Configuring Mail Server Settings for ServiceDesk module of IT360

This section is common to all the editions of IT360 - Professional Edition, Enterprise Edition and the MSP Edition. In the case of Enterprise Edition and MSP Edition, the ServiceDesk module is present in their respective Central Servers and not in the Probes. Hence, effectively, this section applies to the Professional Edition, the Central Server of Enterprise Edition and the Central Server of MSP Edition.

The Servicedesk module of IT360 needs to be configured for incoming and outgoing emails. Clicking on the Servicedesk tab -- Admin tab -- Mail Server Settings takes you to the configuration page of Mail Server Settings. The following are accomplished:

• Incoming Email setting for the ServiceDesk module
• Outgoing Email setting for the ServiceDesk module
• Creating a Spam filter
• Setting Email commands

Incoming Mail Settings

To configure the incoming e-mail settings,

1. In the Helpdesk tab, click the Mail Server Settings icon . The Mail Server Settings page is displayed as shown below:

2. All the fields marked * are mandatory fields. Enter the server name, user name, password, e-mail address, email type, port, and the time interval in which the mail needs to be fetched periodically. The time period is in minutes. The e-mail type is a combo box from which you need to select the value.

3. Click Save. On successful connection to the server, the success message is displayed.

Outgoing Mail Settings

To configure the outgoing mail settings,

1. In the Email Settings page, click the Outgoing tab. The outgoing mail settings form is displayed as above.

2. Enter the outgoing mail server name / IP address, reply-to e-mail address, and port. These three are the mandatory fields.

3. If there is an alternate server, then enter its name in the Alternate Server Name / IP Address field.

4. Enter the name of the sender in the Sender's Name field.

5. Choose the e-mail type, which is usually SMTP and SMTPS. By default, the port associatged to SMTP is 25 and the port associated to SMTPS is 465.

6. If required, you can enable Transport Layer Security (TLS) from the drop down.

7. If your SMTP server for outgoing mails require authentication, then select the check box Requires Authentication.

8. Enter the User Name and Password in the respective fields.

9. Click Save.

Spam Filter

You can mark all you junk mails into spam by defining filter criteria for the mails. Once you set a criteria say, "Subject contains Out of Office or Spam", then mails matching this criteria will be dropped and no new request will be created out of them. To configure Spam Filter,

1. Click Spam Filter tab.

   

2. Define a rule on selecting a Criteria from the drop down list and also mention the Condition.

3. Specify the filter content in the given text field by clicking choose button.

4. Say, if criteria is Sender and condition is is then the content can be "mailer-deamon".

5. Click Add to Rules button to add the criteria to the rules and match it with the incoming mails. Specify Match all of the following (And) or Match any of the following (OR) option to match with the rule by selecting any of the radio buttons.

6. Click Save.   

E-Mail Command

Currently, when e-mails are received, various fields are set according to business rules. E-mail Command allows the technician to delimit fields in the e-mail, according to which the e-mail can be parsed and corresponding fields can be set.

Consider a scenario where business rules needs to be created for the following criteria:

• To assign Category based on subject:

1. When Subject contains "Printer", set Category as "Printers"

2. When Subject contains "Network", set Category as "Network"
3. When Subject contains "Routers", set Category as "Hardware"
4. When Subject contains "Switches", set Category as "Hardware"

• To assign Priority based on subject:

1. When Subject contains "High Priority", set Priority as "High"

2. When Subject contains "Low Priority", set Priority as "Low"

• To assign Urgency based on subject:

1. When Subject contains "Urgent", set urgency as "Urgent"

2. When Subject contains "High Urgency", set urgency as "High"

For example, when the subject contains "Printer" and "High Priority" or when the subject contains "Printer" and "Low Priority", separate business rules have to be written for each criteria. This becomes complicated further when more fields need to be set based on the incoming e-mail. We need to have hundreds of business rules to achieve combinations of several fields and that will complicate the entire business rule section.

Also, consider another scenario where business rules for incoming e-mails are set as follows:

• When Category is "Printer", Subject contains "Crash" and Priority is "Low", place in Group "Hardware problems"

Suppose an incoming e-mail has a subject line "Printer Crash" with high priority, then the request field will be set as "Category = Printer" with "Priority = Low" based on the existing business rule.

E-mail command overcomes this complication. Request fields can be defined through an e-mail itself. An incoming e-mail is parsed, and various request fields are set from the e-mail content based on the parsing delimiters.

