I've been testing this module quite a bit over the weekend and I really like the way it works. What I'm wondering is whether it would be possible to add cases to a project, or comments to a case via email? And if it is possible, whether that is a capability that is being planned for inclusion in the module?

Mailhandler: I couldn't tell from the mailhandler module documentation whether it would work with Case Tracker. So I tried installing the latest version of mailhandler (the one updated by Jasonwhat) but couldn't get it to run on my installation. Could mailhandler be used in conjunction with Case Tracker to provide the feature suggested?

In addition (or alternatively if adding cases or comments via email is not possible) could the case link and the add comments link be included in email notifications?

Roger

Comments

DaveNotik’s picture

DaveNotik commented

We plan on including such a feature and are looking into it and prioritizing it. I'll post updates here.

killes@www.drop.org’s picture

killes@www.drop.org commented

mailhandler should be usable for this. We'd need to implement the mailhandler hook.

KSA213755’s picture

KSA213755 commented

Zack Rosen used Mailhandler to do something very close to this. He has it working with the Send mail feature of OG. He did a screen cast showing the work he's doing with Groups. http://www.zacker.org/magic-groups-screencast

Roger

moshe weitzman’s picture

moshe weitzman commented

project module already supports this. might be a good model. drupal.org does not use it though, so it might have decayed a bit.

DaveNotik’s picture

DaveNotik commented

Some progress was made with opening a case via e-mail using mailhandler. Gerhard can speak more about that.

To clarify, what I think is needed (at least for our scenario) is the ability for a case to be opened on the web, but replied to via e-mail (user simply replied to the e-mail, and the comment is added).

We have a non-Drupal web service (somewhere.com) which will have its own form to open a case. The case will be opened in our Drupal-based Case Tracker (somewhereelse.com) using the "spawn remote cases via XML-RPC" feature we built. But then there's no way yet for a somewhere.com user who opened the case to add more comments. We're addressing this issue by adding the ability for the user to reply to the e-mail notification they received, which then adds to the case.

So while creating a case via e-mail is great (how are we validating that they have authority?), commenting on an already opened case is priority.

Also, isn't it odd to require users to use a special, delicate format to open a case and describe the fields (priority, project, ...) via e-mail? I've been saying that e-mail and web content should be more closely aligned for years... think RSS and e-mail combined, and the ability to create and syndicate more complex structured content (easily fill out a case via e-mail). But alas, we're not there yet. Drupal's on its way, with the CCK and Views/Actions, but -- getting ahead of myself. More soon.

moshe weitzman’s picture

moshe weitzman commented

yeah, commenting is where the real value is ... FYI, you will have to assume an input format for incoming email. I strongly suggest trying out markdown filter in this format. It is magical in how it converts common plain text conventions into HTML on the web. See http://drupal.org/node/9838

DaveNotik’s picture

DaveNotik commented

Thanks for your continued participation, Moshe!

Not sure if we'd need that module. We'll know soon... Thanks for your comments.

(Starting to do some work on OG integration myself...)

sanjeev gupta’s picture

sanjeev gupta commented

Incorporated the case creation on casetracker from email by giving at least one information project_no of the form project_no: 1100 in the mail content.Other case fields can be specified in the mail in the following form.
project_no: 500
case_title: Seeing whether case can be created from mail
assign_to: sanjeev
case_status: open
case_priority: high
case_type: bug
If no matching project_no is found the case won't be created and a watchdog message will be set.
So we need atleast one information (a valid project_no) to create case at casetracker.The other case fields if not provied in the mail content will be populated by default values.
If the case field information provided in the mail content are not valid then the default value of case fields will be set.

KSA213755’s picture

KSA213755 commented

I downloaded the latest CVS, but how do I test the add cases by email function? I assume this requires mailhandler to be installed and working? Do I send the email to the main site email address? Does all the information go in the body of the email? Thanks.

Roger

DaveNotik’s picture

DaveNotik commented

Hi Roger:

We're still working on this feature and so I'm not even fully sure how it's working right now. We'll update this shortly with more info.

--D

sanjeev gupta’s picture

sanjeev gupta commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Incorporated the posting of comment on case through mail.

Anonymous’s picture

(not verified) commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)
kemmett’s picture

kemmett commented

This is one of the really nice-to-have's I've been looking for - so much of our pm work is routing emails and notes from calls to our teams. I've been trialling active collab which has this feature. It's model is useful in real life, though a bit limited. A few other aspects of the software - particularly permissions - are unfortunate, but the email capability alone makes it valuable.