HP OpenView Service Desk 4.

5
Email Enhancements
First Edition

Manufacturing Part Number: N/A May 2006

Contents
1. 2. Introduction ................................................................................................................................3 E-mail Item .................................................................................................................................4 2.1 Fields in E-mail Item..................................................................................................................4 2.2 E-mail Form...............................................................................................................................4 2.3 Attachment Support ...................................................................................................................5 2.4 E-mail Item is authorizable.........................................................................................................5 2.4 Supported function for E-mail Item ............................................................................................6 2.5 No regular E-mail client .............................................................................................................6 E-mail Items in Service Calls (history preservation).....................................................................8 3.1 Add E-mail Item to Service Call Form........................................................................................8 3.2 History Prevention ................................................................................................................... 10 3.3 E-mails Are a Part of Service Call ............................................................................................ 11 E-mailing.................................................................................................................................. 12 4.1 E-mailing by Service Call Action ............................................................................................. 12 4.1.1 Reply to All ...................................................................................................................... 13 4.1.2 Reply................................................................................................................................ 13 4.1.3 Forward............................................................................................................................ 14 4.2 Manually adding (and sending) E-mail ..................................................................................... 15 4.3 Manipulating E-mail Form ....................................................................................................... 16 Auditing.................................................................................................................................... 17 Additional E-mail features......................................................................................................... 18 6.1 Service Call Identifier other than ID ......................................................................................... 18 6.2 E-mail Command at Arbitrary Place ......................................................................................... 18 6.3 Extend New with Update Command......................................................................................... 19 Known Errors and Limitations................................................................................................... 21

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1. Introduction
This guide introduces the key concepts of following E-mail enhancements: Allowing user to send emails in client to handle Service Calls. By this feature, if a service call is created or updated by inbound email, user will be able to reply email with Service Desk client. All email histories related to Service Call can be stored and viewed. Some other E-mail function updates.

The target audience for this document is Service Desk administrators as well as normal client users.

2. E-mail Item
For the full support of E-mailing within Service Desk, a new Service Desk item called 'E-mail' has been added to Service Desk. 'E-mail' item works closely with Service Call item. A Service Call item can have multiple 'E-mail' items related and every 'E-mail' item must have an encompassing Service Call. 'E-mail' item can be used for both incoming and outgoing E-mails.

2.1 Fields in E-mail Item

This E-mail Item is mainly a snapshot of regular E-mail in Service Desk.

Whether it is inbound E-mail or outgoing Email

Whether generated by DB Rule, or manually added, etc.

When the E-mail came-in/went-out. Only applicable for outgoing E-mails.

Attachments Similar with Folders in other Service Desk Items. Same as encompassing Service Call by default. Reference to encompassing Service Call

2.2 E-mail Form

A default E-mail Form has been added to Service Desk. Administrator can adjust it from Administrator Console > Presentation > Forms > E-mail Service Call. For example, Administrator can add the field "ID" to form. ID is similar to functional IDs in other Service Desk Items which can be used to easily locate a particular Service Desk E-mail.

2.3 Attachment Support

Attachments for those Service Desk E-mails are stored in a way similar as the Attachment for the encompassing Service Call. However, they are stored separately. By this, the exact history of all received E-mails can be maintained, even when Attachments from the encompassing Service Call will be removed from it. It implies that certain Attachment might be stored twice; once in the encompassing Service Call and one in the received E-mail. This is an important notion of history preservation. Whenever Attachments are not to be stored in a created Service Call (Administrator Console > System Panel > E-mail > E-mail commands, switched off for the 'New' command), they will still be stored within the E-mail.

2.4 E-mail Item is authorizable

Access to E-mail can be set independently with the access to other Items. It means even a user has privilege to manipulate Service Call, he may still not have the privilege to deal with E-mail Service Call. By default, only Administrator Role has full access to E-mail Service Call. To grant the privilege to other Role, Administrator should manually turn it on. And Administrator should also give the form / view / template access to that Role.

2.4 Supported function for E-mail Item

Following functions are supported for E-mail Item Search in Advanced Find Database Rule UI Rule View Form Template Copy Fields Custom Fields

2.5 No regular E-mail client

E-mail Items are only Service Desk Snap-shots of all the (relevant) data found in the real (received and sent) E-mails. Whenever received or sent-out, a copy of data is made and subsequently stored in Service Desk database. So they basically just hold the data but no heavy functional support will be provided on it. E.g No Address books (or something like this);

No support of HTML or Rich Text;

It has not been the intention to implement a full-fledged E-mail Client within Service Desk application; this is only aimed at the proper storage, retrieval and processing of sent-in and out data is already possible within Service Desk.

3. E-mail Items in Service Calls (history preservation)

These 'E-mail representations' within Service Desk are maintained only within Service Desk items that are 'E-mail manageable', i.e. Service Calls. The whole E-mail history of related Service Call can be preserved and viewed.

3.1 Add E-mail Item to Service Call Form

A service call can have multiple E-mail Items which represents E-mail history related to this service call. To view the E-mail items, Administrator should add the "E-mails" field to Service Call form.

The view that displays E-mail Items in Service Call form can be modified in Administrator Console > Presentation > Views > E-mail Service Call.

