email connector routing loops --

[raymond]

I'm sure others have run into this so wanted to find out what the fix is. If we have a client generate a service request via email, it comes into our systems, a ticket is generated and a response email is sent back to them. If their system is set up with an "infinite out of office" reply (it has happened to us twice in the last year!) then the systems bounce emails back and forth and we end up with bazillions of tickets (with no way to bulk delete!). What can we do to prevent this feedback loop from happening?

//ray

[Support Team]

Re: email connector routing loops --

There isn't really a good way to prevent this at the moment, but as a workaround what you can do in such cases is simply remove the email address or domain from the Account record as soon as you see one of those auto-responses, which will result in them being sent to the internal mailbox instead, and then add it back later when they stop.

[raymond]

Re: email connector routing loops --

Interesting temporary stop-gap. I'll add that to our troubleshooting documentation.

I can see how this might be difficult to prevent. Maybe have the email connector have a running list of say the last 100 incoming addresses with time stamps. If the connector sees more than 10 in a 5 minute window (these need to be values that can be adjusted by us), then it sends an alert email to us and black lists the sender (just the email address, not domain!).

This touches on something we have suggested ages ago, allowing us to have a user defined black list for the email connector where we can add email addresses, domains or even IP addresses.

thanks!

//ray

[Support Team]

Re: email connector routing loops --

Thank you for the feedback!

[nattivillin]

Re: email connector routing loops --

The email connecter would have to read the body. See it says something like "auto-reply" or something.

Another way could be to examine the email headers. I think auto reply's are formatted a little different.