Match incident numbers in e-mail
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Seamless
July 20th, 2009
We send a ticket to a service provider. This has the default #0000 incident number in it. We prefix the incident number so it is [XYZ #0000]
They reply, and ADD their own ticket number.
Helpdesk creates a new incident and does not match up the reply with the original incident.
What is the best way to handle this?
Thanks
Filed under: Helpdesk Solution, Endpoint Management and Virtualization
I believe the only way your
I believe the only way your inboxes will update the correct incident is if the incident number is in the email subject. So you have to work out a deal with them to keep your incident number in the subject when they reply to you. If that is not feasible than I am not sure how you would get around this without manual work.
By default, the Altiris
By default, the Altiris Helpdesk will match incidents on email subject lines looking for a match on '#nnnn', where nnnn is some number. As you've seen this creates a problem when dealing with tickets which pass between multiple helpdesks.
The way I usually avoid this to modify the string the helpdesk matches on when parsing emails. Instead of matching on '#nnnn' for example, you can match on subject lines containing 'Incident #nnnn' instead. Only the Altiris helpdesk seems to use the 'Incident' text prefix, so this usually works fine.
To do this, you'll need to change the contents of formats.xml in C:\Program Files\Altiris\Helpdesk\AexHD\bin.
Look for the line,
and replace with,
Here i've chosen to match on just 'ncident' so that both Incident and incident prefixes will match -handy when you want to update tickets by firing specifically crafted emails into the helpdesk.
Note that formats.xml will be replaced on a AlertManager/Helpdesk repair, or upgrade. I tend to keep files like this tucked away in a custom folder which holds a batch script to replace files like this after performing any process which might 'downgrade' my mods.
Hope this helps,
Ian./
Ian Atkin
Senior Developer for the ICT Support Team,
Oxford University, UK
Thanks very much, that's
Thanks very much, that's exactly what I was hoping to find.
That works thanks. Initially
That works thanks. Initially I enclosed the ticket number in brackets [ XYZ #nnnn] but I found that this gives an error:
Source: AlertManager.ProcessInboxes
Description: Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: i
I removed the square brackets and all is well. I guess they are interpreted differently by whatever is parsing the subject line.
Don't forget to mark this as
Don't forget to mark this as the solution -it lets others know this post has been solved!
As for the square brackets, it doesn't surprise me that this gives a problem as the matching will be using regular expressions with the complication of additional parsing by Altiris (which is the error you are seeing from Alert Manager). I tried initially to do something funky with escape characters, but in the end the only thing which worked was this simple fix.
Kind Regards,
Ian./
Ian Atkin
Senior Developer for the ICT Support Team,
Oxford University, UK
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