Tickets From Emails (Settings)

Tickets can be created automatically from incoming emails which have been sent to designated email addresses. Tickets From Emails can automatically be allocated with:

• Ticket Priority
• Ticket Type
• Ticket Department
• Email Department
• SLA (Service Level Agreement)
• Auto-Reply email

Tickets From Emails configuration requires at least one email account configured with your email service provider (e.g. a unique Microsoft 365 mailbox account dedicated to CommTrak Tickets From Emails), to which customers will send their email. If required, additional Tickets From Emails addresses can be configured either as:

• Separate mailbox accounts (e.g. an additional Microsoft 365 mailbox account for each Tickets From Emails address)

or

• Aliases to the main email account (configured as aliases/distribution groups for an existing email account with your email service provider). Please refer to the section, Known Alias Limitations, below, prior to implementing aliases.

The benefit of configuring aliases is that only one mailbox account is required; CommTrak can be configured to read all the emails sent to the main mailbox account, and determine to which alias email address the message was sent. The email is then assigned to the appropriate Tickets From Emails configuration within CommTrak, i.e. emails will be converted to tickets which are assigned to the correct department, etc, as shown in the following image:

Accessing Tickets From Emails Settings

Settings > Ticket Settings > Tickets From Emails

Add a Tickets From Emails Entry

At least one email mailbox must be configured.

Complete the following fields in the Add new ticket email account section:

The following fields are mandatory:

• Description - a label for the type of ticket from email
• Email - the receiving email address (the email address to which the customer will send the email)
• POP3 Mail Server - the mailbox for the incoming emails
• POP3 Port - the POP3 port for the email server
• Username - the username required to sign-in to the mailbox
• Password - the password used to sign-in to the mailbox

The following fields are optional:

• Default Priority - the specified ticket priority will be assigned to all emails sent to the designated email address
• Default Ticket Type - the specified ticket type will be assigned to all emails sent to the designated email address
• Default Department - the specified department will be assigned to all emails sent to the designated email address
• Email Department - ticking this box will cause CommTrak email notifications to be sent to relevant staff members, when emails are received in the mailbox
• SLA - the service level agreement to be assigned to emails sent to the designated email address

• Auto-reply on new tickets - if this option is ticked, an auto-reply email template can be specified.
• Auto-reply email template - specify an email template to be sent to the customer upon receipt of their email. This field is only visible if the previous field is ticked.

The following override fields, which affect the outgoing email subject and placeholders for the currently selected Tickets From Emails setting, can also be specified if required. These fields are useful when, for example, a single implementation of CommTrak is used within an organisation that provides email support using a different name to the main business (e.g. different divisions within the organisation use an alternative company name or contact telephone number):

• Override Email Prefix
• Override Company Name
• Override Company Phone

Select the type of notifications that will be sent to staff when a ticket is created or updated, by selecting an option from the following fields:

• Customer new ticket email (notification)
• Customer ticket update email (notification)

The available notification options for the above fields are:

• Use default notification - plain text notification email
• Standard HTML notification - HTML notification email

The content of the default notification can be customised in Settings > General Settings > Labels & Strings.

Testing and Saving the Email Configuration

When the required fields have been completed, it is recommended that the Ticket mailbox settings are tested by clicking the Test button.

CommTrak will attempt to access the designated mailbox, and will provide a notification if the connection was successful or unsuccessful. If an error is detected, please check the mailbox credentials, and then retest.

When the test has been completed successfully, click Add to save the settings.

