Email Processing Logic Changes
Along with the introduction of the new 'Unprocessed Emails' feature in Work Manager (which allows agent users to select the correct course of action in the rare case that an incoming email does not get processed), AND the new features to support communications between multiple internal teams we're modifying some of the configuration requirements for Mailbox and Email Routes, and adjusting the logic for how incoming emails are processed.
Important Changes:
Multiple Addresses create multiple Work Items - Previously a single incoming email would be picked up by a mailbox, find a relevant email route rule, create the specified type of Work Item, then cease. No further Work Items would be created, even if the incoming mail was addressed to further email addresses which were linked to Enate Mailboxes / Routes. NOW, the system will instead continue in this situation, and will create a new Work Item for each address it finds which is linked to an Enate Mailbox / Route (assuming that it is not an email referencing an existing work item, in which case it would simply be appended to that). See this section for more details.
Wildcards on Email Route Rules dropped - The use of wildcard '*' email address settings in Email Routes is no longer supported.
Incoming Emails 'From' your Enate instance will be ignored - See here for more information.
Note: You will need to check whether any of your Email Route configurations use '*' wildcards for the email address and remove these. Now, each Email Connector must have at least one email Route defined for it which does not contain any additional filtering rules other than the explicit Email Address.
The Connector-level defined Route rule for how to process an email is no longer treated as the 'fallback' route of last resort if no other route is found within the Alias-level Email Routes. Its function is now to specify which Work Item to create if an email is sent *explicitly* to that Mailbox Connector's email address rather than to one of its alias addresses. See the section below for more details..
Connector Level vs Route level email configuration - Example
To explain how the email routing settings configured at both Connector Level and at Route level now work together, we'll take an example where we have:
A Mailbox Connector of e.g. 'HRMail@acme.com'
A number of Alias email addresses for this mailbox, e.g. 'HRAlias1@acme.com', 'HRAlias2@acme.com', etc.
Email routing logic now works as follows:
Email Routes get defined on the Routes page to determine what happens for mails which are sent in to the Alias addresses.
A Route definition is still required at Connector level to handle the situation where an email might be addressed directly to the Connector Address
The main change to email processing logic in version 2022.6 of Enate is the addition of Plus Addressing. This is of course only applicable if Plus Addressing has been enabled in the new setting in Builder.
Incoming Email Processing Logic Change - Multiple Work Items for Multiple Addresses
An important change is being made for the scenario where an incoming email into Enate which was addressed to multiple Aliases (or Connectors) only created a single work item.
Previously, once a work item creation rule had been found for the first relevant email address, the system would create that single Ticket or Case and then stop. No further work items would be created.
NOW, the system will continue, and will create further work items for all relevant emails for which there is a work item creation rule (assuming for all of the above that the email is not one related to an existing work item / work items).
The result of this is that incoming emails which previously created a single new work item my now create multiple separate work items.
For further details on how the system deals with incoming email, depending on the number of Enate-mailbox addresses in the TO, CC & BCC address fields, see this section.
Plus Addressing - What is it and why is it useful?
Plus Addressing involves adding using unique, receive-only email addresses that are kind of extensions to your basic email address, usually to help keep your inbox tidy and protect it against influx of unwanted messages.
In Enate, Plus Addressing is used to automatically add the unique reference number of a work item to any email addresses being sent as part of working on that work item.
For example, if you are emailing a reply to a query that has arrived to the mailbox:info@enate.io, upon sending the email Enate will auto-populate the From email address with a plus sign (+) followed by the reference number of the work item as a tag, so the From email address will look something like this: info+123-T@enate.io.
This adds a additional layer of processing logic for incoming emails which will run first and therefore drastically reduces the chances of creating unnecessary work items when sending emails back and forth which is particularly useful when working across multiple different teams in Enate with varying levels of permissions.
How do I enable Plus Addressing?
Activities required outside of Enate
You firstly need to enable Plus Addressing in whichever email system you are using.
This article takes you through how to enable Plus Addressing in Microsoft 365:
This article shows you how to enable Plus Addressing in Gmail:
Enate Setting for Plus Addressing
Once the above email server settings have been confirmed as being set to support Plus Addressing, you need to enable Plus Addressing in Enate.
To do this, go to Builder > System-Settings > General Settings, navigate down to the 'Work Item Plus Addressing' section and switch the toggle on.
Work items will be matched using Plus Addressing.
Note that Plus Addressing is set to OFF by default.
If Plus Addressing in NOT switched on, work items will be matched using standard fall-back email processing rules (i.e. those not used in Plus Addressing).
Further information about how Enate matches emails when not using Plus Addressing
See here for more information about how Enate processes incoming emails:
Email Route Requirement Changes
Update email processing logic to be:
When processing an email create 1 work item PER matched email route.
When processing an email look at all email routes, not just ones associated with the connector it was received by.
When processing an email that matches 0 routes, fail processing and throw exception.
When processing an email Create work item for all enabled connectors + disabled connector by enate system.
we should also add link work item relationship if multiple work item created by one email so that end user can see all related item together and collaborate accordingly.
Important Note - Incoming Emails 'From' your Enate instance will be ignored
If an incoming email being received by Enate has a 'From' mail address which has been used in the configuration settings of a Ticket / Case or Acton in that system, including retired versions, Enate will NOT append the email to a Work Item, nor will it create a new Work Item.
You should therefore pay particular attention to the setup of emails are arriving into an Enate instance which have a from address which has been used in that system's Work Item configuration, as the above behaviour will very likely preclude this. The email does NOT need to have originated from the same Enate instance, it only needs to have a From address that is being used in that instance.
Additional attention should also be made for e.g. test mail accounts you select to send test emails into Enate.
This Enate behaviour is to avoid duplicate processing of items which Enate may well have already processed before the outgoing email has been sent, for example (but not limited to) auto-appending of mails to linked work items via Plus Addressing logic.
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