New Plugin: E-mail Notifications (Watchers)

[jstanden]

Alright!

I just finished committing the E-mail Notifications (Watchers) plugin (Build 388).

To enable the plugin:
Go to Configuration->Plugins and enable 'Email Notifications'
Go to 'My Account' (top right) to open your preferences. Click the 'Email Notifications' tab.You can now create e-mail notifications for three different types of mail events: Incoming mail, Outgoing mail, Incoming+Outgoing, or Replies from customers to you.

Incoming mail notifications are obvious, you'll get an e-mail each time someone writes in to the helpdesk. You can reply to that e-mail directly from your e-mail client/handheld device/etc. The helpdesk will proxy your reply as if you replied from the web interface -- meaning it will replace you as the sender with the proper helpdesk e-mail address (based on the ticket's group+bucket).

Outgoing mail notifications can be used for quality control, managerial oversight, training, etc. This will send you a copy of any worker replies leaving the helpdesk. You won't receive copies of your own replies.

Replies to you will only send you copies of e-mail where a customer is specifically replying to you (e.g., you are defined as the ticket's "Next Worker"). This is especially useful for handhelds where you need to reply to important tickets on the go, but you don't want to be inundated with copies of all e-mail.

Another interesting thing, compared to the 2.x/3.x watchers functionality, is the new ability to create official alternate e-mail addresses for your worker account. The helpdesk will send a confirmation to confirm the worker owns the e-mail address, and then that address can be used for any notifications. Registering alternate e-mail addresses like this allows for easy handling of replies from any worker mailbox/device.

Currently watcher functionality will not proxy attachments in either direction. This is a rather quick near future tweak (matters of hours or days), I just didn't want to hold up the plugin any longer since so many people are anxious to start using it.

Screenshot (Configuring Notifications):
http://www.cerberusweb.com/cerb4-content/images/c4_watcher.png

Updating from SVN:
http://wiki.cerberusdemo.com/index.php/Upgrading_to_Newer_Versions_of_Cerberus_Helpdesk_4 .0

I ran a lot of local tests, and everything should be fine for you start using it right away, but keep in mind this code was just committed minutes ago.

Enjoy!

[jstanden]

Just a quick observation:

It seems Gmail will ignore the 'Reply-To' header if the 'From' is also associated to your Gmail account (in my case testing from jstanden_AT_gmail.com and jeff_AT_webgroupmedia.com, which are both set up in Gmail).

So if you're testing by sending mail to your helpdesk with yourself as a watcher, don't be too concerned if you see the situation happening where the reply is going straight to yourself and not the helpdesk.

I've tested and confirmed that Watchers reply-to the helpdesk properly for any mail not associated to your own Gmail account.

[IreneF]

Hi Jeff,

thank you, seems to work fine.

There is only one thing I'm missing:
What happens if the mailbox (team) is changed with hindsight for a ticket? In this case no watcher is sent, isn't it?

That would be an important feature to us, as we have one general mailbox currently where all tickets are routed first and a team that is responsible for distributing the tickets to the appropriate other mailboxes. Therefore a watcher in case of mailboxchange would be important, so that all agents also get notified in case of new tickets.

Would that be possible?

Thanks
Irene

[jstanden]

Hey Irene!

Currently you're right, that wouldn't trigger the 'inbound' mail event.

However, I already created a 'move ticket' event earlier for the inbox routing functionality. So it should be rather simple to register the watchers plugin on ticket move events as well -- which could be triggered manually (moved in GUI) or procedurally (moved by a sorting rule).

I'll add a note to experiment with that in the morning (it's 1:30am Pacific). But it's a really straightforward change with the way everything is put together in 4.0.

So far my tests on the live helpdesk are going well too -- though I'm noticing we should probably have an option to not send copies of mail the helpdesk identifies as spam when using the "All" buckets option. ;)

[jstanden]

Watchers Plugin Todo:

Attachments support
Explore sending a copy of the latest ticket message if a ticket is moved into a new group/bucket that has watchers. Some care probably needs to be taken to not send updates to the same worker again if they're watching both buckets.
Add an option to not send watcher notifications for tickets with a high spam probability. This is needed for the "All" buckets option since you're not filtering out any 'Spam' bucket.
Allow subject-line commands, such as [close], [spam] or [delete], which will instruct the helpdesk to do various actions on a ticket when you're replying from an external e-mail client or handheld. The subject isn't proxied to the requesters so this won't cause confusion. This removes the need for workers to have to log into the helpdesk to do basic actions (or for active helpdesk users to close tickets for remote watchers).Feel free to add other suggestions to this thread or to the project roadmap (http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD).

[zaaj]

While you're at it, we use the Notify on ticket assignment in 2.7 currently - we have a core of helpdesk workers, and some application support personnel who don't need to be in the helpdesk all the time, but do occasionally get tickets sent their way. They don't log on unless they're notified that they have a ticket. Watcher email (with the [close] subject-line action) on assignment would be preferred by at least one of them I know, but some type of notification on assignment is pretty important for those users.

