2.20 Using email commands to update ticket properties

Email Commands in Helpdesk allow you to perform activities on a ticket directly from your email inbox, without having to login to your service desk. You can do this by simply adding a one line email command syntax when you are responding to the ticket. For example, you could perform activities such as changing the ticket status, assign it to a different agent or add a note to a ticket when you are replying to the ticket from your email.

Please note that this will only work if you have been added as an agent within the Helpdesk account. The Email Command text will be stripped out automatically by Helpdesk and will not be seen by the requestor, however the rest of the text will become part of the conversation.

Here’s a sample that will explain email commands:

What you send:

Hi John,

@dws "status":"pending","priority":"medium","agent":"John Robert" @dws

Thank you for getting in touch with us. We have escalated your issue and we are giving it our full attention.

Thanks,

James Noname

What the customer gets to see:

Hi John,

Thank you for getting in touch with us. We have escalated your issue and we are giving it our full attention.

Thanks,

James Noname

Meanwhile, Helpdesk identifies your email command and as instructed, changes the status of the ticket to pending, marks it as medium priority and assigns it to John Robert. The rest of your email content will be added as a conversation and also sent to the Requestor via email.

All email commands should be in the syntax mentioned above. In the above example, @dws is the delimiter text within which the actual command text needs to be inserted. This can be changed to anything you want.

Using Email Commands with Custom Ticket Fields:

Email commands also work with any custom fields that you have added to your ticket form. For example:

@dws "Resolution provided":"Work complete" @dws

Similarly you could use commands to manipulate your helpdesk tickets right from your mailbox. Here are more sample email commands for reference.

“status”:”closed” -Changes the ticket status to closed

“priority”:”high” -Assigns the ticket as a high priority

“source”:”email” -Notifies the source as email

“group”:”sales” -Assigns to the Sales group

“product”:[name] -Assign under Product [name]

“Agent name”:[support] -Assign to [agent name or email ID]

“action”:”note” - Adds a private note to the ticket. Be careful with this command! In this case, the “action”:”note” command must be typed verbatim, do not get confused into thinking that the “note” area is a free-text field, it is NOT! As soon as this command is added to an email, the entire content of the E-mail becomes “private” and will only be visible to the Agent who has been assigned to the ticket.

“resolution provided”:”free-text field” - add a note about solution into the free-text field.

“closure provided”:”free-text field” - add a note how you have agreed a solution with the requestor into the free-text field.