Email Connector
The Commit Email Connector module allows you to process incoming emails and perform appropriate actions (like creating new Tickets). It also allows you to parse and analyze XML formatted emails that contain new Tickets, Accounts, Assets or other Commit record information.
The Commit Email Connector module automatically generates new Tickets from emails sent by clients to a defined public email address. It also provides a full API to Commit using XML formatted email messages.
Email Threading
The Email Connector manages email threads for you. If a customer replies to your support email in regards to a specific ticket, or if you, as a technician, reply to the customer, the correspondence will be automatically filed under the ticket in the system.
There are two email threading scenarios:
- A customer replies to Support regarding an email sent from the system, which contains a ticket number in the email subject. In this case, the system files the email under the ticket and forwards the email to the internal email support address.
- An employee replies on a customer email, which contains the ticket number in the email subject. The employee then needs to BCC the support email to automatically file the email in the system. When a technician BCCs the Email Connector, the email will be filed in the ticket, and will not be forwarded for manual processing.
Note that this will apply only when the sender email address is defined as one of employee's emails (Email1 or Email2), and the employee is marked as an Active employee in CommitCRM. See more details on matching the email to an account in Matching by Email or Domain Name.
In both cases, the Email Connector receives the email, finds the ticket in the subject, finds the ticket in the database, and then files the email as a document under the ticket.
Matching by Email or Domain Name
Commit connects an incoming support email to specific accounts based on the full email address of the sender, or by the domain name (if defined for the account).
If one of your clients has many possible email addresses, you should either add each of the email addresses as the email in the secondary contact (in the Account Contacts tab), or define the client's domain name in one of the Account's email addresses or secondary contacts.
To define a domain name for an account:
Set the domain name (e.g. "commitcrm.com") as the email address in one of the following places:
- Account's Email field (in the General tab)
- Account's Email 2 field (in the Address tab)
- Add a secondary contact, and set the domain in the contact's email field
Notes:
- Account detection will first try finding the full email address.
- Only if this email address does not exist in the database, the system will search by the domain name.
- Duplicate domain names will create an error when processing the incoming email. Note that the system does not prevent entering duplicate domain names.
Commit Email Connector Setup
The Commit Email Connector is a plug-in for the Commit Server. Setting up the Commit Email Connector module includes using general settings used by the Commit Server, and specific settings for the Email Connector plug-in.
To run the configuration application:
- Log into the Server with a Windows Administrator user. Note that the setup program must run from the same server as the one where the Commit installation sits and from where you plan to run the Email Connector.
- Run <Installation_DIR>\Server\ServerConfig.exe
The following window will open:
The server configuration window consists of the following three tabs:
- Outgoing Mail Server Settings - here you can define the settings for all outgoing emails sent by the Commit Server.
- Email Connector Settings - here you can define all the settings for the Commit Email Connector.
- Email Alerts Settings - here you can define all the settings for the Commit Email Alerts (not in the scope of this document).
In order to run the Commit Email Connector, the following settings should be configured (in this order):
- Outgoing Email Setup - Define the setting for outgoing emails. These settings will be used by the Commit Server for all outgoing emails.
- Incoming Email Setup – Set up the mail server and incoming mailbox which manages incoming emails prior to being processed by the Commit Email Connector.
- Email Processing Setup - Define how incoming email is processed. Commit Email Connector reads each email and performs the actions as defined in these settings.
- Internal Support Team Email - Define settings for the Internal Support Team Email, which is used if the system cannot decide what to do with the Email, or if there are errors.
- Installing and Running Commit Email Connector Service - After setting up all of the above, you should actually install the Email Connector service and run it on your server.
Only once the setup is complete can you run the Commit Server and start using the Commit Email Connector plug-in.
To set up the Email Connector, start with the Outgoing Email Setup below.