Record creation and updates by email

You can add attachments to these email messages. Email Engine priorities are mapped to Microsoft Outlook priorities. When an email is sent with high importance, a ticket is created with the Urgency set to High, irrespective of the values defined in the template for the Priority and Urgency fields.

For step-by-step procedures that describe how to create incident requests or add work information using email, see the following topics:

Before you start

To create and update records by email, the following processes must be completed by a system administrator:

• Configure the BMC Remedy Email Engine, as described in: Configuring-BMC-Remedy-Email-Engine.
• Configure the Email Rule Engine, as described in Configuring-the-Email-Rule-Engine.

For you to create or update records using email, you must have your own email address recorded in the Email Address field of your People form record. Ask your system administrator to ensure that your People form record includes your email address.

Email record creation workflow

After the email message arrives in the BMC Remedy Email Engine mailbox, the Email Rule Engine evaluates the message based on a set of rules that are provided both out-of-the-box and by your system administrator. The email message must pass two sets of checks. The first check determines if any text that appears in the subject line of the email message is on the Excluded Subject list. For example, if the subject line contains Delivery Error, the email message is rejected, because that phrase is on the Excluded Subjects list.

If the email message passes the check for excluded subjects, the Email Rule Engine then evaluates the content of the email message according to the Email Rule Engine use cases. The Email Rule Engine use cases are configured by your system administrator. When the Email Rule Engine matches the email message with a use case, it processes the message according to the rules associated with the use case. When the email message is matched to a use case, the Email Rule Engine stops the checking process; it runs only one use case against any given email message, even if other use cases might apply. If an email message does not match any of the configured or the default use cases, the Email Rule Engine rejects it.

The following diagram illustrates the workflow.

Example of creating a request and updating it by using email

In an environment that is configured to create and update records using email, an Email Rule Engine use case is defined as follows:

• The key words are locked and ID.
• If the key words are in the subject line, the Email Rule Engine creates an incident request from the Locked User ID template (this is an example template name; your system might have different templates).

1. A customer submits an email message with the following text in the subject line: "incident request, locked ID for user singhr". When the email message arrives at the BMC Remedy Email Engine mailbox, the following events take place:
2. The Email Rule Engine runs the following tasks:
   1. Scans the Subject field for excluded subject and finds none
   2. Evaluates the email message according to the configured use cases
   3. Discovers that the content of the Subject field matches the criteria in one of the use cases
   4. Creates an incident request, using the Locked User ID template
   5. Copies the details of the email message into the incident request's Work Information form.
3. The Incident Management assignment rules assign the new incident request to a help desk analyst.
4. The help desk analyst:
   1. Opens the new incident request, reviews the details, and has a question about some of the information in the request.
   2. Sends the question to the customer directly from the incident request, using the Email function.

5. The customer:

   1. Receives the email message and reads it.
   2. The customer answer and sends the response to the Help Desk Analyst.

   1. The Email Rule Engine adds the response to the incident request as a work information entry.
6. The Email Rule Engine 
   1. Scans the subject field.
   2. Subject field matches the criteria.
   3. Retrieves the incident request.
   4. Adds the response to the Work Info.
7. The help desk analyst:
   1. Opens the incident request and reviews the work information.
   2. With the information provided by the customer, the help desk analyst can close the incident request.

The following diagram illustrates this example.