Email is one of the most accessible forms of communication for customers. Almost everyone has an email address, and they can send and receive messages from anywhere in the world at any time. This makes email a convenient and flexible way for customers to get in touch with a company.
Email also lets customers describe their issue or question in detail, attach files or screenshots, and provide specific information that can help the support team understand and resolve the issue. It also allows the customer to contact the support team at a time that is convenient for them, without having to wait on hold or navigate through a complex phone tree.
The email channel in a helpdesk project lets you tap into the power of email as a means of managing communication.
Message Processing
Email channels pull messages from an external mail service. Incoming messages are processed according to the settings that are defined for the channel.
New Tickets
If YouTrack cannot find any values that associate an incoming message with an existing ticket, a new ticket is created. YouTrack uses the following information from an email message to create a new ticket:
The message subject is copied to the ticket summary.
The message body is copied to the ticket description.
The email address of the sender is used to determine whether to create an account for a new reporter or match the reporter with an existing account.
Like any ticket that is created manually, YouTrack assigns the ticket an ID in the helpdesk project.
Comments
When YouTrack detects that an incoming message is related to an existing ticket, the body of the message is added to the existing ticket as a comment. YouTrack matches an incoming message to an existing ticket under the following conditions:
The values for the
message-id/in-reply-toproperties in the message header match a previously processed email message. This is a standard method of parsing MIME-encoded messages. YouTrack uses these values to thread comments when a recipient replies to notifications that are sent when an ticket is created or updated in the project.The message subject contains the ID of an ticket in the same helpdesk project.
Attachments
In email replies that are generated when comments are added to the ticket in YouTrack, links are generated for new files that are attached to the ticket or comment. These links are signed by the user who attached the files and provide direct access to the attachments. The recipient of the email reply can open and view these attachments without logging in to YouTrack.
To learn more about signed links for attachments, see Links to Issue Attachments.
Related Tickets
In situations where the subject of an incoming message matches the summary of an existing ticket, but the message does not contain any of the values that associate it with an existing ticket a new ticket is created. YouTrack processes these messages as follows:
The prefixes that are added to forwarded messages and replies (FW:, RE:) are ignored.
If the Discard the contents of square brackets option in the mailbox rule is selected, text in the subject line of the email message that is set in square brackets is also ignored.
YouTrack creates a ticket and sets the message subject (minus the text strings that are ignored) as the summary.
YouTrack finds the ticket with the same summary that has the lowest ID number and adds a relates to link to it.
Email Channel Options
YouTrack supports two options for managing email.
Email forwarding is a process where an email that is sent to one email address is automatically forwarded to another email address. For example, if you have an email address from your company domain, you may choose to forward all incoming emails to your helpdesk project in YouTrack.
This option is perfect for companies that already have email accounts for receiving customer requests and is relatively easy to configure.
To learn how to set up email forwarding for your helpdesk project, see Email Forwarding.
Mail server connections let you process messages sent to a business email address that is hosted under your own domain.
This option is suitable for companies that already have their own server for processing email traffic. This set up is best performed in coordination with a system administrator.
To learn how to connect your helpdesk to an external mail server, see Mail Server Connections.
Email Channels
The Channels tab in the project settings page displays the channels that are currently active in your helpdesk project. The total number of channels is displayed on the card for each channel type. To display the complete list of email channels that are available in your project, click the Email channel.
The following information is displayed for each channel.
Information | Description |
|---|---|
Address | The email address used to deliver messages to the channel. |
Administrator | The user who configured the email channel in the helpdesk project. |
Status | The current status of the email channel. If there are any problems with the channel, a warning icon is shown. Move your pointer over the warning icon for additional information. |
Additional option on this page lets you perform the following actions for each email channel.
Action | Description |
|---|---|
Retrieve messages manually | Checks the connected mail server or forwarding account for unprocessed messages. Any messages encountered are immediately queued for processing. |
Deactivate channel | Switches off message processing for the selected channel. The configuration continues to be stored in the system and can be reactivated later. |
Delete channel | Removes the selected email channel from the system. |