Ticket creation and ticket reply - point them both to the same gmail account

We originally started using TDX for projects and set up a gmail account and pointed the "Email Server" and "Email Replies" in Admin to it.  This was a brand new gmail account dedicated to TDX traffic.  Now that we've added ticketing, we have the ticketing application's "Email Monitors" set up to point to our separate helpdesk gmail account.  People know that email address (it-help@mtu.edu) from years of use.

So we ended up with a different ticket creation gmail account than the ticket reply gmail account.  This has led to some instances where people send an email to our helpdesk gmail (rather than replying to the ticket email) and that causes those emails to be skipped for processing.

I see in the response to question 104107 that I can make these all point to the same gmail account and that should address this issue.  In our situation that means I would want to change the "Email Replies" gmail account to match the "Email Monitors" gmail account.  I have some questions about this:

1. It looks like I can configure only one email reply handler.  So if I change the email address that replies go to, what happens to all the inevitable replies to ticket notifications sitting in folks inboxes currently?

If I do go ahead with this I want to make sure I understand:

2. I think I want to change the value of the Admin->Email Replies ->Email token reply-to address field to match our helpdesk gmail account.  Is that correct?

3. I think I want to change the value of the  Admin->Email Replies ->Email Username field the "friendly" email name?

Our gmail helpdesk account is service-helpdesk@mtu.edu, with alias it-help@mtu.edu, and a friendly name of "Michigan Tech IT".  So I think I'm changing the Email token reply-to address to it-help@mtu.edu, and the Email Username to Michigan Tech IT

Do I have that right?  Are there other values for the Email Replies or Email Monitors I should also be looking at?

 

Asked by Steve Blackburn on Tue 1/21/20 1:45 PM
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Answer (1)

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Mark Sayers Tue 1/21/20 2:41 PM

Hello Steve,

First let me say that I think that as you self-implement ITSM here I think there is some value, especially as you're entering into setting up Ticket creation monitors, and just the other facets of ticket management in general, in some dedicated consultation time with one of our Professional Services team members to walk you through the finer points of the setup and administration processes involved. I am more than happy to have your Account Manager ( Mark Forsythe ) 

To your questions directly:

  1. I think I'd suggest (though perhaps the services team might have a different suggestion) that since your Replies email address is the more established one, use that email account also for ticket creation. If you changed the TeamDynamix value for "Reply To", that would only be applied to notifications going forward from that change, and older notifications would still be directed to the old email. You'd have to find a way to move them automatically over to the new account so they didn't get lost.
  2. If you want the replies monitoring and ticket creation to both happen from the helpdesk's new email account, then yes you'd want to point the Reply-To address on that Email Replies account as that address.
  3. Actually no on this. If service-helpdesk@mtu.edu is the account that is being monitored for replies and ticket creation, then you'd plug in that address as the Username value, then whatever is the Password to authenticate into that account goes into the Password field.

Hopefully that helps to directly answer your questions, but I definitely feel there are some best practice ideas that our PS team could bring up with you in a discussion that might or might not change the track that you're on for setting this up. If you want to reach out to Mark Forsythe directly to inquire what kind of engagement we could package up for you, his email is mark.forsythe@teamdynamix.com .

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Thanks Mark. I appreciate your response, it's very useful. I'll also have a discussion with Mark Forsythe. - Steve Blackburn Tue 1/21/20 3:55 PM