Email import (account setup)

This Email importing page allows email accounts to be set up for importing of all email that arrives into those accounts. It also provides a function to manually import emails, but automatic importing would normally be set up using System>Batch process menu>Background processing>Import email.

How to use this page to set up email account for importing

Each email address that you set up uses a Request form that you specify in the setup, to load the new question into RefTracker. Because different forms can be used for each different email address, emails arriving in the different email addresses can be handled differently according to what you specify in your form design. Allowing a different Request form to be associated with each incoming email address makes this system very powerful. So, for example, reference questions might come into one email address and result in a confirmation email going to the client and the question being put in the pool. SMS’s converted to email could come into another so that their Received via value can be set to SMS and their Priority can be set to high – for SMS’s you would most likely not want to send a confirmation to the client but you may want to immediately allocate the question to a staff member to ensure a fast response. You have the full power of Request forms available to you to determine how questions arriving at each email address are handled, and you can have as many different email addresses as you need to allow the arriving emails to be handled in different ways.

To add a new entry to the Email import setup click on the + sign on the top line of the table and complete the boxes presented.

The fields in this screen are:

Account description: A textual description that identifies the purpose of this entry to you. Email Server type: At present all addresses must be set up as pop3. Your email administrator should be asked to set up this protocol for this email address. If you have an Altarama hosted system, Altarama can provide you with altarama.com, reference-service.info, and libraryreseach.info email addresses, set up with pop3, specifically for this purpose.
Email server: The domain of the email server hosting the email account that will be used for this entry. Username: The full email account address that will be used for this entry. All email sent to this account will be picked up and brought into RefTracker. The pop3 protocol used ensures that after an email is picked up by RefTracker it is deleted from this email account so the account must be dedicated to this use with RefTracker. The account used here should be an account that has had spam filtering applied to it to ensure spam questions are not created in RefTracker from spam arriving in this account. In the future Altarama will add an option to apply the same content checking that can be applied to questions coming in through RefTracker Request forms.
Password: The pop3 password for this account – RefTracker will have to present this password each time it wants to pick up email from this email account. Delay (ms): An allowance for delays when reading from the pop server. A shorter time than the default 500 can be used when RefTracker resides on the same network as the email server. You should only need to use a larger value if the access is timing out (ask Altarama for advice if this is happening to you).
Upload Request form: This is the RefTracker form that will be used to create the new question from questions arriving as emails picked up from this account – so it is only applicable when the Email Account Task is “New Request”. The form defines the labels that will be used to display this question and can be used to automatically include other information that is known because of the email address into which the question has arrived such as Request type, Client location, Priority, and Received via. You can use a form that you use for other purposes, or you can design one specifically to suit the emails coming into this email address. Emails can include attachments and, unless you specifically want to prevent attachments from coming in with imported emails, it is important that your Request form design has the “Allow question attachments” box ticked in the “Edit options” “Other options” tab, so the imported attachments can be viewed (and deleted if suspicious). Allowing a different form for each email address allows you to cope with the different requirements of different sorts of arriving emails – for example, if you have SMS’s arriving into an email address you can set up the Request form so that “Received via” is SMS. “Response method” should always be set as email as the only contact details provided by an incoming email is the “reply to” email address. In new systems a distribution Request form called “Email import” has been provided as an example of the form that would be used for this purpose (existing customers can see it on our development system accessible from our supportsite). Note that even though this form is set with no client or staff availability, it works still with the email import function.
Task type: “Service account” defines that the emails coming into this account will all be replies and notifications in relation to the emails being sent out by RefTracker (in other words it’s the email address specified in your RefTracker parameter 1.2. Where an email comes into this account with a valid RefTracker question number in the subject line, a note containing the name, email address, subject line and body of that email will be added to the History of that question number, and the staff member currently allocated that question, if any, will be sent an email containing the text of the email and a link to the question in RefTracker so they can work on it. Where the email does not have a valid question number in the subject line, the email’s details stay in the batch summary where they can be viewed (by clicking the “Select” icon for that Email pickup run in the Account log). We envisage that in the future your System Administrator will be automatically advised if any email cannot be processed so that they can manage these exceptions manually.
“New Request” defines that the emails coming into this account will all be new questions. For each email received into this account a new RefTracker question will be created that contains the subject line followed by the body of that email as the Question text, the sender’s email address in the Client email field, and their email name into the Client name field, using the Request form that you define in this set up. So any other data specified in that Request form such as Request type, Priority or Location will also be included in the question, and the processing specified by the form, such as sending a confirmation email, will be automatically undertaken.
“Answer import” defines that the emails coming into this account will all be requests that have already been responded to. For each email received into this account a new RefTracker question will be created that contains the subject line followed by “See answer email trail for details” as the question text, and the body of that email recorded as the Answer, the To address becomes the client email address (if it is not the email address of this answer importing account), and the sender’s email address must be a staff member’s email address as it is recorded as the staff member who closed this request, all using the Request form that you define in this set up. So any other data specified in that Request form such as Request type, Priority or Location will also be included in the question that is created, and the processing specified by the form, such as whether the request should be placed in Answer review status, will be automatically undertaken.
Any time (+nn) specified in the subject line will be recorded as time spent on answering this request.
If a valid request number is specified in the subject line, the body of this imported email will be recorded as the answer to that already existing request.
Enabled: This column allows you to define whether this email address is active (1) or not (0). You can manually run pickups from inactive email addresses but inactive addresses will have Background processes created for them. A Background process must have been created by enabling your email account here, before for you can set up automatic importing from this address using Batch processing.

