Assigning Jobs to External Parties - Service desk software for

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Last Post 5/19/2009 3:37 PM by Suman Das

Assigning Jobs to External Parties

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Joanne Crang

Helpdesk leader
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4/27/2009 4:31 PM
Hi, We have been using email manager over the past few months within our IT helpdesk and it works great. Recently we've implemented helpmaster within another team and are due to go live this week. This setup is a little different in that it involves a lot of external contractors. The jobs are assigned to them but in reality they only ever see the email or fax request to do the job - they don't log into helpmaster (and probably never well). The problem I have is that for each contractor I have their email address setup which might be something such as service@plumbing.co.nz. When a job is assigned to them we send to this email. When they reply to a job via email they often use their own email address either on it's on or on behalf of the main address. Becuase this reply email comes back with paul@plumbing.co.nz my email profile will pick it up as it recognises it's to do with an existing call (based on subject line information) but it won't log it becuase I don't want a new client added and it has a problem with the client not existing. So my question is why does a profile that is looking at updating an existing help desk call care about the client. Can't it just ignore the client match?? Thanks Joanne

Rod Weir
HelpMaster development team

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4/27/2009 5:34 PM
Hi Joanne, Thanks for explaining the workflow behind your question. The reason why the Email Manager cares about the person who sent the email is because when it adds an action to an existing job, it needs to set the "Actioned By" field to someone in the system. This is why the "New client" screen in the Email Manager configuration allows for the creation of a new client when it cannot find a match with an existing client. Perhaps there is a case for further options here? Maybe to add the action, but use a known person - perhaps the primary client for the site the job is logged under, or maybe the logged by person etc? Any ideas? Best regards, Rod HelpMaster development team Check out the HelpMaster roadmap

Knowledge Bird

Helpdesk leader
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4/29/2009 2:39 PM
Perhaps this is where the Client TYPE option can come in. When we create a new client we have an option to select Internal or External. Is it possible to map the External option to the RHS of an email address, i.e. the domain, so that flagging a new client and email address as external will reference only the RHS? Therefore any emailed replies with a matching RHS will have their subject scanned and then added to the mentioned job#. Clear as mud, I bet.

Rod Weir
HelpMaster development team

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4/29/2009 5:47 PM
Hi muser, I think I understand what you thought you meant, but I'm not so sure that what I've read is what can be done. ;-) This is an interesting idea....I think. The Email Manager does something like this already when it creates new clients and tries to link that new client to an existing site. When a new client is created, the domain part of the email is examined. Then a search is performed against the domain part of all of the sites email addresses. If a match is found, the new client is created and linked to that site. In the case I refered to in my previous post, this would be the type of logic that the EM might use to determine who is the primary client for a site, and then use that person as the "Actioned By" person when an email is received from an unknown client, but the "Do not create client" option is turned on. In previous versions of the EM, whenever any action was added to a job, the "Actioned By" client would always be listed as "Email Manager". Perhaps we can put this option back as a third option in the screen shot above? Aprill, would you be able to explain your idea a little more? I get the part about only scanning the domain part of the email address for certain "External" (or some other flag) clients, but who would you see as being the "Actioned By" person in this instance, especially as there are likely to be many "external" clients that may resolve to only the domain part of an email address? Hope that makes sense!? Thanks, Rod HelpMaster development team Check out the HelpMaster roadmap

Knowledge Bird

Helpdesk leader
Posts:57
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4/29/2009 5:58 PM
Oh yeh I get you. The 'actioned by' bit fell out on the way into my brain. Yes, I think the Actioned by Email Manager when the domain matches but sender is different to primary client makes sense.

Joanne Crang

Helpdesk leader
Posts:40
Points:78

5/17/2009 3:32 PM
Just further on this - we decided that in some cases we can get around our problem by using the jo@xyz.co.nz as the main client email address in helpmaster so therefore this would no longer be a problem. Now i have updated the email address of our client to be as follows (jo@xyz.co.nz) not ideal but I figured it would work. But I now have the problem where it is still not logging I think maybe becuase I have multiple clients with the same email address? Is this why it is failing - I just need confirmation that if email manager finds more than one client with the same email address it fails the adding action profile? Thanks joanne

Suman Das
HelpMaster development team

Helpdesker
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5/17/2009 8:47 PM
Joanne's issue sounds like something that has recently been addressed in the HelpMaster Pro Email Manager. When the Email Manager finds more than one clients matching the email address, it tries to locate the client by matching its first AND last name. The problem is not all email addresses contain both the first and last name and as a result the search fails to find the client when only one part name is provided as in the case with the email address "jo@xyz.co.nz". The workaround to this problem, until the next release, is to make sure that you do not have more that one client with the same email address, OR make sure both the first and last names are provided for the email addresses (eg. "Joanne Crang" <jo@xyz.co.nz> instead of "Joanne" <jo@xyz.co.nz>. HelpMaster development team. Have you seen what's new in v12.0 yet?

Joanne Crang

Helpdesk leader
Posts:40
Points:78

5/18/2009 1:21 PM
So how does the latest version (assuming version 9??) work?? Might be a good case to upgrade! Just need to know what it will do when it finds two clients with the same email address - the first and last name will never match as the email address generally contains an indivudual e.g. JoanneCrang@xyz.co.nz but the helpmaster name will contain something like Pumpkin Patch Botany company and just have JoanneCrang@xyz.co.nz as the email address. We may then also have Pumpkin Patch East Tamaki with the same email address. Actually just re reading this not sure that I quite know how I want it to work! I guess perhaps of all the above fails adding back in Email manager as the logger might be better!!!!

Suman Das
HelpMaster development team

Helpdesker
Posts:18
Points:18

5/19/2009 3:37 PM
That's correct - it sounds like we'll need additional options in the "New Client Options" screen in order to resolve your original issue. The fix to resolve the clients having the same email address, as mentioned earlier, is not going to solve it. HelpMaster development team. Have you seen what's new in v12.0 yet?

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