Extended Mail Robot

Description

Incoming mails referenced in journal entries and linked to incidents, problems, changes or tasks may be used for closing them.

Incoming mails are examined on the basis of rules which define the conditions (text pattern, type of the entry) and the result (new state is closed, the desired state reason and solution text of the mail).

Use cases

In general this solution suits where communicating by mail is easier and faster than using the portal or management console.

We observed the following use cases:

• A field worker (e.g. in facility management) receives orders via mail on his smartphone, performs and confirms its completion via mail.
• A supplier or service provider without an own user account receives an order via mail and answers via mail when he completed the task.
• Another system (e.g. Trac or Jira) receives a task via mail. When a state in the other system has changed and the new state is “closed”, the system sends a mail with information to the service store.

Communication which takes place in mail and is used for signalling a change of a state and is using a specific text pattern may be used for closing an incident, problem, change or task.

Added value

Simple changes of state may be automated. While employees were busy with handling incoming mails and manually closed entries, they are now free for more challenging tasks.