Settings to create incidents by using email messages

This topic describes the settings that you can configure to create incidents from email messages. The Incident - Email Settings option in the Remedyforce Administration > Configure Email tile provides these settings. Also, the following guidelines are explained to map fields and templates to the incident that gets created by using email messages:

The following table describes the sections and the options provided in each of these sections:

Field	Description
Creating Incidents from Client Emails : Enables you to configure settings to create incidents from an email message based on its subject and assign these incidents to a user (Context User, Queue, or Staff).
Create an incident with any email subject	Allows clients to create incidents by sending an email either with any subject or without a subject. The client must ensure that the subject line does not contain any of the following words: Call Status # Ref:
Create an incident only when the email subject contains	Allows clients to create incidents by sending an email with a defined subject. This option is selected by default. When a client sends an email message to create an incident, the subject line must contain the subject that you have defined.
Do not create an incident when the email subject contains	Allows system administrators to configure keywords to stop creation of incidents for email messages with a subject that contains the specified keywords. Type the required keywords in the text box. The keywords must be separated by the ',' delimiter and can contain special characters. Ensure that there is no space after the delimiter. For example, if Re:, Close Incident, and FW: are keywords, you must write them like this - Re:,Close Incident,FW:. Note: The Create an Incident only when the email subject contains:* and. Do not create an incident when the email subject contains fields must not contain the same values.
Match whole word	Select this check box if you are specifying keywords in the setting Do not create an incident when the email subject contains and the entire keyword must be matched in the subject. For example, if you specify a keyword RE: in the setting Do not create an incident when the email subject contains and create an email with the subject "Hire: New Employee for Accounts", the incident is not created as the word Hire contains the specified keyword RE. To avoid this situation, select the check box to match the entire keyword.
Create an incident if email address is in Cc field	Allows clients to create incidents by sending an email message where the listener email address is in the Cc field. If the listener email address is in the Cc and To fields, only one incident is created related to that email message. This option is not selected by default. If the option is not selected and the listener email address is in the Cc field and not in the To field, incident is not created. Note: This option does not apply if your organization uses email forwarding to send email messages to the email listener address. In this case, incidents are created even if you do not select this option. However, you can configure your email forwarding rule to not send an email message to BMC Remedyforce when the email address is in the Cc field.
Assign email-generated incidents to	The following options are provided in the list: Context User (Default): Assigns all incidents to the Context User configured for the email service address. This option is selected by default. For more information about the Context User of the email service address, see Salesforce Help . Queue: Assigns all incidents that are created from emails to the Queue that is selected from the list. This list is enabled when you select the Queue or Staff option. Staff: Assigns all incidents that are created from emails to the staff member that is selected from the list. This list is enabled when you select the Queue or Staff option.
User to receive email processing error notifications	Select the user who must receive email notification when an incident cannot be created through an email message. The email notification that is sent to the specified user contains error description and the original email message. If no user is selected in this field, email notifications are sent to the email address that is specified in the Route Error Emails to This Email Address field. The Route Error Emails to This Email Address field is available on the Remedyforce Administration > Configure Email > Email Services page. To change settings for the Emailcreateincident email service, click Edit in the Action column.
Save the email message in Action History	Allows you to save the email message to the Action History of the incident, which is created by that email message. The email message is saved as an Email Received record in the Action History section of the incident.
Identifying Email Sender: Enables you to compare the email address of email sender to more than one fields and assign the client to an incident if the email address of a received email does not match any of the client records.
If an Email is from a	Select the required option from the list. The Contact and Lead options are displayed in the list if theContact and Lead options are selected in the Client Users Include section on the Manage Users > User Settings page.
Available Email Fields	Select the fields with which you want to compare the email address present in the From field of the email message, and click the right arrow to move the selected fields to the Selected Email Fields list. To remove the selected fields, select the fields in the Selected Email Fields list and click the left arrow. Note: You cannot remove the Email field from the Selected Email Fields list. You must specify the search options for all the options available in the If an Email is from a field.
Client for Unidentified Sender	Select the appropriate client. If no match is found while comparing the fields selected in the Selected Email Fields list with the email address present in the From field of the email, the client that you select in the Client for Unidentified Sender field is used as the client for the incident when an incident is created from the email. If the Client for Unidentified Sender field is not specified, the email message is ignored and the incident is not created.
Mapping Email Content to Incident Fields: Enables you to configure mapping of the data in the email body, From email address, and Subject of the email to the fields of the Incident form.
Delimiter	Select the appropriate delimiter. To save data inside the email body, you need to enclose the data with a delimiter. For example, you select # as a delimiter. To get category from the email body, the category value must be enclosed in #, such as #Hardware#, in the email body. For guidelines to map Incident form fields to keywords in the email message, see Guidelines to map email content to Incident fields.
Include prefix in mapped fields	Select the check box to include prefixes, such as To:, From:, in the values of the incident fields that you map to an email message. For more information, see Including prefixes in mapped fields.
Incident Field	Select the field on the Incident form in which the data is saved.
Email Content	From the list, select the required option. The following options are provided: Email Message: Enables you to copy the content of the email message to the selected field. Sent: Enables you to copy the date and time when the email message was sent, to the selected field. From: Enables you to copy the From address of the email message to the selected field. To: Enables you to copy the To address of the email message to the selected field. Cc: Enables you to copy the Cc address of the email message to the selected field. Subject: Enables you to copy the subject of the email message to the selected field. Body: Enables you to copy the body of the email message to the selected field.
Keyword	Enter the keyword that is searched in the email message. You can specify a keyword to be searched only in the subject and body of the email message. When you specify a keyword, the word is searched in the subject or body and is copied to the mapped field instead of the entire content of the subject or body of the email message.
	To add the mapping.
	To remove a mapping.
	To update a mapping.

