A preview of what will be covered in context of tickets:
- Incoming source
- HTML rendering
- Outgoing source
Incoming HTML
- Text input is accepted from Support Center and Staff interface.
- For incoming emails, value for ‘Prioritize email content type’ setting under Admin interface > Options > Mail Parser > Settings decides how content is parsed and stored in helpdesk.
‘Text’ results in content being parsed and stored without any HTML entity. Note that it is not possible to render any HTML for tickets converted from emails via this priority.
‘HTML’ parses and stores incoming content as it was received. Rendering of tags can be controlled in helpdesk. More on that in the rendering section.
HTML rendering
- Rendering of HTML in helpdesk interfaces for user and staff replies is managed via ‘HTML handling (on the web and in email notifications)’ and ‘HTML handling (for staff replies)’ setting.
Location: Admin interface > Options > Tickets > Settings - You can opt to: selectively render HTML (Strip HTML tags), allow all HTML code to be executed (Allow HTML) or render content with HTML entities (Convert to HTML entities).
- Handy tip: A ticket taking too long to open up? Try switching HTML rendering to ‘HTML entities’ and re-try. It might be the case that the ticket post is overloaded with heavy HTML contents (usually due to a long thread in a single post) which takes up too much of server resources. Need a more permanent fix? Learn how to setup breaklines at the end of this section.
HTML outgoing
- Helpdesk maintains two sets of outgoing email templates –> HTML and Text type.
- Template set for outgoing emails is determined by ‘Send HTML emails’ setting under Admin interface > Options > Settings > Email. Helpdesk sends either of the two.
- HTML tags in outgoing emails are supported via:
| Setting |
Purpose |
Location |
| Signature |
Staff signature appended to staff replies |
Staff interface > Home > My Preference |
| Queue signature (optional) |
All emails dispatched from an email queue carry this signature. |
‘Settings’ tab from Admin interface > Email Parser > Email Queues > queue_name |
| HTML email templates Start with ‘email’ prefix and end with ‘html’ postfix For e.g. email_ticketautoresponderhtml |
A unique HTML email templates is available for each type of email dispatched by helpdesk. Lays out the formatting, code variables and language phrases in use. |
Admin interface > Options > Templates > Templates > group_name |
Breaklines
Ever seen an email thread getting long due to previous communication being logged in the email?
In case of helpdesk, this results in redundant information (which in most cases is already present as unique ticket posts in helpdesk. To tackle this, you can configure templates and/or breaklines to truncate content from an email once a pattern matches in Body Content.
Breaklines are essentially specific patterns or regular expressions which are matched for in an incoming email. Breakline only work on replies to existing tickets in helpdesk to ensure that no essential conversation is lost
Location: Admin interface > Options > Email parser > Breaklines
- Regular expression based breaklines need to have delimiters and must be PERL compatible.
In case you accept HTML emails (refer to ‘Incoming HTML’ section), regular expressions are not likely to work as HTML tags present in Body content are not matched by breakline.
- We suggest hardcoding a breakline in staff replies template to ensure that any email reply has an existing breakline in its content.
Location: Admin interface > Options > Templates > Templates > ‘Tickets’ group
Templates for staff reply: ‘email_ticketstaffreplyhtml’ and ‘email_ticketstaffreplytext’
Sukhpreet Anand