[mdc]

Well I've added the plug in - Can see the tab on My account but the page has nothing on it ....

[MrKurt]

Oh good, now I can actually try it out for real!

Anyway, the watchers don't seem to respect the outgoing email address set for a workspace. I generally use that to filter stuff into "wake me up now" and "the next day is ok" style groups, which trigger all sorts of fun notifications.

Any chance of making the watcher use the email specified in the workspace? Alternatively, is there a good way to filter based on which watcher sent the emai?

[nightwish]

yep, either the outgoing mail addresses of the workspaces should be used, or - maybe better - there should be an additional header containing group and possibly bucket, so i can sort the mails into subfolders with procmail etc.

Also, for me, when I choose "Incoming+Outgoing", I still only receive notification on incoming mail. Dunno if there is just something wrong with my installation or if it's a generic problem. Does anyone else notice the same?

Regards,

Guido
intergenia Webhosting AG

[jstanden]

Also, for me, when I choose "Incoming+Outgoing", I still only receive notification on incoming mail. Dunno if there is just something wrong with my installation or if it's a generic problem. Does anyone else notice the same?

Hey there,

You won't get watcher copies of your own replies.

[nightwish]

Hey there,

You won't get watcher copies of your own replies.

lol ok my fault. I used another account for test-replies now and it worked fine.

The behaviour seems quite logical to me as i know about it now - however, maybe you should add a small hint in the notifications configuration tab to avoid confusion.

[MrKurt]

I went ahead and filed a JIRA issue for the watcher email address thing I mentioned earlier. I know things tend to slip by if they're only in replies. ;)

http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-267

[jstanden]

I went ahead and filed a JIRA issue for the watcher email address thing I mentioned earlier.

Perfect, thanks! :)

I'll get that knocked off.

[jlixfeld]

Watchers Plugin Todo:

Attachments support
Explore sending a copy of the latest ticket message if a ticket is moved into a new group/bucket that has watchers. Some care probably needs to be taken to not send updates to the same worker again if they're watching both buckets.
Add an option to not send watcher notifications for tickets with a high spam probability. This is needed for the "All" buckets option since you're not filtering out any 'Spam' bucket.
Allow subject-line commands, such as [close], [spam] or [delete], which will instruct the helpdesk to do various actions on a ticket when you're replying from an external e-mail client or handheld. The subject isn't proxied to the requesters so this won't cause confusion. This removes the need for workers to have to log into the helpdesk to do basic actions (or for active helpdesk users to close tickets for remote watchers).Feel free to add other suggestions to this thread or to the project roadmap (http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD).

Hi, any updates to this? Attachment support and subject-line commands (at least [close]) would be stellar!

[jstanden]

Hi, any updates to this? Attachment support and subject-line commands (at least [close]) would be stellar!

Hey there!

I'll add those to my short-list for tonight. We've been preoccupied with the other new plugins and the RC1 bug crunch -- but there's no reason to keep delaying finishing up watchers. ;)

http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-291
http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-292

[jstanden]

Support for watcher reply subject commands is implemented:
http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-292

[jlixfeld]

Any word on attachment proxy support, if that's what it's called?

Case: A client opens a ticket and at some point sends an attachment - the attachment is only visible on the GUI and not sent to the watchers, while the text content of the ticket is. If I add files from the GUI, watchers do not the attachments either, only cc/bcc'd recipients.

[bcavish]

I don't have any new news for you, but there is a development task issue open at:

http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-291

[pyrocam]

What about notification on assigned?
we have several help desk staff and some of them don't need to check the help desk very often, I would like to notify them automatically when a ticket is assigned to them.

Cheers

[Hildy]

http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-519 It's already highly voted, but another one won't hurt. ;-)

[rachelg]

This is great, however, comments or notes are not notified to people, nor are ticket assignments.

Our ticket system is not as busy as others, thus is only checked when we are notified to do so.

To have to check periodically at our leel of ticket busy-ness, is inefficent.

Great work though!

[dsugita]

What build are you currently on? I can't remember what build it was exactly, but there are notifications on new assignment available.

[jlixfeld]

In regards to http://www.cerb4.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1173#post1173 and http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-291

This was said to be on a short-list for completion back in November of last year!

This is one of two features that would make my life complete and the angels sing!

Is there ANY chance this can be knocked off?! I'm talking about the email attachments sent to watchers item, not the error thrown item. The error thrown is still intermittent and has nothing to do with attachments. When it starts to happen so frequently that clients aren't getting any of my cerberus tickets/updates, I usually look for a new build and update my FreeBSD ports tree and that seems to kick the issue for few weeks.

So - finishing email attachment to watcher support would be absolutely wonderful!

[tvcnet]

Hi folks.
As far as I can tell, the [close] concept remains kaput these past 5 or so months.

Anyone have any luck closing tickets by placing [close] in the subject?

Thanks,
Jim

[joegeck]

I just got done verifying for Jim that Watcher notification subject commands like [close] were not working. As people have stated this has been around for a while so if this is holding you back continue to vote CHD-292 up so this will be taken into higher consideration for future updates after major features / issues are resolved.

http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-292