Microsoft Outlook is the enterprise email and calendar platform included with Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), used by millions of businesses worldwide. Beyond basic email, Outlook provides advanced calendar management, contact synchronization, shared mailboxes for team collaboration, and deep integration with the Microsoft ecosystem including Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Word. Through automation, real estate brokerages can route emails intelligently, trigger workflows based on calendar events, sync contacts across platforms, and leverage enterprise features like email delegation and compliance tracking.
Large real estate brokerages and teams often choose Microsoft 365 for enterprise features like shared calendars, delegated mailboxes, and IT admin controls that consumer email lacks. When your brokerage uses Microsoft 365, Outlook automation keeps you within the ecosystem you're already paying for rather than adding third-party email tools. Shared mailboxes are particularly valuable—a brokerage can have info@realestateteam.com that multiple agents monitor, with automation routing incoming inquiries to the right agent by zip code or property type while maintaining a unified inbox for oversight.
Discover how Microsoft Outlook powers real estate automation workflows
Create shared mailboxes (info@brokerage.com, leads@yourteam.com) that multiple agents can access, with automation routing emails to specific team members based on keywords, sender, or content analysis. No additional licensing required—shared mailboxes are included with Microsoft 365.
Brokerage's general inquiry email receives 50 leads per week from various sources. Outlook automation parses each email: if it mentions 'luxury home', route to luxury specialist; if zip code is 78701-78705, route to downtown agent; if it's a seller lead, route to listing team. All routing happens automatically with full audit trail.
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Ready-to-deploy workflows powered by Microsoft Outlook + NextAutomation
Brokerage's main inquiry mailbox (info@brokerage.com) receives leads from website, referrals, and walk-ins. This workflow monitors the shared mailbox, analyzes each incoming email using AI to extract property location and buyer/seller intent, matches location against agent territory mappings stored in a database, automatically assigns and forwards the email to the appropriate agent with full context, and logs everything in the CRM with 'Auto-Routed' tag.
1Outlook shared mailbox receives inquiry email from any source
2n8n retrieves email via Microsoft Graph API, extracting sender, subject, body, and any attachments
3AI (OpenAI node) analyzes email content to classify: 'buyer lead', 'seller lead', 'general inquiry', 'service request'
4Extract location data: if email mentions specific address, parse it; if mentions neighborhood/city, map to zip codes
Zero leads sit in shared inbox unassigned. Average routing time drops from 3 hours (manual checking) to under 60 seconds. Agents receive leads in their personal inbox with full context, making them more likely to respond quickly. Brokers gain visibility into lead distribution across team, identifying if territories are balanced or if certain agents are overloaded.
Connect Microsoft Outlook to your workflows with powerful triggers and actions
Fires when an email arrives in Outlook inbox or a specific folder. Supports filtering by sender, subject, has-attachments, and importance flags.
When email from '@titlecompany.com' arrives with subject containing 'Closing Disclosure', trigger workflow to save attachment to OneDrive and notify transaction coordinator.
Fires when an email is sent from Outlook account. Useful for logging outbound communications in CRM or triggering follow-up workflows.
After sending listing presentation email to seller, automatically log in CRM and create task: 'Follow up on listing proposal in 48 hours if no response.'
Fires when a new appointment or meeting is added to Outlook Calendar. Provides event details including title, time, location, attendees, and notes.
When showing appointment created in calendar, send confirmation email to buyer, create CRM activity, and schedule reminder workflow for 24 hours before.
Fires when an existing calendar event is modified (time changed, attendee added, notes updated).
When showing time is rescheduled, automatically email buyer with updated time and send new calendar invite with corrected details.
Fires X minutes before a calendar event begins (configurable). Useful for pre-meeting preparation workflows.
30 minutes before listing consultation, send agent notification with seller's CRM profile, recent comparable sales, and listing presentation template link.
Fires when a contact is added or modified in Outlook contacts. Enables contact sync workflows with CRM.
When agent adds new buyer's contact info in Outlook, automatically create corresponding contact in HubSpot with same details.
Fires when email arrives with specific attachment types (PDF, DOCX, images). Can filter by filename patterns.
When email arrives with PDF attachment containing 'Pre-Approval Letter' in filename, save to OneDrive under buyer's folder and update CRM field 'Pre-Approval Status' to 'Approved.'
Sends an email from Outlook account with custom subject, body (HTML or plain text), attachments, CC/BCC, importance flags, and read receipt requests.
Send personalized 'Price Drop Alert' email to buyers whose saved searches match property when listing price is reduced: 'Hi [Name], [Address] just dropped to $[Price]. [CTA button: Schedule Showing].'
Creates a new appointment or meeting in Outlook Calendar with specified time, attendees, location, reminders, and recurrence patterns.
When buyer requests showing via website form, automatically create calendar event in agent's Outlook at requested time, invite buyer as attendee, and set location to property address.
Modifies existing calendar event details. Can change time, add/remove attendees, update location or notes.
When buyer replies to showing confirmation asking to reschedule, AI detects new time preference and updates calendar event accordingly, then sends updated confirmation.
Adds a new contact to Outlook contacts with name, email, phone, address, company, and custom fields.
When new lead captured in CRM, create corresponding Outlook contact so agent has buyer info available in their email client, calendar, and mobile device.
Downloads attachments from a specific email for processing or storage.
When contract email arrives, download all PDF attachments and upload to OneDrive under property folder for transaction coordinator access.
