[resolved] E-mail threading

VitaminaM

Hi,

I've been using the email threading to add internal notes no open tickets.

Both subject and message start with #123456, the ID of the ticket I want to use, but I'm ending up with new tickets, instead of a new internal note in a existing one.

What are the requirements of email or emailer app to get this correct?

ntozier

You are replying to the most recent email for the ticket?
You are an agent on the ticket, and/or a collaborator on the ticket?
The subject starts with [#%{ticket.number}]?

VitaminaM

I'm writing new emails, never replies.
They are sent from an account that was registered as an email address (settings >> email address).
The email address wasn't a collaborator/agent whatever to the ticket.

Following you comment, I changed and the email address is now the contact of a "bot" agent, I'm testing this in next events.

ntozier

If you are writing new emails then the email will never have the same message-id that the other emails had. It will also not have the reference id. This will cause it not to update the proper ticket and will result in a new ticket.

To write an email note on an existing ticket you have to reply to the email that was sent to you by the ticket system. You also need to be a collaborator on the ticket.

ChuckZ

Hi ntozier. I'm having similar questions here.
What exactly is message-id and reference id? are they different from the ticket ID?
Can agents update existing threads by manually add this id or other key words in the subject/message of a new email?
We have people who uses Outlook as main communication tool so this is needed.

Thanks

ntozier

ChuckZ What exactly is message-id and reference id? are they different from the ticket ID?

They are part of the email headers.
See email RFC 2822
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2822

ChuckZ Can agents update existing threads by manually add this id or other key words in the subject/message of a new email?

You cannot manually add the email header. It is added by the email client.

If you have [%{ticket.number}] in the subject line it should match via that when the other checks fail.

VitaminaM

Hi,

I' m with ChuckZ on the clarification of IDs and it would be great for us to "tag" a message and have it added to the system.

We had this working during the summer, despite not complying with the requirements you mention. The "bot" wasn't the ticket owner, it was an email address registered in the system and it worked with #ticketID in the subject and body.

Additionally the emailer has to be the owner of the ticket or one of the team members that owns the ticket?

Thanks

ChuckZ

ntozier If you have [%{ticket.number}] in the subject line it should match via that when the other checks fail.

ok so for me this is not working. I'm using osTicket v1.14.1 and php 7.2.24
@VitaminaM when you had it working, did it have to be the owner agent of the ticket? my system is newly installed so I'm pretty clueless here...

ChuckZ

ntozier Here's a picture to better explain the issue:
I wrote an email in Outlook with the ticket number in the subject (after the Chinese words), but instead of adding new thread to the existing ticket #748637, it opened a new ticket #141846.
Is it a template issue? how do I edit it to achieve what I want?
Thanks for your help in advance.

VitaminaM

So should 530800 be in brackets? Like [530800] or just 530800

ntozier

Edit your email templates.

Add #%{ticket.number} to the various templates subjects at the beginning.

Your screen shot is of an existing ticket in the UI, not an email

KevinTheJedi

@chucktillmanjd

If the email address sending the mail is the Owner of the ticket then they should respond only to the alerts from the system. Otherwise it will always create a new ticket. If you are trying to send mail to the system and have it link to an existing ticket but the sending address is not the User/Collaborator of the original ticket then it will create a new ticket. The only way the system threads new messages to a ticket is if you respond to the alerts from the system as it will reference the message-id, etc.

If you're interested, the code that checks for message-id, ticket number, etc. to see if it needs to thread to an existing ticket is here:

https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket/blob/develop/include/class.thread.php#L1323-L1461

Cheers.

ChuckZ

KevinTheJedi
Thanks for the clarification. I’m not much of a coder but will look into it.

VitaminaM

It's solved.
The first email that created the ticket was sent from my email account, hence I became the owner, while subsequent update emails were sent from another account.
Now I'm creating the email and sending updates from the same email account and it seems to have solved the situation.

VitaminaM

But there's another question: emails are only processed when I login to osticket, not automatically processed and added to the ticket thread.

Can this be changed?

ntozier

You need to setup cron.php to run with a scheduler.

See the docs
https://docs.osticket.com/en/latest/Getting%20Started/POP3-IMAP%20Settings.html

VitaminaM

ntozier thank you. For me the issue can be closed.