CA Service Management

Expand all | Collapse all

Multiple email addresses per contact

  • 1.  Multiple email addresses per contact

    Posted Nov 12, 2013 09:26 AM

    We have an environment where contacts can be using multiple email addresses to send tickets to the Service Desk.  If they are not synchronized to the specific address what happens is the ticket is created (we allow anonymous) but they are not notified.  Has anyone found a way to allow multiple email addresses for a single contact without having multiple contact records?

    - Sam

     



  • 2.  RE: Multiple email addresses per contact

    Posted Nov 12, 2013 09:53 AM
    We did not have a need to support multiple emails, but this looks to me as something that needs a custom application. You then create a new notification method that calls your exe. A dummy contact is required to be notified on events you use (init, transfer, comment, etc.), through a new notification method. That way your exe would be called for any event you like (not just init) and would send emails to additional addresses specified with custom "z" fields. 
    We had a similar case where we needed to notify additional email addresses specified separately for each incident. Application then reads "z" field with addresses and sends notifications about event that initiated the application (initial, transfer, etc.).
    I suppose similar can be done with SPEL code, but I am not that proficient with SPEL.


  • 3.  RE: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: Multiple email addresses per c

    Posted Nov 12, 2013 10:00 AM
    To be clear, this issue is on the inbound side only. The notification issue is only because we create the ticket/change and because the contact is not recognized by email address the affected end user is a “dummy” contact. We’d like the email eater to be able to recognize multiple email addresses for the same person, without having to create multiple contact records.
    Sam Cohen

    [color=#ff8c00]ADMIN:[color] Kyle_R. 2013-11-14. Removing email trail for brevity.


  • 4.  RE: Multiple email addresses per contact

    Posted Nov 13, 2013 04:02 AM

    It seems there is misunderstanding here. I explained it poorly so it is not clear at first. With my proposed solution you do not need multiple contact records. You need an external application that will send additional emails. Simple way to start external application on any event is to use one dummy contact. That dummy contact must be configured to receive notification for any ticket and any event, and then transfers it to external application to process and send additional emails. This is a rather simple configuration in SDM, but you need someone to write external app.



  • 5.  RE: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: Multiple email addresses per c

    Posted Nov 13, 2013 04:04 PM
    From your explanation, you are talking about being able to send an email to multiple addresses for the same person, correct?

    What I need is to receive and process emails from multiple addresses, for the same person. For example, I have two email addresses. If I send a message TO CASDM from address1 it processes with me as the person creating/updating. If I use email address2, the creation/update occurs, but as the “anonymous” contact; and any response FROM CASDM gets “lost” because it goes to anonymous.

    Are you suggesting we need to intercept the messages incoming, look up the address and translate them to the proper contact?

    Sam

    [color=#ff8c00]ADMIN:[color] Kyle_R. 2013-11-14. Removing email trail for brevity.


  • 6.  RE: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: Multiple email addresses per c

    Posted Nov 13, 2013 07:00 PM
    sam.cohen:
    From your explanation, you are talking about being able to send an email to multiple addresses for the same person, correct? What I need is to receive and process emails from multiple addresses, for the same person. For example, I have two email addresses. If I send a message TO CASDM from address1 it processes with me as the person creating/updating. If I use email address2, the creation/update occurs, but as the “anonymous” contact; and any response FROM CASDM gets “lost” because it goes to anonymous. Are you suggesting we need to intercept the messages incoming, look up the address and translate them to the proper contact? Sam


    Hello Sam,

    I'm not aware of this being done.

    Can you handle it with remapping from the Mail Server side?

    Mail server intercepts email from same user with different email addresses, and sends to a common email address for that user in Service Desk Manager.

    Service Desk Manager would then get a "right" email address to do its lookup and reply to. True, it would reply only to the address that it knows about, and not to the originating address. But the user would get a response to one of their mail boxes.

    I have absolutely no knowledge of mail servers, but is that plausible? There would be the need to maintain, of course.

    Other than that, I'm sure you're up to your elbows in coding to do the matching in SDM, as outlined above.

    How did this situation arise? I've got four email aliases for my same mail account here at work (at least . . .) but they all come to my one inbox.

    Thanks, Kyle_R.

