User Replies

Since the end of 2000 it has been possible to update PRMS tickets by email. Replies to arsystem@sunar01.cern.ch are processed using a script that extracts the case id from the subject and updates the worklog of this ticket with the body of the message.

When replying to a notifcation sent by Remedy, you should avoid including the whole text of the original message in the reply. as everything will be included in the worklog making it unreadable. It's better to edit carefully the reply, quoting only the sentences or paragraph that will make your reply easier to understand.

After the modification, the maintainer is notified (by email) of the update.

The subject should always contain the case id (leading zeros can be removed, but has to begin with "CT"). For example, the following are valid subjects:

• CT123096
• RE: CT0000000123281 : Information request - Update (Pbmes envoi message CERN market )

The following subjects are not valid and will cause the update to be rejected:

• CT 115122 (invalid case id, there is a space between CT and 115122)
• about case 123112 (invalid case id, doen't start with CT)
• strange solution (case id not included)
• I'm away (case id not included)

If there is an error because the case id was not included in the subject line (or corresponded to a closed case) or because the message body is empty the user will get an error message.

Attachments

Some improvements were added to handle attachments. When a message containing attachments arrives the script converts them to text (and they appear in the worklog).

If it fails to convert any of the attachments a copy of the original message is forwarded to service-helpdesk-attachments@cern.ch (and the full message will be accessible to the maintainer in the list archive) and a notification is sent to the user telling him that some attachments were not included in the update.

The same procedure applies if a message is longer than 200 lines or 16000 characters: it will be truncated before being incorporated into the worklog, but a copy will be forwarded to the service-helpdesk-attachments@cern.ch and the user will receive a notification telling him what was exactly included in the worklog.

Mailer Daemon Errors

At the end of Summer 2002 a new feature was introduced to handle automatically messages bounced back to arsystem@sunar01.cern.ch due to delivery failures. Thanks to the work of Wolfgang Friebel, the treatement of most of these cases are completely automated.

Messages coming from mailer-daemon@somewhere or postmaster@somewhere are always processed, regardless of the subject. The processing script tries to extract the case id from the body, and tries as well to determine the kind of error.

For temporary errors no action is taken, but in most cases the ticket is updated automatically and a fragment of the original error message is included for information (in this case the maintainer or group is notified of the update). Please note that if there was an error in the mail address is up to the maintainer to fix it, as no automatic correction is performed by the system.

In some other cases, when the script is unable to recognize the kind of error, a notification is sent to Remedy Support and the ticket will be updated informing of the error, if needed, by a Remedy admin.

Mail Interface for Maintainers

On December 2002 a new feature has been introduced that allows maintainers to perform some simple operations by email. When the assignee of a case (or a member of the assigned group, if the case is not yet assigned to an individual) replies to a case, he has to include in the subject a keyword to tell Remedy what to do. A keyword is required, there is no default action.

The keyword should be at the very beginning of the subject. The case id can be anywhere in the subject, being always of the form CTnumber and always in uppercase (for example: CT123096, not ct123096 which will result in an error message).

Furthermore, accents in subject lines will cause the update to be rejected. In case there are accents (for foreign language) you must replace them with non-accentuated characters.

• INFO - includes the message in the worklog (as happens when anyone else sends an update).

This was the default behaviour until December 2002. There is no default now: many maintainers thought that when they replied to arsystem@sunar01.cern.ch the message was sent to the user (so updating the worklog by default would have not solved the problem of "lost" replies), but some maintainers were used to reply to tickets knowing that their reply would be appended to the worklog (and sending it to the user by default would be confusing for these maintainers, and specially for the users that would receive messages not intended for them).

• REPLY - sends the reply to the requester, and assign the case to you if it's not yet assigned to any individual (like writing the reply in the User Tool).

The reply command will assign the case to a member in the assignment group if nobody has taken the case yet. And if the case is assigned to any other maintainer at that time, the REPLY keyword will be ignored, in that case only the maintainer has access to the command in the mail interface. Comments from anyone who is not the maintainer will be appended to the worklog regardless of any command in the subject.

Two other commands can be used to change the status, and will send the reply to the user as well:

• FIX - sends the reply to the requester and marks the case as "fixed" (and assign the case to you if not yet assigned to anyone)
• FIXNO - the same as FIX but sends no notification to the user

You cannot fix a case which is still in the "inbox". If the case has been created sending a message to a support line (like remedy.support@cern.ch) it will be probably categorizes under the "inbox" item. Cases are supossed to be properly recategorized before being closed, so it's not possible to fix a case which is still in the inbox. The windows User Tool or the web interface should be used to recategorize the case before it can be fixed.

Only cases which are "assigned" or "open" can be "fixed". There is no way to put cases "on hold" or to change the status of cases which are "on hold" using the mail interface; the complicated workflow involved requires these operations to be done using the windows User Tool or the web interface.

• REOPEN - sends the reply to the requester, and puts the case back in the "open" state (it works only with "fixed" cases).
  

• SPAM - recategorizes the mail as spam (as the "spam" button in the User Tool).
  
  
• HELPDESK - transfers the case to the helpdesk (as the "return to helpdesk" button in the User Tool). The text of the message should be used to explain to the helpdesk why the case it's being returned.

The following are examples of subjects with valid mail interface commads:

• FIX CT0000000121256
• REPLY Re: CT0000000123281 : Information request - Update (toner)
• SPAM CT112312

• CT0000000121256 FIX (keyword not at the beginning)
• spam CT0000000119112 (keyword not in uppercase)
• REOPEN 124121 (incorrect case id format)
• INFO CT146639 - Response to: Recupération de fichiers (accentuated characters must be replaced: write Recuperation instead of Recupération)