To be able to view the E-mail Item in service call and check its detailed information, user should be granted with proper privileges E-mails field of Service Call Item should not be hidden. Have access to E-mail Service Call item. Have access to at least one view of E-mail Service Call Item. Have access to at least one form of E-mail Service Call Item.

See also Section 2.4 E-mail Item is authorizable. After above steps have been configured properly, user can view E-mail history of Service Call. If the user gets enough privilege, he will also be able to create or delete E-mails in Service Call (see below chapters for more information).

3.2 History Prevention

An option "Enable Record Email" has been added to Email setting. It controls behavior of logging Service Call Emails histories to Email Service Call. This option is disabled by default and Administrator can enable it from Administrator Console > System Panel > Email.

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3.3 E-mails Are a Part of Service Call

E-mail Service Calls are full parts of a Service Call. It means E-mail Service calls can only be created within a Service Call When encompassing Service Call is deleted, all related Email Service Calls will be deleted.

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4. E-mailing
Service Desk has already provided several possibilities to send outgoing E-mails: Database Rules Automatically generated Assignment/Approval Notification E-mails Smart Action 'New Mail Message' E-mail responses that are being generated as a response to the E-mail commands for Service Calls

Besides these, two new styles have been introduced: Send E-mail via three additional System Actions Manually send E-mail which is related to a Service Call

4.1 E-mailing by Service Call Action

Three System Actions have been added to Service Call which works with new Service Desk E-mail item. To enable this feature, Administrator should enable "Administrator Console > System Panel > Email > Enable Record Email" When user opens a Service Call and select an E-mail Service Call item, clicks the "Action" menu, the new System Actions will be listed.

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4.1.1 Reply to All This will create a new E-mail item instance, populated with values from the 'source' E-mail just as commonly known. And, in particular: 'To Address' consists of the 'From Address' and 'To Address' of the 'source' E-mail; The 'CC Address' copied directly;

The 'Reply to All' Action therefore will come down to this:

Reply To All

4.1.2 Reply This will create a new E-mail item instance, populated with values from the 'source' E-mail just as commonly known. And, in particular 'To Address' set to the 'From Address' of the 'source' E-mail.

'Reply' comes down to something like this:

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Reply

4.1.3 Forward This will create a new E-mail item instance, populated with values from the 'source' E-mail just as commonly known. And, in particular Attachments (initially) copied to the new E-mail. Attachments can be subsequently removed as desired.

The 'Forward' Action therefore will come down to something like this:

Forward

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4.2 Manually adding (and sending) E-mail

Click the "Add..." button on email list of Service Call form, a new E-mail form will be opened.

Fill in necessary fields and click "Save and Close", an email will be sent out immediately and email history will be stored at the same time. Note: save and send of Email is independent from the save of service call. Inbound email is always read-only, outgoing email will be read-only from the moment it is sent. Emails can be viewed, searched or deleted (if user has appropriate privilege).

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4.3 Manipulating E-mail Form

Addresses can be inserted from Service Call values

Subject and Body can also be inserted from Service Call values

It is also possible to add external files using drag drop

User can directly choose the attachment from Service Call

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5. Auditing
E-mail Service Call is auditable. To enable the audit, go to Administrator Console > Security > Audit > Audit Rules > Service Call and check "E-mails".

The removal of Emails will be logged to Service Call historyline.

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6. Additional E-mail features

6.1 Service Call Identifier other than ID
For flexibility, Service Desk has been extended with possibility of specifying different Service Call Identifier Fields; before this a Service Call always was identified by its ID, so an incoming E-mail command always looked like 'Update 123' Now it is possible to specify other number or string Field from a Service Call (including custom field) to serve as identifier.

This means now, the E-mails like 'Update Apply for New NT Account' becomes possible. Note: the new Identifier may have duplicated values. If Service Desk finds multiple Service Calls match with the same inbound email, the inbound email will not be processed.

6.2 E-mail Command at Arbitrary Place

Service Desk only recognizes the entire string following the E-mail Command to be the Service Call Identifier. So, the E-mail: 'Re: Fw: Update Apply for New NT Account'

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would result in Service Desk responding that it can not understand the command. For flexibility, Service Desk has been extended with the possibility of looking for the command at arbitrary place.

With this option enabled, Service Desk will try to locate the command not only at the beginning of subject but also at the middle of subject. If a command is found, all preceding characters will be ignored. In this case, 'Re: Fw: Update Apply for New NT Account' will be treated as 'Update Apply for New NT Account'

6.3 Extend New with Update Command

With the 'New' command only few Service Call fields can be set, others are taken from configured template. For flexibility, Service Desk has been extended with the possibility of combining New command with Update function.

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With this option enabled, if body of the E-mail which creates Service Call is formatted like a possible 'Update' command, field update is done at the same time when service call is created. The body text will still be stored in Information Field, meanwhile additional fields will be set if it can be recognized by Service Desk. Below is an example showing how inbound email works with the "Extend New with Update Command".

Impact and Priority field is set Removed "Impact" and "Priority"

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7. Known Errors and Limitations

If the client is running on Windows with large font (120 DPI), some of the newly added Email options in Administrator Console may be invisible. To solve it, please switch the Windows Display properties to small font (96 DPI). There has a potential security policy issue with this feature. In order to use the feature, Service Desk Client will have to connect Outbound Email Server directly to send outbound email. If customer has security policy for Outbound Email Server to allow that only authorized user can access, this feature's function will not work properly.

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