Once an entry has been added to the Email import setup screen you can change it by clicking on the Edit symbol on the far right of its line.

You can delete it by clicking on the Delete symbol on the far right of its line.

View email log functions for an email account set up for importing

When your email account/s are set up you will want to test the setup and then enable the Background process for them so that emails will be imported automatically. You may also want to view the logs that record the emails imported and processed by RefTracker.

To set up automatic uploading from the email addresses you have defined as enabled, or test your setup manually, and to view logs of pickups from this email account click on the “View mail log. . . ” icon on the end of the appropriate account setup line.

The information provided in this part of the screen is:
Date entered: the date and time at which the import process was run. Messages imported: the number of messages downloaded from the email server.
Messages ignored: the number of questions for which no action was taken (System administrators should check whether manual action is required in relation to these questions by clicking on the “View mail log” icon at the end of the line).
Questions added: the number of new questions created in RefTracker (when the account is a New requests account).
Questions updated: the number of RefTracker questions updated (when the account is a Service account).
Email log status: shows “loaded” when the import process has been completed.

To set up automatic importing of emails from this account click on the “Schedule email import process” button. Details of how to use this function are provided in a later section.

To run a manual pickup click on the “Import emails now” button. You might do this in order to test your email setup. The system will bring the details of all emails in that email account into a table of emails and then process each email into RefTracker creating a new question using the Request forms specified if the Mail Account Task is “New question”, or creating an update to an existing question where a valid question number can be found in the subject line if the Email Account Task is “Service account”. It may take some time to process the emails that have accumulated in your email account (about 1 second per email). After the upload completes a summary of the run will display below the “Import emails now” button as shown in the screen print above.

View email log

If you want to view a detailed log of that Email import run you can click on the “click here” link provided in the summary. To view the log for any run click on the spy glass icon at the right hand end of the line of the Account log for that run.

Each email picked up by the run is listed, whether it was processed or not. Emails that are not processed should be examined by the System administrator and any appropriate manual action should be taken by the System Administrator.

The summary shows:
– the four pieces of data that were picked up by the Email import function from each received email: Client name; Email address (the reply to email address if one was supplied by the email), otherwise the from address); Subject; and Body
– Mail message status which shows how the message was processed by RefTracker. “Ignored” means that the Service email address process could not find a valid RefTracker question number in the subject line of the email and so could not create an update to a question from it. In the future System administrators will be automatically notified if any emails are ignored – but at present they must view this log and process the ignored emails manually, if they need to be processed. Question added indicates a new question was created and the question number created shows in the Question column. You can click on this question number to go directly to the Answer screen for that question. Note added indicates a note was add the Question number indicated in the Question column. An email will have been sent to the staff member currently allocated this question, if any, showing the note that was added and providing links that allow the staff member to work on the question. Ignored indicates an email arriving at the Service email address did not have a valid question number in its subject line and so could not be applied to any existing question. In the rare case where this is actually a valid update to a question, the System administrator may want to cut and paste the details of this email into RefTracker form this screen.
– Question link – a link to the question that was created or updated (goes to the Answer screen, Answer tab for newly created questions and to the Details tab of the Summary screen for updates to existing questions). The System Administrator can use this link to work on this question immediately by clicking on it.

For more details about what this page is used for click here.