Guidelines to map email content to Incident fields

Ensure the following in the email message that you send to create incidents in BMC Remedyforce:

• If you have not mapped any email content, then the whole email body is saved as value in the Description field.
• You can map email content with the incident fields without entering any keyword. If you have mapped the email content to any field on the Incident form without entering any keyword, then the whole information is saved as value in the field. For example, if the Description field of the Incident form is mapped with body of the email message without any keyword, then while creating the incident, the whole email body is copied to the Description field.
• If you are using keywords, then the keyword is searched in the email message and the information is saved as value in the field. However, if you are using keywords, ensure the following points:
  • There should be no text between two consecutive keyword-value pairs.
  • BMC recommends that you must have keyword-value pair in different lines.
  • There should be no space between the keyword and value.
• If you have mapped the email content to any field on the Incident form, then the information is saved as value in the field.
• If the mapping contains Email Message, then the whole email content is saved as value in the mapped field.
• Ensure that the Date and Date Time format in the email is yyyy-mm-dd and yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss.
• You can use the delimiter only to map email content to the Incident form fields. If you use the delimiter other than for mapping purpose, there can be errors in mapping and failure in creating incident. However, you can also create incidents without using the delimiters.

• The following table describes the valid data types for mapping of email content:

  Email content mapping	Valid data types
  Sent	TextArea, Text
  From	TextArea, Text, Email
  To	TextArea, Text
  Cc	TextArea, Text
  Subject	Any Data type
  Body	Any Data type

Sample email message 1

From: johnSmith@abcCorp.com
To: helpdesk@xyz.com, somebody@gmail.com
Cc: xersus@actec.com, anybody@frog.com
Subject: Game server HDD crashed.
Body:
Game server HDD has crashed.
Game Server down. All APAC users off-line.

In this example, an incident is created by using the information from the received email message.

Sample email message 2

I need help for an issue for which the details are the following:
Config Item##BS1##
Category##Software##
Description##XYZ software not installing, says abc is the problem##

In this email message, Config Item is a keyword and BS1 is the value. In this example, consider that the Config Item keyword is mapped to Configuration Item lookup field on the Incident form.

In this example, if the Subject of the email message is mapped to the Incident Description field, and Category is added as a keyword, then the value of the Incident Description field is Software.

 Mapping of keywords is done on the Mapping Email Content to Incident Fields section.

Including prefixes in mapped fields

Prefixes, such as Body:, From:, and so on, are included or excluded from the mapped fields depending upon the status of the Include prefix in mapped fields check box and email content mapping with incident fields. The following table describes if the prefixes are included or not based on the field mapping and the status of the Include prefix in mapped fields check box.

Guidelines to map email content to incident template

When a client sends an email message to create an incident, the template can be applied to the incident along with pouplating the fields of that incident. To map email content to the incident template, you must perform the following configuration:

In the Mapping Email Content to Incident Fields section, configure the  Delimiter and Include prefix in mapped fields as shown in the image below.

Use the following syntax:

• When the option Create an incident only when the email subject contains is selected.
  

  <text> <delimiter> <delimiter> <keyword1><delimiter><value1><delimiter>...<keywordN><delimiter><valueN><delimiter>
  
  For example, 
  OPEN CALL ## ## Template##Application Access Request## Impact##LOW##

• When the option Create an incident with any email subject is selected.
  

  <delimiter> <delimiter> <keyword1><delimiter><value1><delimiter>...<keywordN><delimiter><valueN><delimiter>
  
  For example, 
  ## ## Template##Application Access Request## Impact##LOW##

  The placeholders are defined as follows:

text: The string of words that should match the words provided in the Create an incident only when the email subject contains option. The words must be included at the beginning of the email subject.

delimiter: The symbol selected in the Delimiter field.

keywordN: The keyword provided for a selected field in the Email Keyword field.

valueN: The value provided for a keyword.

Use cases for email and template mapping

• The setting Create an incident with any email subject is enabled.
• The client sends an email with the subject as follows. 

      #### Template##Application Access Request## Impact##LOW## Category##Software##

In this scenario, an incident will be created and the template, Application Access Request, will be applied to that incident. Also, the incident fields Impact and Category will be assigned the values Low and Software respectively.

Note that the template that is mentioned in the email message is applied to the incident only if the template name in the email message is specified in the beginning of either the subject line or any line in the body of that email message. The following use cases describe the valid scenarios where an incident will be created with the specified template name.

Related topic

Searching for matching incidents