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Creating incidents and retrieving incident status through email messages

BMC Remedyforce uses email services to allow users to create incidents or retrieve the status of incidents through email messages. Additionally, email services also allow staff members to interact with customers through emails. For more information, see Configuring-email-conversation.

The following video (8:06) provides an overview of creating email services to configure Remedyforce to create incidents through email messages.


icon-play.png https://youtu.be/sKB3Rp3mxvI

Precondition

To create incidents and to retrieve incident status through email messages, perform the following tasks:

Email service creation

If you want your users to create incidents or retrieve the status of incidents through email messages, you must create an email service and add one of the following out-of-the-box Apex classes to the email service:

Apex class

Description

EmailListener

To create incidents and retrieve the status of incidents through email messages.

EmailCreateIncident

To create incidents through email messages. Also, use this Apex class when you are configuring integration with BMC Server Automation and BMC End User Experience Management.

EmailIncidentStatus

To retrieve the status of incidents through email messages.

GenericEmailListener

To create incidents through events generated in BMC TrueSight Operations Management (before version 10.0, BMC TrueSight Operations Management was known as BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management).

Note: Use this Apex class only when you are integrating BMC Remedyforce with BMC TrueSight Operations Management.

ChangeRequestEmailListener

To create change requests in BMC Remedyforce from BMC Server Automation.

To create email services

  1. Click the Remedyforce Administration tab.
  2. On the Home page, click the Configure Email tile, and select Email Services.
  3. Click New Email Service.

  4. In the Email Service Name field, type the name of your email service.

    Note

    BMC recommends that you add BMCRF at the beginning of the email service's name so that you can differentiate BMC Remedyforce email services from the other email services that you create.

  5. Click the Apex Class lookup.

  6. In the Search field, type Email and click Go.
    The list of Apex classes that begin with Email in the Name field is displayed. 

    Note

    If the search results do not display any Apex classes with Email in the Name field, you must compile all Apex classes by navigating to Setup > Develop > Apex Classes and clicking the Compile all classes link.

    compile_classes.gif

     

  7. In the Lookup window, click the required Apex class.
  8. From the Accept Attachments list, select All.

  9. Select the Convert Text Attachments to Binary Attachments check box to ensure that attachments are not lost or deleted from the email.

    Note

    By default, the total size of an email message that a user can send to report an issue cannot exceed 25 MB. The maximum size of email messages for email services varies depending on language and character set. The size of an email message includes the email headers, body, attachments, and encoding. As a result, an email with a 25 MB attachment would likely exceed the 25 MB total size limit for an email message after accounting for the size of headers, body, and encoding.

    While creating a service request, if a corrupted image is added inline with the email, the email content is saved as plain text in the Note field under Action History.

  10. To enable the email service, select the Active check box. 
    Email_Service_Final.gif
  11. Depending on your organization's requirements, configure the remaining fields.
    For more information, see Salesforce Help.
  12. To save the email service and configure an email address for this email service, click Save and New Email Address.
  13. Navigate to Email Service Address > Email Address Information and type the user name of the email address. 
  14. A unique domain name is created and assigned to the email address by Salesforce.com.
    For more information, see Salesforce Help.

  15. After adding the required the required Apex class, you must configure an email address for the email service. The Apex class processes the email that is sent to the email address that you have configured.
    For more information about email services, see Salesforce Help. For information about the email limits of your Salesforce organization, see Salesforce Help.

    Note

    If an incident cannot be created through an email message, an email notification is sent to the email address from which the email message was received and to the user that you have specified to receive such email notifications on the Incident - Email Settings page (accessed from the Configure Email tile). For more information, see Settings-to-create-incidents-by-using-email-messages. The email notification that is sent to the user contains error description and the original email message.

  16. To activate the email address, select the Active check box.
  17. Click the Context User lookup.
  18. In the Lookup window, click the required user.
    When an incident is created through email, by default, the incident is assigned to the user configured as the Context User in the email service. This user does not receive a notification email when the incident is created. You must create workflows for the Context User to receive email notifications when an incident is assigned to the Context User. For more information, see Configuring workflows.
    (Optional) In the Accept Email From field, type the valid email addresses.
  19. The email service address accepts emails from these email addresses only.
  20. Click Save.

To create an incident through email messages

  1. Create email services. For more information, see To create email services.
  2. Configure Incident email settings, For more information, see Settings-to-create-incidents-by-using-email-messages.
  3. Users must send emails to the email address that is displayed in the Email Addresses section of the Email Service page. After an incident is created by an email message, the values of the following fields are displayed in the Description field of the incident:
  • From
  • Sent (date and time the email message was sent in the format that is set for your Salesforce organization)
  • To (if available)
  • Cc (if available)
  • Subject
  • Body (if you have not mapped the body of the content to any incident field)

 

If any formatting was applied to the text in the email message, the formatting is not retained when staff members open the email message.

 

Note

Do not use the Ref:IN keyword in the subject or body of the email message with which you want to create an incident.

 The email listener searches for the Ref:# keyword in the subject or body of the email message and interprets the message by considering the following points:


    • If the keyword is same or different in the subject and body of the email message, the information provided on the subject of the email message is used.
    • If the keyword is present only in the subject or body of the email message, the information provided in the subject or body of the email message is used.

Note

Work with your Email Administration group to set up a rule to forward all emails that come to your outbound email address (servicedesk@bmc.com). These emails must be forwarded to the email address (servicedesk@w-16m7yz3cj78e5esxxntd47ttf.in.salesforce.com) of your email service.

For more information about configuring your email server, see the documentation of your email server.

To retrieve an incident status through email messages

  1. Navigate to Setup > App Setup > Create > Workflow & Approvals and click Workflow Rules.
  2. Click the Update the incident’s status through email (Managed) check box.
  3. Select the Active check box.
  4. Navigate to Setup > Build > Develop and create Email Services by selecting EmailListener or EmailIncidentStatus in the Apex Class field. For more information, see To create email services.
  5. Users must send emails to the email address that is displayed in the Email Addresses section of the Email Service page.

Note

For retrieving incident status, the subject of the mail must be "call status #XXXXXX".

Only the person whose name is mentioned in the Client ID field can retrieve the incident status.

 

Related topic

Searching-for-matching-incidents

 

 

 

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