Email to activity processing: New feature to skip emails which do not have a Case ID or Case token
- As a CiviCRM administrator
- I would like to configure whether CiviCRM will process emails without a case ID (or case “token”) in the subject line
- so that I can ensure that emails which do not have a case ID are not filed on the contact record outside the case by accident.
How it works currently
For those a little less familiar with email to activity processing:
CiviCRM will connect to a users MS exchange mailbox and create the following folder structure:
- Inbox
- /CiviCRM
- //CiviMail
- ///ignored
- ///processed
Notes:
- Users simply copy or move emails into the /civicrm folder in their inbox. CiviCRM has a scheduled job that can be configured to run periodically (say every hour) and poll the mailbox folder (Civimail) by IMAP in order to read and process the emails.
- By default CiviCRM will match any email from, to, cc fields to contacts in the CRM and file the email as an activity against those contacts (including recording any attachments as files).
- If however there is a case ID in the subject line (or a case ID "token"*) then CiviCRM will instead file the email straight onto the case itself. The format is: [case #1234] (see: https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-21446)
- If the email is processed successfully it will be moved to the processed folder.
- If for any reason CiviCRM cannot file the email it will be moved to the ignored folder. This normally happens if the email address is invalid for some reason (please note: emails that are sent internally between staff on exchange server can sometimes have this problem as exchange doesn't always use the external email address but instead uses some local username/domain combination - this maybe something to test and see if it maybe a problem for NEU).
- Note: *When sending out emails from CiviCRM from CiviCase it appends a case ID token - which is a string of characters and not the exact Case ID. This is done to obscure the case ID number in the email. In effect you can have either this token or the case id in the subject line and CiviCRM will file the email correctly.
- More background: https://docs.civicrm.org/sysadmin/en/latest/setup/civimail/inbound/#autofiling-email-activities-via-emailprocessor
Problem
For multiple clients they want to use email to activity processing for their casework teams. However sometimes they forget to add the case ID to the subject line of the email and the system incorrectly files the email outside the case - which is a "security" risk as the emails can be sensitive.
As such they would like to be able to specify that the emails being filed from the casework team inbox will only be filed if there is a valid Case ID in the subject line and are skipped if not, and hence there is no risk of the email being filed outside of the case.
Proposed improvement
Approach:
When "Used For?" = Email to activity processing
Show an additional option:
- Skip emails which do not have a Case ID or Case token:
- Checkbox
- Help text:
- CiviCRM has functionality to file emails which contain the Case ID or Case Hash in the subject line in the format [case #1234] against a case record.
- Where the Case ID or Case Hash is not included CiviCRM will file the email against the contact record, by matching the email addresses on the email with any email addresses of Contact records in CiviCRM.
- Enabling this option will have CiviCRM skip any emails that do not have the Case ID or Case Hash so that the system will only process emails that can be placed on case records.
- Any emails that are not processed will be moved the ignored folder.
- Default null
- If checked:
- Emails which do not have a valid case ID or case token should be moved into the “ignored” folder. (See folders above) after processing and no Activity should be created.
Would be great to know if we can get the magical "concept approved" flag.
We need to work on this quite urgently so if there are no great concerns that would be much appreciated...