When creating new tickets from email
When tickets are created from emails (utilizing the Email Monitors feature of a ticketing application), the ticket creator will show as the account set to run the creation monitor. The ticket requestor will be set by matching the incoming email address to the first match found against the following user record fields (in waterfall style, in the order shown):
- TDX Alert Email Address
- TDX Primary Email Address
- TDX Alternate Email Address
If no match is found, the ticket requestor is set via text-only fields with as much information as can be pulled from out of email FROM address. In this case, display name maps to First and Last name (if possible) and address maps to email address. Tickets in this state will not show a value selected in the Requestor lookup when editing a ticket. They will instead show labels with the text information from the original email FROM display and address.
When utilizing the reply-by-email functionality
Most notifications that are sent out from TDX have a reply token in them (if your organization has enabled reply-by-email). These tokens contain the specific email address that they were sent to at the time the notification was generated for validation during reply processing. In this way, the email reply monitor can know whether a reply to that notification originated from the same email address that the notification was sent to. As long as the email reply is from the same email address that the token was generated for, the system will find the user's record by email address and post the response as if it was from that user.
The simplest way to think about this is that there is a 1:1 relationship between an email token and who can reply to it. If any other email address other than the original address the notification was sent to replies, the system will proxy the reply.
What does it mean to have a reply proxied? A proxied reply means that the account that monitors TeamDynamix email will post that response on behalf of the person who sent it. It will post something that looks similar to "[TDX user from reply-by-email settings] posted a comment: [comment text] for [email address]." When a reply is proxied, the reply is saved in the system under the TeamDynamix account which runs the reply monitor, not the actual person replying in. Due to this, the original person replying via email may no longer be notified of future replies because those replies might now be in a chain where all replies were proxied and the responses now go to to the reply monitor account.
What happens if the email address being interacted with is not in TeamDynamix at all?
Replies to email notifications from an email address which is not on any user record in TeamDynamix will always be proxied. There is simply no TeamDynamix user record to match it to in this case. There are several ways this could happen, but a few include:
- Tickets created via email, the FROM email address was not found in TeamDynamix and no user record was created for the requestor. In this case the ticket would show requestor information as read-only text and no actual record selected, so interacting solely via email would result in proxied messages from the requestor.
- Tickets created from a public form which does not find a match on email and allows the ticket through with read-only requestor information. If the ticket was worked in this state and no TeamDynamix record was created for the requestor (with the email address from the ticket), any replies from the requestor would get proxied.
- Notifying an email address using with the Other Email Address(es) free-text field which isn't in TeamDynamix. Replies from the notified email would be proxed like scenarios 1 and 2.
- Using a Forward page to notify an email address which isn't in TeamDynamix. Replies from the notified email would be proxed like scenarios 1 and 2.
What happens if I reply back from a different email than the one I was originally notified at?
If your email is set as jdoe@school.edu, you receive a TDX email notification with a reply token in it and you reply back from john.doe@school.edu, your reply will be proxied. This is because the address you reply from must match the address contained in the token for validation. When the values do not match, the reply is proxied. TDX highly recommends always replying back to email notifications from the same email address and that the one you primarily reply from be set as the TDX Alert Email address value. Otherwise you will experience cases where your reply is proxied instead of showing as from you.
What happens if I reply to another person's token?
It is very easy to pass along a reply-by-email token by CCing other people in your organization from your mail client (outside of the TDX system). If those people reply and include the original reply token in their email, the system will proxy their reply in.
The ramifications for this build upon those stated in our Who is notified when a person replies by email to a system notification? article in the Related Articles section. When a response gets added in proxy by the email monitoring account, further responses from other users may not be sent back to the user who's response was proxied.
Let's explore this further with a quick contextual example:
- Ticket X exists
- Resources A, B, and C are working ticket X
- Resource A updates ticket X and notifies resources B, and C.
- Resource B replies to the notification from Step 1 and copies resource C on the reply. Resource A is notified of the reply. Resource C is only copied via email.
- Resource C replies to the copied email from Resource B. Resources A and B are notified. A is notified because he/she is the original sender. B is notified because he/she is now in the reply chain (from Step 2). C's reply was posted by the email system on their behalf since they used B's reply token.
- Resource B replies to the notification from Step 3. Resource A is notified. A is notified because he/she is the original sender. C is not notified because his/her reply was added by proxy. The reply that would have gone to C is sent to the alert email address of the TDX user account which runs the reply-by-email monitor.
The above scenario happens frequently in many organizations and people get concerned because the person whose reply was proxied may not receive further notifications in that comment thread. This is an expected behavior of the system. It is highly recommended at this point to start a new comment thread so Resource C can reply to their own notification and token, have their response posted correctly, and be updated on any additional posts that come in after their response.
Case-Sensitivity of Email Matching
When email address matching is attempted, all matching is performed in a case-insensitive manner. This means that differences in casing only of the email addresses will not cause matching to fail. For instance, john.doe@university.edu will match against John.Doe@university.edu as well as john.doe@University.edu.