Rick, For certain things it does seem like it would make sense. I can think of two scenarios where you would want this:
1) Email Approvals. Let the approver simply respond with "Approve" or "Reject" in the body and leave it at that. The system can be case insensitive and drop off the "d" or "ed" pretty easily if they say "Approved" or "Rejected" instead. 2) Requester Emails. Set up a mailbox for helpdesk requests to automatically go to. Set the subject line of the email to be the summary and the body to be the short description. Attachments would be a problem as well, but as long as the users know to only include plain text it's not a huge deal. I don't know that Mike is necessarily trying to do either of these and may be doing something more complex, but I can see the benefits of using freeform emails as data insertion points. Shawn -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Cook Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 2:55 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: parsing email subject line to create/update tickets Well, the biggest problem with the template methodology in general, and this particular issue, is that of data integrity. The data format and structure must usually be an exact match to what ARS is looking for, or it won't find a match. Are your users going to be able to provide that nearly perfect level of data integrity when it comes to the subject? That sounds unlikely, given the number of variant ways the same issue could be verbalized in the subject line. How will you deal with a subject line that matches multiple tickets? Rick -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Balogh Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 12:45 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: parsing email subject line to create/update tickets Hi all, I apologize if this has already been posted... I posted it from the ARSList web page and it seems that it isn't showing up in the online archive, so I fear it may also have not gone out to the list. I'm currently developing a custom application for a client which involves an integration with the ARS Email Engine to create/update tickets. We are on version 7.01 p2 on MSSQL 2005. The client does not want to be restricted to using email templates. When a new email arrives, the system should parse the subject line for a ticket number. If a valid number is found, the email should update the existing ticket. If no valid number is found, a new ticket should be created. The best way I can think of to do this is to create some custom workflow on the 'AR System Email Messages' and 'AR System Email Attachments' to perform these operations, which should be fairly simple. My question is this... does anyone see any reason why this is a bad idea? Could we have problems with this custom workflow being overwritten or becoming invalidated when applying patches or new email engine versions? And if so, what is the best way to go about this other than adding custom workflow to the forms mentioned above? Thanks in advance for your input! ~Mike -- Michael J Balogh Wingspan Systems Inc [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.wingspaninc.com ________________________________________________________________________ ____ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org ARSlist:"Where the Answers Are" ________________________________________________________________________ _______ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org ARSlist:"Where the Answers Are" The information in this e-mail, and any files transmitted with it, is intended for the exclusive use of the recipient(s) to which it is addressed and may contain confidential, proprietary or privileged information. If you are not an intended recipient, you have received this transmission in error and any use, review, dissemination, distribution, printing or copying of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately of the erroneous transmission by reply e-mail, immediately delete this e-mail and all electronic copies of it from your system and destroy any hard copies of it that you may have made. Thank you. _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org ARSlist:"Where the Answers Are"