From Inbox to ERP: Connecting Outlook to Genius

If your team is still hunting through someone else’s inbox to find out why an order’s late, this short session is worth the fifteen minutes. The presenter walks through a brand-new plugin, shipping with Genius ERP Version 17.2, that adds a lightweight add-in to Outlook: it detects the contact behind an email, then lets you link that message to an existing sales order or purchase order — or create a new one — right from your inbox, with no copy-pasting required. The problem it’s solving is a familiar one: roughly 80% of business communication still flows through email, so a supplier’s delay notice or a customer’s change request often stays trapped in one person’s mailbox instead of being visible to the whole team. Once a message is linked, anyone with access to that document in Genius can see the full email trail — including attachments — right inside a new “communications” view, without needing to be CC’d or ask for a forward. The presenter also shows how this pairs with Smart Paste, an existing AI feature that can turn pasted email text into ready-made order lines. This is explicitly a first, beta release, with more document types and tighter email-reply integration planned for later versions. If double-checked shipment delays, buried customer requests, or slow order turnaround sound familiar, here’s what the plugin does today.

What You’ll Learn In This Webinar

Chapter 1 — Introduction to Outlook Plugin Features

The presenter introduces a brand-new feature for capturing, linking, and creating information from the inbox directly into Genius, shipping with Version 17.2. Citing recent research, they note that roughly 80% of communications still flow through email, which traps information in individual inboxes unless someone is CC’d or forwards it along.

Chapter 2 — Demonstration Overview

The plugin’s flow is previewed in two steps: detect a contact from an email, then create or link a document such as a sales order or purchase order. The presenter notes the session should only take about 15 minutes given how simple the feature is, leaving plenty of time for questions.

Chapter 3 — Beta Version Announcement

This is explicitly a first release/beta version, shipping with Version 17.2 (released in March 2026). The current scope covers contacts, plus quotes and sales orders on the sales side and purchase orders on the purchasing side, with more planned as the team continues to invest in it.

Chapter 4 — Live Demonstration of Plugin

The presenter walks through two live email examples: linking a supplier’s delay notice to an existing purchase order, and creating a new sales order from a customer request email, with a preview of using Smart Paste to fill in the new document’s lines.

Chapter 5 — Plugin Installation Process

Installation just requires downloading an XML file from Genius and adding it as an app in Outlook — it works in desktop, web, and PWA versions of Outlook. Logging in uses the person’s normal Genius user credentials, so existing security permissions apply automatically to what the plugin can do.

Chapter 6 — Contact Management Features

In the first example, the plugin automatically detects the supplier contact from the sender’s email and matches it to the existing account already saved in Genius. If a contact doesn’t exist yet, it can be created on the fly with just a first name, last name, and the auto-detected email address.

“Information stays trapped in an email box.” — Speaker

Chapter 7 — Linking Contacts to Customers

If a contact is associated with more than one customer or vendor account, the plugin lets the presenter choose which one to link to. In the demo, they confirm the supplier connection and search for the PO number mentioned in the email to link the message directly to that purchase order.

Chapter 8 — Communication Tracking in Genius

Once linked, the purchase order shows a new “communication” tile in Genius listing every synced email thread, including any attachments — viewable by anyone with access to that document, not just the person who originally received the email.

Chapter 9 — Future Development Plans

Asked whether the plugin can read email content today, the presenter confirms it currently only detects the sender’s contact, not the body text of the message. Deeper AI-based content detection is on the team’s backlog for a future release.

Chapter 10 — Smart Paste Feature Overview

Demonstrating a second email — a customer order request — the presenter creates a new sales order and shows Smart Paste’s AI reading pasted email text, even oddly formatted quantities, to auto-generate order lines. Today it mainly matches existing part numbers, with semantic, description-based matching planned as a next step.

Chapter 11 — Tracking Email Trails in Sales Orders

The new sales order keeps the same email-trail link back to the original message. Confirmed in Q&A: this communication view is web-only — the desktop version doesn’t have the tooling to display these email threads.

Chapter 12 — Accessing the New Version

The feature requires Version 17.2, released the week before the webinar, and does not work on Version 17.1 or earlier — customers need to be on the newest release to use it.

Chapter 13 — Benefits of the New Plugin

The presenter summarizes the benefits as centralizing information and breaking down silos, faster response times since teams can see the latest status on a document, easier collaboration between colleagues working the same order, and easier onboarding for new hires who can review tagged email history.

Chapter 14 — Open Q&A Session

Opening the floor for questions, the presenter also previews the following week’s webinar (for existing customers) covering new Version 17.2 highlights, and points attendees to a QR code or email address to book a business review with the customer success team.

Chapter 15 — Smart Paste Feature Revisit

Asked whether Smart Paste requires a separate AI subscription or the Outlook add-in, the presenter confirms neither — Smart Paste just requires an Academy license, the same license tier tied to Cortex and Genius’s other AI features.

Chapter 16 — Cortex AI Overview

The presenter describes Cortex as a chatbot with access to Genius’s full Academy training database (including video transcripts) and online help, able to answer product questions and link out to training videos. Since Version 17.2, it can also accept uploaded files, though its knowledge is limited to Genius and general manufacturing topics.

Chapter 17 — Final Q&A Session

Clarifying that Smart Paste and the Outlook add-in are separate, unrelated features, the presenter confirms the plugin doesn’t yet support emailing an order confirmation back to a customer directly from the communication tool — that still uses Genius’s existing emailing function — though tighter integration between the two is a stated future goal.

Chapter 18 — Outlook Plugin Security Details

Responding to a security question, the presenter explains the plugin only reads the specific email currently selected and highlighted in Outlook — it doesn’t scan folders or other messages. A link can be manually removed (unlinked) and later relinked without affecting the underlying email.

Chapter 19 — Email Linking and Deletion Queries

Testing live on a participant’s question, the presenter finds that deleting a synced email from the inbox does not remove its link inside Genius, though they’re not certain exactly where the linked email data itself is stored and commit to following up with the attendees who asked. They also clarify that Genius IDP is a separate, unrelated product for document and invoice processing, and that a linked email can be attached to a document at any status — confirmed, unconfirmed, deleted, or archived.