Moves email from inbox to specified Outlook folder for organization and processing.
After processing lead inquiry email and creating CRM record, move email to 'Processed Leads' folder to keep inbox clean.
Sends a reply to a specific email thread, maintaining conversation history and subject line.
When buyer asks 'Is this property still available?' via email, AI checks listing status in CRM and auto-replies: 'Yes, [Address] is still available. Want to see it? Book showing: [link].'
Forwards an email to another recipient with optional additional message.
When commercial inquiry email arrives, automatically forward to commercial specialist with note: 'FYI - commercial lead from website, [Property Type] in [Area].'
Adds a task to Outlook Tasks or Microsoft To Do with due date, reminders, and priority.
When deal moves to 'Under Contract' stage in CRM, create Outlook task: 'Order inspection for [Address]' due in 3 days with high priority flag.
Get started in approximately 20 minutes for OAuth setup and basic sending; 45 minutes for full Azure AD configuration, shared mailbox setup, and first workflow
Log into Azure Portal (portal.azure.com) with your Microsoft 365 admin account. Navigate to Azure Active Directory → App registrations → New registration. Name your app 'Real Estate Automation' and select 'Web' as platform type. Under Redirect URI, enter your n8n OAuth callback URL (found in n8n's Outlook credential setup screen, typically https://your-n8n-domain/rest/oauth2-credential/callback). Click Register and note the Application (client) ID displayed.
Keep the Azure portal tab open—you'll return to add permissions and create a client secret in the next steps. Azure AD app registration is free and doesn't consume licenses.
In your Azure AD app registration page, go to 'API permissions' → Add a permission → Microsoft Graph → Delegated permissions. Add these permissions: Mail.ReadWrite (read/send emails), Mail.Send (send on behalf of user), Calendars.ReadWrite (manage calendar events), Contacts.ReadWrite (manage contacts), User.Read (basic profile). Click 'Add permissions', then click 'Grant admin consent for [Your Organization]' to approve permissions for all users.
Delegated permissions mean the app acts on behalf of the signed-in user (your agents). If you need to access mailboxes without user login (service account), use Application permissions instead, but this requires additional Exchange admin setup.
Still in your Azure AD app page, go to 'Certificates & secrets' → Client secrets → New client secret. Add a description like 'n8n Integration' and set expiration to 24 months (maximum). Click Add and immediately copy the 'Value' field (the secret string). This is your only chance to see it—Azure won't show it again. Store it securely in a password manager.
Set a calendar reminder for 23 months from now to regenerate the client secret before expiration. If it expires, all your Outlook automation workflows will break until you generate a new secret and update n8n credentials.
In n8n, create a new workflow and add a Microsoft Outlook node. Click 'Create New Credentials' → select 'Microsoft Outlook OAuth2 API'. Paste your Application (client) ID from step 1 and Client Secret from step 3. Set Tenant ID to 'common' (works for all Microsoft 365 accounts) or your specific tenant ID if restricting access. Click 'Connect my account' to open Microsoft's OAuth consent screen. Sign in with your Outlook account and grant permissions. After authorization, n8n receives an access token.
Use your primary work email for OAuth connection—this becomes the 'sender' for automated emails. If multiple agents need automation, each should connect their own Outlook account in separate n8n credential sets.
Verify setup by creating a test workflow with two parts: (1) Manual Trigger → Outlook node (action: Send Email) → send yourself a test email with subject 'n8n Outlook Test'. Execute and confirm receipt. (2) Add Outlook trigger node (trigger: New Email) → filter for subject 'n8n Test Reply' → Set node to display data. Reply to your test email with subject 'n8n Test Reply' and execute workflow to verify trigger captures it.
If send works but trigger doesn't fire, check trigger polling interval (default 1 minute). For instant triggers, use Microsoft Graph webhooks instead of polling, but this requires a publicly accessible n8n instance with HTTPS.
If your brokerage uses a shared mailbox (info@brokerage.com), add it in Microsoft 365 Admin Center → Teams & groups → Shared mailboxes → Add shared mailbox. Grant access to team members who need to monitor it. In n8n, shared mailbox emails can be accessed using the same OAuth credentials by specifying the shared mailbox address in the 'User' field of Outlook nodes.
Shared mailboxes don't require additional licenses and don't count against your user limit. They're ideal for team@ or info@ addresses where multiple agents need visibility.
Draft reusable templates for common scenarios. For calendar events, decide on naming conventions: 'Showing - [Address]', 'Consultation - [Seller Name]', 'Open House - [Address]' so automation can parse event types. For emails, create HTML templates with your branding, merge tags ({{firstName}}, {{propertyAddress}}), and CTAs. Store templates in n8n as string variables or in SharePoint for team collaboration.
Use Outlook's built-in 'Quick Parts' feature to save email templates accessible from Outlook client. This allows agents to manually send from templates while automation uses the same templates programmatically for consistency.
Create your first useful workflow: Outlook Calendar trigger (new event created) → Filter node (event title contains 'Showing') → Extract event details → Delay node (wait until 24 hours before event) → Outlook Send Email (to attendee with reminder and directions) → HubSpot Create Activity. Save and activate. Test by creating a showing appointment in your Outlook Calendar and verifying the workflow executes and reminder sends at correct time.
For testing delays, use short intervals (5 minutes) instead of 24 hours. Once confirmed working, update to production delay values. Use n8n's 'Wait' node with 'Resume on date' option for calendar-relative delays.
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