Do you need Deltek PIM or Ideagen Mail Manager for project email?

A project information platform and a specialist email tool solve different problems. The gap between them is depth on email.

The short answer: Deltek PIM is a project information management platform that holds email, documents and drawings in one repository, connected to the Deltek Vantagepoint and Ajera ERP systems. Ideagen Mail Manager does email filing and search only, and files into the systems you already run, from SharePoint to Procore, ProjectWise and network drives. Choose Mail Manager when email is the problem you are solving. Choose Deltek PIM when you want one broad platform and email is secondary.

Does an email problem need a whole platform?

If your firm keeps losing correspondence when people leave, and keeps struggling to prove what a client agreed, the problem is email filing and retrieval. Deltek PIM handles email as one part of a repository built for emails, documents and drawings. Mail Manager does email filing and search only, and goes deeper on it as a result.

A module inside a broad suite rarely matches a specialist on the specialist's own ground. That is the trade at the heart of this choice.

The LiRo Group learned this firsthand. After a previous document management system failed to get adoption, the firm moved to Mail Manager and was up and running in a day, with no training required. Machine learning predicted which project each email belonged to, so staff filed in real time and records stayed consistent across every engagement.

Where does your filed email end up?

Deltek PIM stores email inside its own repository. Mail Manager files email into SharePoint, Procore, ProjectWise, Viewpoint and network drives, so correspondence lands where the rest of your project data already sits, and stays there if you ever change tools.

Mobile filing matters here too. Mail Manager files from Outlook on iOS and Android, which suits site-based teams who cannot wait to get back to a desk.

The table below compares the email capability specifically, which is where Mail Manager competes, based on published product information as of October 2026.

What you need	Why it matters	Ideagen Mail Manager	Deltek PIM
Keep the record where your projects live
File to SharePoint Online and on-premises	Email sits beside the project documents your team already uses	✓	✗
File to Procore, ProjectWise and Viewpoint	Correspondence sits beside the construction and engineering record it relates to	✓	✗
File to network drives	Cover projects stored on your own servers	✓	Partial
Teams message filing	Capture decisions made in chat, not just in email	✓ (Teams Chat Filer)	✗
Get email filed without relying on memory
Prompt & Predict filing	Machine learning suggests the right project as email is sent and received, based on how your team files	✓	Partial
Rules-based auto-filing	Incoming and outgoing email is filed even when someone forgets or leaves mid-project	✓	Partial
File from Outlook mobile	Site teams file to the project record from the field	✓	✗
Find the email that settles a dispute
Boolean search operators	Combine terms to pull the one email that matters from years of correspondence	✓	Partial
Offline search	Search the full project record on site or in a meeting with no connection	✓ (Classic Outlook)	Partial
Fit your environment
Email record stays in your Microsoft 365 tenant	Keep correspondence inside your own Microsoft environment	✓ (Mail Manager Enterprise)	✗
New Outlook	Keep filing as Microsoft moves users to the new client	Partial (alongside Classic Outlook)	✓
Multi-language support	Support teams working in languages other than English	✗	Partial

✓ = full support. Partial = limited or conditional support. ✗ = not supported. Both products offer full-text search, search within attachments, a filing audit trail and user activity reports. Mail Manager supports New Outlook through the Mail Manager Desktop NOW Bridge in v15.1+, running alongside Classic Outlook with the same filing engine.

When does Deltek PIM make sense?

In one narrow case. Your firm already runs Deltek Vantagepoint or Ajera, wants email, documents and drawings in a single Deltek repository, and treats email filing as a secondary requirement.

Outside that case, the trade-offs show:

• Your email lives in Deltek's repository, not in the SharePoint, Procore or ProjectWise locations where the rest of your project data sits.
• It is built to sit inside the Deltek stack, connecting project information with Vantagepoint and Ajera financial data. On a different ERP, that connection goes unused.
• Email is one part of a platform that also covers documents, drawings and field data. Mail Manager does email filing and search only, so all of its development goes into that one job.

If email is the problem you are actually solving, it deserves a tool built for it. Mail Manager was built at Arup to solve Arup's own email problem, is still used by Arup today and is trusted by 48,000+ users across 2,600+ AEC firms.

Frequently asked questions

Does Deltek PIM file into SharePoint and network drives?

Deltek PIM files email into its own repository. It can index and search files already stored on network drives and OneDrive, but it does not file email into SharePoint. Mail Manager files into SharePoint and network drives as well as Procore, ProjectWise and Viewpoint.

Is a specialist email tool better than a platform module?

For email filing and retrieval specifically, a specialist tends to go deeper than a module inside a broad platform. If you want one repository for email, documents and drawings, the platform may suit your governance model.

Does Mail Manager work on Outlook mobile?

Yes, on both iOS and Android, so site-based teams can file email to the project record from the field.

What happens to filed email when someone leaves?

With Mail Manager, the record stays, because email files to the project rather than the person. When someone leaves, their client correspondence remains centrally accessible and searchable.