Manage Communication

This section helps you understand the rules that are applied to incoming and outgoing emails. Also learn how to customize your emails using templates.

How Email Handling Works   

As a Self-Service user, it is not required to log in to Serviceaide Intelligent Service Management to log a ticket. You can log new tickets or update existing tickets by sending an email to a configured email address. The configuration set up for incoming and outgoing emails identifies how the emails are processed. The SaaS platform administrator configures the support email addresses for your slice.

For example, the self-service user sends an email. Intelligent Service Management creates a ticket with the information contained in the email. The analyst works on the ticket, and then the application generates an email. The email is sent to specific recipients with details of the activity of the analyst.

Incoming Email Processing

The application parses the subject line of all incoming emails to determine the action to take on the email. The application can create or update a ticket through an email. The application considers the following rules while processing an incoming email:

• The application matches the Ticket ID to an existing ticket, if the subject line contains the Case number with a ticket identifier. The action that is taken depends on the matching criteria. 
  • If the email refers to a closed ticket. The application uses the communication template to email the sender that the ticket has been closed.
  • If the email refers to a ticket with any status other than closed. The application appends the message body to the ticket. The application also sends a notification to the ticket owners.
  • If the email refers to a ticket that does not exist. The application uses the communication template to email the sender that the ticket does not exist.
  • If the ticket is open. The application updates the ticket and the email is attached.
  • If the email subject line contains the words Get Status. For example, the subject can be "GetStatus CASE#100-10" or  "GetStatus SRQ#100-10". The application sends an email with the ticket status to the sender.
  • If the email subject line contains the words Automatic Reply. The application does not generate a new request.
  • If the subject line contains more than one ticket identifier. The application acts only on the first ticket.
  • If the email does not contain an identifier. The application creates a new ticket.
• The supported keywords in the subject line of incoming emails are Case, Ticket, Service Request, Incident, Problem, Change Request, Task Ticket, SRQ, INC, PRB, CHG, TSK.
• If the subject line matches an existing Change Ticket (CHG# Valid Case-Ticket ID), the application uses the subject line to identify the approval notification. Examples of the subject line text are,  Problem ticket#---, Service Request#---, Incident ticket#—, RE: INQ_CHG#---, INQ_SRQ#----, INQ_INC#-----, INQ_PRB#-----, INQ_TSK#-----, RE: TSK#---, SRQ#----, INC#-----, CHG#-----, and PRB#-----.
  • If the first word in the message body is Approved or Rejected in any supported languages. The application updates the Approval Comment on the ticket and modifies the status of the ticket. The application appends the message to the ticket as a communication.
  • If no matching keyword is found, the application appends the message to the ticket as a communication. 

• If the subject line does not match any of the specified conditions, the application creates a ticket with the subject line as the description of the ticket. The application uses the body of the email message as the ticket details. The application adds the attachments that it receives with the email to the ticket as an attachment.
  Note: The email engine processes the email notification recipients in this order: organization, then roles, then support groups. After you identify the recipient, the application replaces the entity name of the recipient with the associated member email ID. The application also sends the email to the identified recipient. Be sure to provide unique names for organizations, roles, and support groups, so notifications reach the correct intended recipient. 

Outbound Email Processing

The outbound email configuration manages how email notifications are sent from the application. Some examples for outbound emails are automatic notifications from tickets, auto routes notification, and password reset notifications. All the email notifications are gathered, queued, and sent to the email server in batches of 100 by a background job. If the notification delivery fails three times, then the notification is marked as failed and is discarded.

Note: The background job attempts to deliver the notification to the email server for a maximum of three times. If the notification delivery fails after three attempts, the notification is marked as Failed. The background job discards the notification delivery.

The Outgoing emails are processed according to the following rules:

• Notification Recipients: You can manually select the recipients in several ways:
  • Use the Send Mail Option
  • Type in the To, CC lists
  • While configuring a communication template
• Considerations for outbound emails include:
  • Specify at least one recipient.
  • Notifications are only delivered to active organizations, roles, and support groups.
  • The active status of a recipient is not checked when you manually enter an email address.

Note: You can send up to 2000 incoming and outgoing email communications to or from a ticket, that is, 1000+1000=2000. If you exceed the limit an automatic email notification is sent to you.  

Create and Manage Communication Templates

The Self-Service users of Intelligent Service Management do not have a continuous interaction with the application. The analyst users are focused on specific tickets or tasks. To draw the user attention, the application sends an email notification to the users whenever an event of importance or interest takes place within the application. As the emails are accessible through mobile phones, the user can read the notifications without signing in to the application.