Modify an Existing Tickets From Emails Configuration

• Select a Tickets From Emails configuration from the list displayed at the top of the settings screen
• Modify the fields as required
• Test the configuration by clicking Test 
• Click Save

Deleting an Existing Tickets From Emails Configuration

• Select a Tickets From Emails configuration from the list displayed at the top of the settings screen
• Click Delete

Add Alias

The following steps relate to adding a Tickets From Emails alias within CommTrak:

• Select a Tickets From Emails configuration from the list displayed at the top of the settings screen
• Click Add Alias (located below the Tickets From Emails fields)
• The Email Alias pop-up window is displayed
• Provide a Description for the Tickets From Emails alias (mandatory)
• Provide the Email Address for the Tickets From Emails alias (mandatory)
• Complete the optional fields (these fields are the same as the optional fields listed in the Add a Ticket From Email section, above)
• Save the new alias setting by clicking Add, or cancel the entry by clicking Cancel

Modifying an Existing Tickets From Emails Alias

All Tickets From Emails aliases (if any) are displayed as clickable links, listed below the fields for the currently-selected Tickets From Emails account.

• Click a Tickets From Emails configuration from the list displayed at the top of the settings screen
• Click the link for the required email alias
• In the pop-up window for the alias, make the required changes to the email alias fields
• Click Save (or click the red cross at the top-right of the pop-up window, to cancel any changes)

Deleting an Existing Tickets From Emails Alias

All Tickets From Emails aliases (if any) are displayed as clickable links, listed below the fields for the currently-selected Tickets From Emails account.

• Click a Tickets From Emails configuration from the list displayed at the top of the settings screen
• Click the link the for required email alias
• In the pop-up window for the alias, click Delete (or click the red cross at the top-right of the pop-up window, to cancel any changes)

Known Alias Limitations

This section refers to a known limitation pertaining to the way in which Microsoft 365 alias email addresses are managed within CommTrak, when an email is sent to a Ticket alias email address from within your organisation's MS365 email domains. Emails sent to alias email addresses from outside your organisation's MS365 email domains are not affected by this limitation.

Due to a known Microsoft configuration issue, although an email sent (or forwarded) from an internal email address to an alias email address will be converted to a Ticket, CommTrak will not recognise the Ticket as having been received by the alias email address; it will be processed as though it was sent to the main Ticket mailbox.

This means that any emails sent from within your organisation's MS365 email domains, to an aliased Ticket email address, will be allocated as per settings for the main Ticket mailbox. This only affects emails sent  from a domain name configured within the same MS365 account as your main Ticket mailbox. Emails sent from other domain names will be correctly allocated according to the alias email address Tickets From Emails settings. Microsoft has acknowledged this issue, but has not provided a timeline for resolution.

Examples of scenarios in which this needs to be considered are:

1. Your sales team send emails to a sales support Ticket email address for processing by another staff member
2. You receive an email from a client, and forward it from your email inbox (e.g. from Outlook) to a Ticket email address

In the above scenarios, regardless of which alias address the email is sent to, the Ticket will be processed by CommTrak as though it was sent to the main Ticket mailbox.

Mitigations

In lieu of a solution from Microsoft, mitigations should be considered. Using the above example scenarios:

1. Create a dedicated mailbox (i.e. not an alias) to which the Sales Team can send emails
2. After forwarding an email (e.g. from Outlook) to an alias Ticket email address, staff should immediately, manually allocate the Ticket in CommTrak to the correct Ticket Department, Ticket Type, etc.

Migration to Alias Best Practice

Please read the Known Alias Limitations section prior to migrating Tickets From Emails mailboxes to alias email addresses.

If you are already using individual mailboxes for Tickets From Emails, and wish to migrate those mailboxes to aliases, we recommend the following process:

1. Create a new (previously unused) Microsoft 365 mailbox account to use as the 'master' Tickets From Emails account. E.g. tickets@yourorganisation.com.au
2. Create a test alias address for the above mailbox. E.g. tickettest@yourorganisation.com.au
3. Add a new Tickets From Emails entry in CommTrak, and use the Test feature to ensure that CommTrak can connect to the mailbox.
4. Add the alias (from step 2) as a test Tickets From Emails alias.
5. Send an email to the new alias email address, and ensure that it is received and allocated correctly.
6. Once the above test has been completed successfully, migrate each existing mailbox Tickets From Emails setting to an alias on the master mailbox. We recommend that migration should occur at a time that will least impact business operations.