Email Download

Email download allows SupportPal to periodically connect to a specified email address to download incoming emails and convert them into tickets. Any POP3 or IMAP email account for which you have access can be used for email download.

Contents

Adding An Email Address For Download

  1. Go to Settings -> Tickets -> Departments, and either add a new department by clicking Add Department, or edit a department's email settings by clicking the name of the department or the pencil icon at the end of the row on which the department name is listed.
  2. On the Add Department or Edit Department screen, scroll down to Email Accounts.
  3. Make sure that Email Download is selected from the drop down menu next to Email Support. Complete the following information:
    1. Email Address: Enter the email from which to download emails for ticket creation.
    2. Mail Server: Enter the address of the server from which emails will be downloaded. For example, if your email is joe@domain.com, enter domain.com.
    3. Mail Server Protocol: Select whether the email server you wish to download from uses POP3 or IMAP for connections to download emails.
    4. Mail Username: Enter the username you use to log in to your email account.
    5. Mail Password: Enter the password you use to log in to your email account.
    6. Mail Server Port: If you use a non-standard port, enter it here. Do not enter anything into this box if the standard port is used on the server hosting your email address. If you are unsure, contact your systems administrator to find out.
    7. Encryption Type: Most modern servers require encryption to connect and download emails. Select either None, TLS, or SSL. Contact your systems administrator if you are unsure of what to enter here.
    8. Delete Downloaded Emails: Select whether to leave emails on the server after they have been downloaded. POP3 servers require that the entire inbox be downloaded, but IMAP servers can search through the inbox and only download select emails. As a result of this, emails from POP3 servers will always be deleted.
    9. Consume All Email: If your mailbox receives emails sent to other email addresses, you can choose to accept tickets under this department should they match no other department email. If disabled, emails sent to an address that is not a department email are dropped.
  4. Once you have verified all information is correct, click Validate email server. This will attempt to establish a connection to your email server, and will let you know whether this succeeded. If the validation test fails, check all of the information that you entered to verify its accuracy. If you have entered all values correctly but are having trouble connecting, contact your systems administrator to discover the reason.
  5. Go to Settings -> Scheduled Tasks. On the Scheduled Tasks screen, you will see a list of currently set scheduled tasks, and a status indication letting you know if the scheduled tasks are currently running. Once an account has been added successfully, you will see Email Download appear in the list of currently set scheduled tasks.
  6. It is recommended that you test that email download is functioning properly by sending an email to yourself, running the scheduled task, and seeing if a ticket was imported.

Editing Email Download Schedule

  1. To edit the email download task, go to Settings -> Scheduled Tasks and select Email Download.
    • The frequency with which email download will run is displayed in the Cron Settings column. If the schedule is set for "* * * * * (Every Minute)," the task will run once every minute. Similarly "*/5 * * * * (Every 5 Minutes)" sets the task to run once every five minutes and "0 * * * * (Once an hour)" sets the task to run once every hour.
  2. You can edit the frequency with which emails will be checked by clicking Check Emails or the pencil icon at the end of the row. This will take you to the Edit Scheduled Task screen.
  3. On the Edit Scheduled Task screen that will display, the frequency of the current run schedule is shown, broken down into minutes, hours, days of the month, months, and days of the week. For a complete understanding of what these symbols mean, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron. There is also a drop down menu of commonly used scheduled task settings available. It is recommended that non-advanced users use this drop down, as opposed to setting the scheduled task manually, to ensure that each task runs properly.
  4. Click Submit once you have set the proper schedule for emails to be checked.