The application generates various notifications in response to different user or system actions on the ticket. As an administrator, you can configure the application to send automatic notifications that are related to tickets, service feedback surveys, and the SLA targets. The communication templates are required to manage all the outgoing communication from the application. The communication templates are related to application forms and the administrator can manage the permissions for their usage. For example, a standard communication template is used to notify the user about the applied workflow action to the ticket.

The application replaces the field variables that are used in the communication templates with their values from the ticket, before sending the notifications. For example, use the Created By, Modified By, and Closed By fields to replace the contact who created, modified, or closed the ticket. You can use a communication template with the following options:

• Auto routes
• Workflow actions
• Service feedback forms
• Service feedback schedules
• SLA Targets
• Outbound emails

The application consists of some system defined communication templates that are related to specific actions. For example, when a workflow uses the function Check for Open Tasks. On executing this feature, The application sends notification to the owners of all the open task tickets. The application SM uses a system defined communication template for such notifications. System defined communication templates are also available for approval reminders, service feedback reminders, password reset notifications, and so on. You can customize a system defined communication template as required, and also make it inactive. You cannot apply an inactive template on the notifications and communications.

The analysts can use communication templates to send manual notifications from the ticket. When the analyst clicks the Send Mail option in a ticket, the application displays the communication templates that are related to the ticket form. Analysts can modify the communication template before they send out the email manually. The template that you can edit is meant only as a format for the agents to follow. During the execution of an action option or auto-route, you cannot modify the communication templates that are applied automatically. These notifications go out without any manual intervention.

Considerations

• A communication template can be attached to multiple forms. When a communication template is related to multiple forms, only the fields common to all forms are used.
• You can use standard fields from the forms and the custom fields as placeholders in the communication template. The actual values from the forms replace the field values when the template is used. For example, you can select Affected_User to send the notification to the user who has submitted the ticket.
• You can set the locale for a communication template to send communications in the language that the intended recipient prefers.
• You can have only one active copy of a communication template in a locale.
• Deleting a communication template makes it inactive. An inactive template cannot be applied to any communications. If the template is associated with an auto-route or action-option, the corresponding communication would not be triggered.
• You can deactivate any translated copy of a communication template. By deactivating the communication template with the default locale also deactivates all the translations.
• You can make inactive copies of a communication template without affecting the templates of other locales.
• When you modify a communication template, the changes are applied to the records that you create after the modification. The change does not affect existing records.
• When a communication recipient is created from an inactive communication template, the communication fails and you receive a notification. For group communications, the communication is delivered only to the active members of the group. The communication to the inactive group members fails and you receive a notification regarding the failure.

Prerequisites

Verify the following prerequisites:

• The roles, support groups, and contacts are created to configure To, CC, and BCC fields for the communication template.
• The Reply To address is configured, to get replies for the outgoing communication.
• The custom fields are configured if you want to use the custom fields in the communication template.

Create Communication Templates

Follow these steps:

1. Create Communication Template: Navigate to MANAGE, ADMINISTRATION,  Tools, Communication Templates, and click Create New.
2. Create the Template: Construct the template by adding the Template name, description, recipients, subject, message, and then click Apply Changes. 
   You can use Add a field from the form to select a standard or custom field from the form. The application replaces the variable fields with the values from the ticket. You can specify roles, support group, and individual contacts as recipients. When you use the support group name in the recipients list, the application sends notification to all the group members. You can also use the Assign to Individual or Group token in the recipients list. This token tries to send the communication to the specified individual, and only if the individual is not available, it sends the communication to the group.
3. Specify the Notification Method: Select the platform through which the notifications that are generated using your communication template are delivered to a contact.
   1. Email: When you select this option, the system uses the contact information specified in the Email Address field of the contact's user profile.
   2. Phone: When you select this option, the system uses the contact information entered in the Phone field of a user profile. The phone notification option is applicable only for SLA Target Breach notifications. Additionally, to use this option, ensure that you have configured the External Notifications tab on the Slice Configuration page. If you select Phone, the application uses the message body in the communication template to convey the notification through a phone call. Currently, Intelligent Service Management only supports the MIR3 Mass Notification System.
4. Click Apply  Changes.
5. Configure Permissions: Click the Permissions tab and manage permissions for the communication template.
   Note: Permissions control the access to communication templates. All communication templates are not automatically available to all analysts.
6. Add Translation: To translate the communication template, click Add Translation and select the locale.
7. Click Apply Changes.