The Need:
Track and assign support task requests received via email.
Common Approaches:
Create a Microsoft flow that adds emails to a SharePoint list. Assign tasks from the SharePoint list, and use Flow capabilities to send automatic alerts and reminders.
Why are people submitting support requests via email?
Ideally, a new support request would be added directly to a SharePoint list, but not every department may have access to your site. Some support requests may come via email from external senders, who would never be able to access your list. Others may come from customer service teams or departments so far removed from your work that you don't even know who they are, but they comply with a process that requires them to submit emails to a shared mailbox.
Even if requests must be received via email, there is no reason why you should not use a SharePoint list to manage them. (Click here to read about the advantages of using a SharePoint list to manage support work, increase efficiency, and improve transparency.)
What if not every email that comes via email is a support request?
You might not be able to control or limit who sends email, keywords in the subject or body, or other aspects of an email that would allow the computer act behind the scenes without human input. If your work or process requires that a human go to the mailbox and determine with their human senses which emails include support requests, that is OK. You can trigger the automation below to act not when an email is received but when an email lands in a folder. The flow below has a folder trigger.
1. Create a SharePoint List for managing support requests.
A basic support list might include the following columns:
This will be an "Automated" flow that uses the Office 365 Outlook trigger, "When a new email arrives in a shared mailbox (V2)." For this flow to work, the creator of the flow must be an owner on the mailbox, or else the flow must be shared with the owner of the mailbox so the owner can sign in to the trigger step with their profile.
"Show advanced options" to select requirements that will help your Microsoft Flow automation select the correct emails to add to a list.
The next steps will be to add a new item to the SharePoint list, using information from the email to complete the columns.
A close-up of the Apply to each container:
Note the "Add an action" buttons inside the Yes/No condition containers and the "+ New Step" button at the bottom. If you wanted additional actions to run after an item was created, you could add them. For example, you might want to save the attachments to a SharePoint library. You would include that next step INSIDE the "Apply to each" container. OR, you might want to send an email to an approver when a new item is added, whether or not the item has attachments. In that case, you would add a "send email" step at the very bottom of the flow, outside of the condition container (circled in green).
Other steps you might add to this automation:
A note on two texts:
The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. In which a harried university department assigns and dispatches intrepid historians and other academics to the past to gather information and fix mistakes.
Track and assign support task requests received via email.
Common Approaches:
- Forwarding email to the person assigned to the task
- Saving support requests to an email folder
Create a Microsoft flow that adds emails to a SharePoint list. Assign tasks from the SharePoint list, and use Flow capabilities to send automatic alerts and reminders.
Why are people submitting support requests via email?
Ideally, a new support request would be added directly to a SharePoint list, but not every department may have access to your site. Some support requests may come via email from external senders, who would never be able to access your list. Others may come from customer service teams or departments so far removed from your work that you don't even know who they are, but they comply with a process that requires them to submit emails to a shared mailbox.
Even if requests must be received via email, there is no reason why you should not use a SharePoint list to manage them. (Click here to read about the advantages of using a SharePoint list to manage support work, increase efficiency, and improve transparency.)
What if not every email that comes via email is a support request?
You might not be able to control or limit who sends email, keywords in the subject or body, or other aspects of an email that would allow the computer act behind the scenes without human input. If your work or process requires that a human go to the mailbox and determine with their human senses which emails include support requests, that is OK. You can trigger the automation below to act not when an email is received but when an email lands in a folder. The flow below has a folder trigger.
1. Create a SharePoint List for managing support requests.
A basic support list might include the following columns:
- ID (from Show/hide columns)
- Created (date): (from Show/hide columns) Will be time that email arrives or was placed in folder, and thus the time it was added to the list)
- Submitted by: (Person column) Email sender
- Title: The subject line of the email
- Body of email: (Multiple lines of text) The body of the email, which hopefully contains only the request
- Request Status: (Choice) Default = Received, with other options like "Assigned," "In Progress," "Needs Approval," "Completed," or "Canceled"
- Status Change Date: (Date/time) In case you want to track when a status was changed
- Modified by: (from Show/hide columns) Who last modified this list item
- Modified: (from Show/hide columns) When the item was last modified
This will be an "Automated" flow that uses the Office 365 Outlook trigger, "When a new email arrives in a shared mailbox (V2)." For this flow to work, the creator of the flow must be an owner on the mailbox, or else the flow must be shared with the owner of the mailbox so the owner can sign in to the trigger step with their profile.
"Show advanced options" to select requirements that will help your Microsoft Flow automation select the correct emails to add to a list.
The next steps will be to add a new item to the SharePoint list, using information from the email to complete the columns.
A close-up of the Apply to each container:
Note the "Add an action" buttons inside the Yes/No condition containers and the "+ New Step" button at the bottom. If you wanted additional actions to run after an item was created, you could add them. For example, you might want to save the attachments to a SharePoint library. You would include that next step INSIDE the "Apply to each" container. OR, you might want to send an email to an approver when a new item is added, whether or not the item has attachments. In that case, you would add a "send email" step at the very bottom of the flow, outside of the condition container (circled in green).
Other steps you might add to this automation:
- Send an email to the person assigned to the task, with a link to the item on the list
- Automatically update the status to "Assigned" once a name as been added to the "Assigned to" field
- Add an item to a back-up Excel list on the SharePoint site when an item has been marked "Completed."
- Each day, check the list for completed items and delete any completed items from the list that are older than 90 days
A note on two texts:
The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. In which a harried university department assigns and dispatches intrepid historians and other academics to the past to gather information and fix mistakes.
Comments
Post a Comment