To configure E-mail Command,

1. In the E-mail Settings page, click on E-mail Command tab. The E-mail Command configuration screen is displayed.

2. Click on the check box Enable E-mail Command to activate the e-mail parsing feature. If this option is not selected, then the incoming e-mail will be handled as a normal mail based on established business rules even if the incoming e-mails contain the parsing string in the subject.
3. In the E-mail Subject contains text box, enter valid subject that determines the e-mails which have to be parsed. E-mails containing this text will be parsed for various fields. Assume the E-mail Subject identifier is given as @@SDP@@, then all e-mails with subject as @@SDP@@ alone will be considered for parsing.
4. Provide any special character (@@, ##, $$, %%, &&, so on) as the Command Delimiter. The field values assigned between these special characters are assigned to the corresponding fields while the requests are created. Assume if the Command Delimiter is @@and category field needs to be set to Printer, then the email description should contain @@Category=Printer@@.

Notes:

• A request can be created/edited/closed/picked up by a technician through e-mails. Operational string "Operation = AddRequest", "Operation = EditRequest", "Operation = CloseRequest" and "Operation = PickupRequest" is used for this purpose.

• To edit, pick up or close a request through e-mail, the corresponding operational string (EditRequest/PickupRequest/CloseRequest) and the RequestId must be present. If not, the e-mail will be processed normally and treated as a new request.

• When a request is edited through an e-mail, the conversation will not be added in the request. Hence attachments and inline images in the e-mail will not be updated in the request. However, the update information will be added in the history.

• If the field name given in the e-mail is not available in ManageEngine IT360, then parsing will be excluded for that field.

• If there is more than one value present for a particular field in an e-mail, then the last value alone will be taken and others will be discarded.

• Request threads with subject containing the "RequestId" and no operational string (UpdateRequest) will be updated as a normal conversation and a new request will not be created.

• The e-mail sender should have a log in for ManageEngine IT360 for the E-mail Command to happen. This is because, various operations that can be handled by a user to parse an e-mail are defined by the user's Role. Request authorization (close a request, pick up a request, update a request, accept closure of a request and so on) are set using Roles in ManageEngine IT360.

• The e-mail sender will be considered as the requester if the requester name is not specified in the e-mail.

• Permissions and Parameters supported:

• If the e-mail sender is a requester with requester permissions, then the fields that be parsed are limited. A requester can parse only those fields that he can view in the request form while creating a request.

• If the e-mail sender is a technician with technician permissions, then the fields that can be parsed are same as those fields that he can view in the request form while creating a request.

• Fields that can be parsed are LEVEL, MODE, PRIORITY, URGENCY, IMPACT, CATEGORY, SUBCATEGORY, ITEM, GROUP, TECHNICIAN, TECHE-MAIL, REQUESTER, REQUESTERE-MAIL, REQUESTID, REQUESTTEMPLATE, REQUESTTYPE, STATUS, SITE, ASSET and additional field label (the field label given in the e-mail must match the field label set in the product)

• To change the fields that a requester or a technician can parse, go to Admin --> Request Templates (under Helpdesk domain), select Default Template and add or remove the fields.

• The RequestId present in the description of the e-mail it will be given higher precedence over the RequestId present in the subject of the e-mail.

Consider an example:

1. To create an e-mail that has to be parsed, the subject of the e-mail should be same as defined in the configurations (E-mail Subject contains), for example, "@@SDP@@" and the content is as follows:

@@CATEGORY = Printers@@
@@PRIORITY = High@@
@@URGENCY = Normal@@
@@LEVEL = Tier 4@@
@@MODE = E-mail@@
@@IMPACT = Affects User@@
@@GROUP = Network@@

When the request is created, say with a Request ID 6735352, the fields for the request are set based on the above content from the parsed e-mail.

2. To edit this request, say to assign a Technician or a Sub-Category, operational string "OPERATION = EditRequest" along with the RequestId (or WorkOrderId) and the delimiting fields have to be specified in the e-mail as follows:

@@OPERATION = EditRequest@@
@@REQUESTID = 6735352@@
@@TECHNICIAN = Administrator@@

This updates the request 6735352 and assigns 'Administrator' to the'Technician' field.

3. To pick up the request through an e-mail, the technician who has 'AssigningTechnician' permission should specify the operational string "PickupRequest" along with the RequestId should be mentioned in the e-mail. The technician can pick up the request only if the request falls under his site.

@@OPERATION = PickupRequest@@

@@REQUESTID = 6735352@@

3. To close the above request (6735352) through an e-mail, the operational string (CloseRequest) and the Request ID has to be present in the content of the e-mail.

@@OPERATION = CloseRequest@@

@@REQUESTID = 6735352@@