filed email opens the same way whichever form it was
saved in: the .eml the desktop files, an Outlook .msg, the XML form some older emails were
saved in, and the source CRM's own stored email. Open it from the client's Interactions (Emails),
from the Email list (its preview pane or its own page), or, for an email file kept as a
document (.eml, .msg, or a document whose type is Email Message), from Documents. A sale's
or ticket's Interactions open the same pages. They no longer say "this file is not a readable email message".
Every one of these forms is shown in the same reading pane as the portal's mailbox: the round initials, the sender, the subject, To and Cc, the date, Filed on with the client's name (or Not filed), the attachments as chips, then the message itself, dark or light with your theme. (EM-10, 19 Oct 2026: the source CRM's own stored emails used to keep an older header on some pages; they are now converted each time you open them, exactly as the desktop converts them, and shown in this same pane on the Email page, the Email list's preview pane and Documents. Nothing stored is changed.) - Notes from the conversion: when part of a stored email could not be carried over exactly (an attachment whose file is missing from the record, a date taken from the date the email was filed), the pane lists it in small text under the message, after Some parts could not be carried over exactly: (at most eight notes, then and 3 more). These are the same notes the desktop gives when you save such an email as a file. - Attachments: click a chip to download that file. A download needs the same rights as opening the email; someone from another workspace cannot reach it. - Pictures from the internet are not shown until you click Load images above the message, so an old email cannot tell its sender that you opened it today. Pictures sent inside the email always show. - Links do nothing on a plain click. Hold Ctrl (Command on a Mac) and click to open one in a new tab; the link's hover text says so.
A document that is an .xml file but not an email stays an ordinary document. A stored email larger
than 50 MB is not shown on the page; download it instead. An email whose text is longer than
400,000 characters keeps the same header and attachment chips, with This message is too large to
show here (… characters). where the text would be (20 Oct 2026; it used to show the older
header); download it to read it.
The Library (source CRM: Company Library)
Icon bar ▸ Library has three areas: COMPANY LIBRARY (folder tree; expanded folders are remembered), KNOWLEDGE BASE (Chapter 18) and PREVIEW on the right. - Click a folder → its description and document count; click a document → preview (PDF in an embedded viewer; Word/RTF/Excel rendered to PDF via LibreOffice when installed, else extracted text; notes and web links inline). October 2026 update: a Library note (the previous CRM's own rich-text item) previews with its stored font, size and style, and with its own HTML rendering when the note carries one, instead of as bare text. - Double-click a document → opens it in your default application (web links in the browser; a Library note opens in the read-only letter viewer described under Documents ▸ Old letters, with Print, Save as HTML and Save original file). Save As and Email Document still use the note's plain text. Right-click ▸ Open, Save As…, Email Document…, Properties; folders ▸ Expand / Collapse, Add Folder…, Add Document…, Properties. Toggle Preview hides/shows the pane. Panel sizes are remembered. - Toolbar (September 2026 update: these five buttons used to say "not yet implemented"): Add Document adds a file from your computer or a hyperlink into a folder (the selected folder is offered first) and selects it in the tree; Add Folder creates a folder under the selected (or chosen) parent; Search finds folders and documents by name, author and creation date range, in all folders or the current folder and its subfolders; matches stay visible with their folders expanded, everything else is hidden until Show all or Refresh; Properties shows location, type, size, owner, creator and dates and lets you rename the item; Email Document opens your desktop e-mail composer with the document attached (a web link goes in the body, a note as its text). Adding and renaming are writes: a read-only plan or a user without Library write rights is stopped before anything changes. A rename changes the tree entry and the document's stored description together; if either cannot be updated, neither changes. - Ribbon ▸ Edit ▸ Entry (October 2026 update): Save As saves the selected document to a file (the same as right-click Save As…; with the Knowledge Base list active it saves the selected article's content), and Rename opens Properties for the selected folder or document so you can type the new name (with the Knowledge Base list active it opens the article, whose name is its Title). Both say what to select when nothing suitable is selected, and Rename checks your Library write right first. Close and Save only explain themselves: a Library document opens as a copy in its own program (or in the viewer, closed with its own Close button), so nothing is ever open behind the ribbon, and changes made in that program are not saved back into the Library. To put a changed file back, use Add Document. - No ⚙ Settings button. The Library has no configurable settings anywhere in the application, so as of the September 2026 update the toolbar simply has no gear to click, rather than one that opens a message saying so. (Before that it re-opened Settings on whichever tab you last had open, which looked as though the Library had a page there.) - An empty Library, and why. A database that doesn't carry the Company Library tables shows "No library folders available"; that is the true answer and nothing is wrong. From the September 2026 update, a Library that could not be read (connection dropped, or your sign-in isn't allowed to read the database catalogue) is recorded as a fault in the diagnostics log instead of being passed off as "no folders", and one transient failure no longer switches the Library off for the rest of your session; the next refresh tries again. (The tree still shows the same "No library folders available" line in this release; a visible on-screen reason is still to come.)
On the web portal
Library in the icon bar opens the master-detail workspace: your documents on top, a Preview pane for the selected one below. Columns are Title, File type, Visibility (Public / Private) and Created. Every one sorts, and every column sort runs on the server, so it stays correct however many documents the library holds (paging and Show all work as described in Chapter 20). The item count next to the title is the real total, not a preview of the first page. Quick Search matches the title and description.
A View dropdown at the left of the toolbar switches between Library and Knowledge Base (Chapter 18): the same page, a different collection underneath, matching the desktop where the Knowledge Base panel lives inside the Company Library window. Switching to Knowledge Base replaces the columns, the Add button and the filters with that module's own; switching back returns you to your documents. If your security group has been denied Knowledge Base specifically, the Knowledge Base option is not offered here (Library itself is a separate permission and stays open).
To add an item use the ribbon (Home ▸ Create ▸ Article (the button itself, and its New Document child, open the same form) or the + Add button above the list.
The web portal's ribbon still uses the older wording for these entries. On the desktop the same buttons now read Article ▾ ▸ Document / Note / Hyperlink and Folder; inside a Create group the verb is the group title, so the button is just the noun (
docs/design/product_vocabulary.md). Same buttons, same behaviour, shorter captions. The form collects a Title, a Description, a File type (the extension, e.g.
The rest of the Create group is honest about not being built: New Note, New Hyperlink, Add Folder, Paste Document, Paste Link Document and Email Article all answer "the '…' function has not been connected yet." They are waiting on storage the shared record does not have yet (there is nowhere to keep a hyperlink's web address, a note's body, or the folder a document sits in) and on the ability to upload a real file. They will be connected in the same release that adds those; until then the dialog tells you the truth rather than saving something incomplete.
Not yet available
Insert Field and templates in the email window (the shared email templates can be opened, previewed and copied from the Template Library, Chapter 28); showing document and Word templates on the web portal (they sync to the cloud and to every computer in the workspace, but the web portal does not list them yet). Attaching a real file as a document on a client (only the built-in rich-text editor exists; documents it saves are stored as HTML, which the source CRM lists but may not render in its own viewer); a note category/type field; creating the Company Library's own rich-text note items (files and hyperlinks can be added; the source CRM's note format cannot be written yet); moving or deleting Library items and folders; Library folder security (owner / read access).