How to use email to get some jobs done

May 24, 2007 6:19 AM

How can I use email to automate some tasks for our helpdesk?

I manage a helpdesk and I like to make things easier by ridding the techs of a lot of the trivial tasks where I can. One idea which has been bandied around seems to be popular with helpdesk and users alike.

I am proposing that we configure a mailbox to recieve 'requests' for some tasks. For example:

Many users dont have the ability to unzip files they recieve (various reasons from political to technical, giving them all winzip or 7-zip etc is not viable at this time).

Many users recieve documents in a format they cant read - eg .wps files when they only have MS Word.

I would like to give users the ability to forward an email, with files attached. The mail would be recieved by the server, and a client pc/server would poll the mailbox periodically. Users can specify in the subject line something like 'unzip' or 'convert to word' whatever. The client PC will perform the request action, and -crucially- return the output (the unzipped files, converted docs etc) to the users home folder. (I can get the user name from the sender address)

We run Lotus notes here, and also have a clearswift mailsweeper SMTP server. I dont have Visual Studio or any major windows based programming tools, but am capable with scripting, batch files, and similar type of tools but I'm not a serious programmer.

Any ideas on how I could go about this? I'm a bit stuck on how to get the mails out of the mailbox, and save off the attachments. I can figure out the unzipping bit, no idea on the word conversion bit.

At the end of all this I'd like to have a system that I can expand and do a lot more with - essentially an job request by email system.

Any thoughts appreciated.

posted by daveyt to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

I think you're looking for too much complication. Why not just have a mailbox, called (for example) "Help" to which all the helpdesk techs have access? End-users simply address their email to "help" and the techs read the emails and act on the requests. This has worked very nicely for me in two different jobs, where the helpdesk was essentially the whole IT department (two people each time). These were both Exchange server/Outlook mailboxes, so I don't know how that works in Notes.

Part of the problem is that you will rarely, if ever, get end users to obey any "rules" you dictate on the formation of subject lines. By having a single email address and having your help desk people make a determination of what needs to be done, you eliminate this problem.

I currently work for a Very Large Company, and out helpdesk doesn't even attempt anything like what you're looking at. There are simply too many places for automated systems to misunderstand or mess up the request. Help desk issues are either phoned in or entered via a web-based system. The web system has several dozen "webforms," each geared toward a particular application or system (plus one for questions that don't fit the pre-defined categories, of course). The only role of automation in the system is directing the form to the proper helpdesk group, where the generated ticket is read and acted upon by a human.

I've learned over the years that end-users don't want automated help any more than they want automated telephone operators. Even if the help desk tech ends up sending them an email with a step-by-step solution to their problem, they want that human interaction. End users generally have love-hate (or just hate-hate) relationships with their computers and want human interaction when they have a question or problem they can't solve themselves. (In my other jobs, our online help libraries were never consulted by end users; if they couldn't Google it, they'd ask us. Where I work now, the helpdesk knowledgebase isn't even available to end users.)

Remember, the idea isn't to make it easier for the helpdesk; it's to make it easier for the users. And "easier for the users" almost always results in "harder for the helpdesk."
posted by lhauser at 7:07 AM on May 24, 2007

You can run a perl script for incoming mail in procmail.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:30 AM on May 24, 2007

Also, It will be a lot easier to make this a web based application. PHP supports zip functions.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:34 AM on May 24, 2007

Completely disagree with lhauser. I've used Adobe's Automated Conversion by E-mail and it was quite nice. I didn't really have a question, I just wanted the damn file converted, and without having to wait for a human to do it (or download some shady program to do it). Note that I think the e-mail does not work any more, although the page is still up. :/

I would set up a different address, though: [e-mail] which checks for any attachments and, based on extension, attempts to convert them and return them (with a reminder that this is an automated address)... I would also start off with just zip conversion, since 7-zip has a nice command line tool.
posted by anaelith at 7:43 AM on May 24, 2007

If you want to automate things with a Lotus Notes / Domino system then you can achieve a lot with a LotusScript Agent. LotusScript is very much like Visual Basic / VBA, so if you have any experience with that then you may be able to put it to use.

If I was attempting this then I'd have a desktop PC with Notes and MS Office installed, make a new Notes address and have a local replica of that mailbox on the desktop PC. Then an Agent in that local mailbox could run periodically and perform the necessary work, emailing / saving the documents as necessary.

I do agree with lhauser's comments above though - if you want to make things as easy as possible for your users then this could get a bit complicated. Perhaps you could go half way though - at least have scripts so that your help desk techs have a one-click way to perform these repetitive tasks. Or your automatic mail box could try to do the simple tasks first (if it justs gets sent a zip file for example) and rely on human input as backup.
The most important thing is to make it just one step for the users.

On preview - a web application would be a good way to do this if you have the server available. It would keep file attachments out of email as well.
posted by OldMansHands at 7:47 AM on May 24, 2007

Response by poster: ihauser - believe it or not we have managed to force all users to use a specific subject line - 'assistance' in all new email requests. Good point though, i never thought of that issue with further subjects. We have even got them never to call by phone unless email/web was down (we put them through the chairman if they were obvious violators, that worked a treat).

The problem is that the helpdesk spend about 30% of their time dealing with problems that could be scripted given a little work. I really need them to focus on more pressing issues - and maybe even this one. They wont be out of a job if their calls drop by 30%, theres plenty more to do.
posted by daveyt at 8:14 AM on May 24, 2007

This is slighty off-topic, but when you mentioned wps --> doc, that reminded me of Zamzar, from Projects
posted by niles at 9:59 AM on May 24, 2007

On most *nix systems, you can place a .forward file in the email "user's" home which can forward the mail to a script's STDIN (standard in). There are security issues w/this method so it's best not to house something like this in the DMZ. Also, care should be taken to ensure the perl script is using 'strict', et al. Contents of the .forward would look something like this:

| /home/user/mailscript.pl

The trick is getting the submitted subject lines to conform so that the script will know what to do with it.

Perl has plenty of modules for file conversion (.wps). munpack (MIME encoded) and uudecode (ASCII encoded) are both common binaries on many Unix dists.

Check out perlmonks.com if you're interested. They're very happy to answer questions - I've used them many times.

This could all happen in a shell script as well.

Apologies if clearswift isn't on Unix/you've no access.
posted by prodevel at 11:42 AM on May 24, 2007