#3 additional email-based support

Maybe it would a good idea to add an email-in-function?

I mean, if a user sends an initial or reply-email to
support@domain.tld, EPIX could use an pop3-account to
check for new emails and pull the mails into the
system. When there is already a ticket-number, it
could be automatically assigned to the appropriate
existing-ticket-number. If not, the request opens up a
new ticket.

This would add more flexibility to the system.

André

[Rohan Padhye]

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Its not completely a bad idea, but it would involve a lot of
complex factors and the probability of this not functioning
properly will be high. For example what guarentee do you
have that the mails will remain in the inbox? Also what
about the same user submtting different support requests
with different tracking IDs?

Would you have a way to get around this?

[Anonymous]

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It is only a thought for a future version maybe. Would make
the whole thing perhaps more comfortable. And if considered
now as a future-feature it could be helpful to keeo it in
mind while programming the very next major release that
way, that this could be implemented more easy in the future.

Regarding the guaranteed inbox, there should be the
dedicated instruction on the settings-page in the admin-CP,
that ONLY a dedicated pop3-account should be set up and
used for this feature. That way, ALL emails to this address
would remain in the box until EPIX pulls them over into its
database through a defined condition (maybe logging in of
an admin or by a cronjob).

Regarding the different support-requests you could use the
already-inbuilt ticket-IDs. Every time a user sends an
email to that adress, he is given a unique ticket-ID, if a
new request (sent to him as en confirmation-email along
witht he note that alle further communication regarding
this request will be managed under this ticket-number,
maybe with a direct link to a login-page. After logging in
the user is lead directly to this specific ticket where he
can add more details to this ticket if necessary). The
system itself then uses this ticket-id as usual.

For further recognizing the ticket-ID throughout all email-
communication there could be the ticket-id in all outgoing
emails in the subject-line. That way, when a user answers
directly to that email, the system again can recognize this
ticket-ID and assign that email again to the right ticket
in the database.

André