     

     



  • 7.  RE: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: [CA Service Desk General Discu

    Posted Nov 13, 2013 08:19 PM
    Kyle,

    That might work, but in an organization of our size it would likely be unmanageable, and just a permutation of the issue we currently have. It sounds like I need to submit an enhancement request to allow multiple emails for contacts, specifying which are to be used inbound and/or outbound.

    Sam Cohen, Global Systems Manager
    Marsh & McLennan Companies
    Global Technology Infrastructure (MGTI) | ESE Application Engineering
    121 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
    +1 201 284 5213 | Mobile +1 908 472 0027 | sam.cohen@mercer.com<mailto:sam.cohen@mercer.com>
    www.mmc.com<http://www.mmc.com/>

    From: CA Service Management Global User CommunityMessage Boards [mailto:CommunityAdmin@communities-mail.ca.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 7:00 PM
    To: mb_message.2276110.104662748@myca-email.ca.com
    Subject: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: Multiple email addresses per c

    sam.cohen:
    From your explanation, you are talking about being able to send an email to multiple addresses for the same person, correct? What I need is to receive and process emails from multiple addresses, for the same person. For example, I have two email addresses. If I send a message TO CASDM from address1 it processes with me as the person creating/updating. If I use email address2, the creation/update occurs, but as the “anonymous” contact; and any response FROM CASDM gets “lost” because it goes to anonymous. Are you suggesting we need to intercept the messages incoming, look up the address and translate them to the proper contact? Sam

    Hello Sam,

    I'm not aware of this being done.

    Can you handle it with remapping from the Mail Server side?

    Mail server intercepts email from same user with different email addresses, and sends to a common email address for that user in Service Desk Manager.

    Service Desk Manager would then get a "right" email address to do its lookup and reply to. True, it would reply only to the address that it knows about, and not to the originating address. But the user would get a response to one of their mail boxes.

    I have absolutely no knowledge of mail servers, but is that plausible? There would be the need to maintain, of course.

    Other than that, I'm sure you're up to your elbows in coding to do the matching in SDM, as outlined above.

    How did this situation arise? I've got four email aliases for my same mail account here at work (at least . . .) but they all come to my one inbox.

    Thanks, Kyle_R.




    Posted by:Kyle_R
    --
    CA Communities Message Boards
    104665288
    mb_message.2276110.104662748@myca-email.ca.com<mailto:mb_message.2276110.104662748@myca-email.ca.com>
    https://communities.ca.com

    ________________________________
    This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential, proprietary or legally privileged. Any review, use, disclosure, distribution or copying of this e-mail is prohibited except by or on behalf of the intended recipient. If you received this message in error or are not the intended recipient, please delete or destroy the e-mail message and any attachments or copies and notify the sender of the erroneous delivery by return e-mail. To the extent that this message or its attachments were sent without encryption, we can not guarantee that the contents have not been changed or tampered with. Any advice expressed in this message is being delivered to you solely for your use in connection with the matters addressed herein and may not be used for any other purpose without our prior written consent.

    The information contained in this document (including any attachments) is not intended by Mercer to be used, and it cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code that may be imposed on the taxpayer.


  • 8.  RE: Multiple email addresses per contact

    Posted Nov 13, 2013 11:16 PM

    Your prolem is that OOTB there is only one field on the contact table associated with the email address. This is what gets used by Maileater to determine if the user exists or not. As long as there is no association in ServiceDesk contact table with the other email, Maileater assumes the user is unknown, thus creating a ticket with affected end user set as System_Anonymous. 

    There is a "Pager" field on the contact record. Have you tried to put the second email address in this field and then check if this may help? P.S. I haven't tested this yet wink

    Regards,

    Brian



  • 9.  RE: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: Multiple email addresses per c

    Posted Nov 14, 2013 04:19 AM

    Sam, yes I am talking about sending an email to multiple addresses for the same person. Also, you can deal with "anonymous" end user that is saved on ticket.

    First thing to do is to extend cnt object with additional "z" attributes for email addresses. Then you need to create an application that will be invoked when SDM sends regular notifications (init, transfer, comment, etc). Invoking is done with one dummy user as I explained. Application, when invoked, needs to distinguish initial event from other events.

