Trails — task tracking from email

Context

Despite the spread of CRMs and issue trackers, most real project communication between teams and clients still happens via email. Forcing everyone onto specialised systems meets resistance — especially on the client side.

Problem

A project-management system that doesn’t ask participants to change their habits: add a three-letter project tag to the subject line and the thread is automatically sorted into the right category.

Architecture

Trails is an email extension for project management. Incoming tagged messages are parsed and grouped by project with access controls; within each project, developer activity history, time tracking, client invoicing and payment accounting are all maintained. The full cycle — from task to payment — without leaving the email client.

Integrations

Email client integration via IMAP/SMTP; billing export; project-level access control.

Results

Remote development teams gained a structured tracker and billing workflow without needing to convince clients to adopt new tools; the full communication history stays tied to the familiar email inbox.