Sending email messages
To compose emails
To send an email from an incident ticket, open the incident, and then click the Email icon.
In the To field, you can specify the name, login ID, email address, or corporate ID to search for a recipient. who has a profile in BMC Helix ITSM. For people who do not have a profile in BMC Helix ITSM, enter their email addresses. You cannot use accelerators—exclamation mark (!) to populate the To field with content from fields on the ticket, such as the assignee. If you select the Only search people related to this ticket checkbox, you can only see people who are associated with the ticket.
In the To field, press the ↓ key to see the suggestions for email recipients as described in the following table:
Ticket type | Suggested email recipients on the ticket | Suggested email recipients on selecting tickets from the Ticket Console |
---|---|---|
Incident |
|
|
Problem investigation | Assignee | Assignee |
Known error | Assignee | Assignee |
The ticket ID and ticket title is automatically populated in the SUBJ field. You can add or modify the subject of the email. In case of UC, the ticket ID and ticket title is also prepopulated in the Connected To placeholder area. You can enter up to 254 byte characters in the email subject.
When you type email content, you can use accelerators to include accurate ticket details in your email.
- Type an exclamation mark (!) in the email content area or select the Help using accelerators to insert content option.
BMC Helix ITSM opens a list of accelerators, which are fields from the ticket. - Select an accelerator and the system adds the value of the field to the email content.
For example, if you select the accelerator !Description, BMC Helix ITSM inserts the description of the ticket in the email content area.
BMC Helix ITSMprovides predefined accelerators that differ as per the ticket type. Accelerators are the key fields of the ticket type. You cannot customize accelerators.
To send an email with attachment and with a link to a knowledge article from a ticket
To attach files when you compose an email from a ticket, click the Attach file link. You can also add a related knowledge article to an incident or a work order by using the Add knowledge article link. The knowledge article is sent as an URL in the email.
In an email, you can attach only one file or a pinned knowledge article.
The incident might or might not be resolved, but the service desk agent can send a knowledge article that will help customers to resolve the issue. The agent can send an article that is pinned to the incident.
- You can attach articles irrespective of the status they are in. However, they must have the Publish to External Audiences option set to Yes.
- The current copy of the pinned article is attached to the email.
- In case of multiple versions of an article, only the version that you pinned to the incident can be sent as an email attachment.
- The article could be created from any type of supported knowledge article template, including custom templates.
- A link to the knowledge article that you emailed is available in the Activity feed of the ticket and in the Updates feed of those following the incident. You can click the link to view the complete article in a separate window.
- The RKM:SHR_RKM_Document_Email_Status form in mid-tier screens of BMC Helix ITSM shows the status of the sent email that has an article attached to it, and maintains the email failure logs.
- The content of the article could be in any language that BMC Helix ITSM supports, except Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Hebrew.
- Sending articles as email attachments is an asynchronous process, and hence might take some time to deliver to the recipient.
To track emails in the Activity feed and the Updates feed
The Activity feed and Updates feed help you to get details of the emails sent from a ticket. When the system successfully delivers the email, BMC Helix ITSM adds a feed about the email to the Activity feed of the ticket and the Updates feed of the followers of that ticket. You can search for emails in filters available in the Activity feed and Updates feed.
A link to the knowledge article that you emailed is available in the Activity and Updates feed. You can click the link to view the complete article.
The Activity feed displays the name of the person who sent the email, the number of recipients, and attachment, if any. You can select the number of recipients to see their name. You can select the name to view the profile. If the recipient is not registered with BMC Helix ITSM, when you click the recipient's name, an email window with the email address of the person pre-populated in the To field is displayed.
If the underlying BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk installation is configured to allow the creation and the updating of tickets by email (version 8.1.00 and later) and the recipient replies to the email note sent from the ticket, then BMC Helix ITSM adds the reply to the ticket and to the Activity and Updates feed.
To track emails in the Email status form
When you send an email with a file or a knowledge article attached to it, you can view the email delivery in the NTE:Notifier log form and the AR System Email Messages form in Mid Tier.
You can track the status of sent emails and PDF conversion of the article in the RKM:SHR_RKM_Document_Email_Status form in BMC Helix ITSM. To find out the status of the email, enter details of the email such as the incident ID, knowledge article ID, email subject, or the date of sending the email:
The form maintains a record of the email that the system failed to deliver. The following reasons could lead to failure in delivering emails:
- The email server or the classic Smart IT server is down
- The attached file is corrupt
- The file size is more than the set limits
- The file type is not supported in BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk or BMC Helix ITSM
- Invalid email addresses of the recipients
- Issues in PDF conversion
Based on the reason given in the form, you may rectify the error and resend the email.
Updating filters while updating out-of-the-box email template
If you copy and rename an out-of-the-box template, you need to update the run-if qualification for the filters for the new template name, so that the Source ID gets associated correctly for the new template. For example, if you rename ITSM_Generic_Template and it has a run-if qualification ('EmailTemplateName' = "ITSM_Generic_Template"), then you need to update the following filters:
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetIncidentType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetProblemType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetReleaseApprovalType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetChangeApprovalType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetActivityType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetReleaseType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetKnownErrorType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetWorkOrderType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetChangeType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetRequestType
- NTE:NTS:Email_SystemNT_with_EmailTemplateSetTaskType
Instructions for classic interfaces