    In case of initial event application will read ticket details to find out what email address was used to send email. Maileater writes something like "Created via EMAIL interface by someone@company.com". Using that address it will search "z" attributes and find contact. Using web services it will update the ticket to replace anonymous contact with the real contact that was found. In the end it will send initial mail notification to someone@company.com

    In case of other events, application will only obtain contact on ticket, search it's "z" addresses, and then send event notification to those addresses.

    We have done something similar and it is still used in our production system. As I already mentioned, we use it to send additional emails along with regular emails that are sent by SDM. Updating ticket's contact via web services is also something we have done, but on another case. Bottom line - it can be done this way.



  • 10.  RE: Multiple email addresses per contact

    Posted Nov 25, 2013 06:37 AM
    sam.cohen:

    We have an environment where contacts can be using multiple email addresses to send tickets to the Service Desk.  If they are not synchronized to the specific address what happens is the ticket is created (we allow anonymous) but they are not notified.  Has anyone found a way to allow multiple email addresses for a single contact without having multiple contact records?

    - Sam

     

    Hi all!

    Sam, what will happen in your company if somebody send email like this?

    [quote]

    From: sam.cohen@gmail.com

    To: servicedesk@companyname.com

    Subj: enable call redirection

    Body: Enable call redirection from my office phone to +1113646786753

    Sam Cohen, Global Systems Manager
    Marsh & McLennan Companies
    Global Technology Infrastructure (MGTI) | ESE Application Engineering
    121 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
    +1 201 284 5213 | Mobile +1 908 472 0027 | sam.cohen@mercer.com<mailto:sam.cohen@mercer.com>

    www.mmc.com<http://www.mmc.com/>

    [/quote]



  • 11.  RE: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: Multiple email addresses per c

    Posted Nov 25, 2013 08:22 AM
    What happens is that a “ticket” is created with “anonymous” as the Affected End User. The desk must then review the email and identify the person, based on the from email address and use of our email environment; and change the AEU. Note, that because our system is internal, completely unknown email addresses should not appear.

    I am suspecting that an enhancement request will be needed, to either:

    · Allow multiple email addresses in the field (separated by a “control” character)

    · A table of multiple email addresses per contact, with perhaps one defined as “default”



    Sam Cohen, Global Systems Manager
    Marsh & McLennan Companies
    Global Technology Infrastructure (MGTI) | ESE Application Engineering
    121 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
    +1 201 284 5213 | Mobile +1 908 472 0027 | sam.cohen@mercer.com<mailto:sam.cohen@mercer.com>
    www.mmc.com<http://www.mmc.com/>

    From: CA Service Management Global User CommunityMessage Boards [mailto:CommunityAdmin@communities-mail.ca.com]
    Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 6:37 AM
    To: mb_message.2276110.105259907@myca-email.ca.com
    Subject: [CA Service Desk General Discussion] RE: Multiple email addresses per contact

    sam.cohen:

    We have an environment where contacts can be using multiple email addresses to send tickets to the Service Desk. If they are not synchronized to the specific address what happens is the ticket is created (we allow anonymous) but they are not notified. Has anyone found a way to allow multiple email addresses for a single contact without having multiple contact records?

    - Sam



    Hi all!

    Sam, what will happen in your company if somebody send email like this?

    >

    From: sam.cohen@gmail.com<mailto:sam.cohen@gmail.com>

    To: servicedesk@companyname.com<mailto:servicedesk@companyname.com>

    Subj: enable call redirection

    Body: Enable call redirection from my office phone to +1113646786753
    Posted by:andreygurevich
    --
    CA Communities Message Boards
    105262447
    mb_message.2276110.105259907@myca-email.ca.com<mailto:mb_message.2276110.105259907@myca-email.ca.com>
    https://communities.ca.com

    ________________________________
    This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential, proprietary or legally privileged. Any review, use, disclosure, distribution or copying of this e-mail is prohibited except by or on behalf of the intended recipient. If you received this message in error or are not the intended recipient, please delete or destroy the e-mail message and any attachments or copies and notify the sender of the erroneous delivery by return e-mail. To the extent that this message or its attachments were sent without encryption, we can not guarantee that the contents have not been changed or tampered with. Any advice expressed in this message is being delivered to you solely for your use in connection with the matters addressed herein and may not be used for any other purpose without our prior written consent.

    The information contained in this document (including any attachments) is not intended by Mercer to be used, and it cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code that may be imposed on the taxpayer.