Tip of the Week: Ticket Categories

Ticket Categories allows Tickets in a TicketBox to be easily sorted by a common option. This allows for easy sorting and prioritizing when viewing a TicketBox. Ticket Categories can also be used in several reporting options.

Examples of using a Ticket Category:
Company A has a Support TicketBox within VisNetic MailFlow. Within this TicketBox, the Ticket Categories display which product the support ticket is related to. Allowing Agents who are responsible for monitoring the Support TicketBox to easily see which products are needing attention.

The same example can be used for a Sales TicketBox. The same categories can be used to easily display which product the sales team is getting inquiries for.

To create a Ticket Category perform the following steps:

1. Log into VisNetic MailFlow as an Administrator
2. Click on the Administration rollup menu in the lower left hand corner
3. Select Ticket Categories under the Tickets section
4. Enter in what you want the Ticket Category to be displayed as
5. Click Save when finished

To automatically assign a Ticket Category to a Ticket you must setup a Processing Rule.

To create a Processing Rule:

1. Log into VisNetic MailFlow as an Administrator
2. Click on the Administration rollup menu option in the lower left hand corner
3. Select Processing Rules under the Message Handling category
4. Click New from the Processing Rules window
5. Enter a Description for the Processing Rule
6. Specify the Ticket Category for this rule to assign to tickets
7. Next enter the text you wish to match on.
8. Click Save when finished

NOTE: When matching on a phrase, surround the phrase in quotes ie: "This is a test" When matching on an individual word, just enter the word with no quotes.

Now that the Processing rules are created. You can enable Custom Routing Rules to use the Processing rules automatically. This allows for the Ticket Category to be automatically assigned to a Ticket once its brought into MailFlow.

To enable Processing rules to be used for Custom Routing Rules follow these steps:

1. Log into VisNetic MailFlow as an Administrator
2. Click on the Administration rollup menu option in the lower left hand corner
3. Select Custom Routing Rules under the Message Handling category
4. Select the rule you wish to edit from the Custom Routing Rules window, and click Edit
5. Change the radio button from NO to YES for the selection Do Processing Rules
6. Click Save when finished

NOTE: This will need to be done for all Custom Routing Rules you wish to have use the Processing Rules.

What's a MailFlow?

I’ve gotta tell you, sometimes it’s quite interesting being the VisNetic MailFlow Product Manager. We sell a variety of messaging and security products here at Deerfield, and with products like Kerio Connect or Deerfield Email Security, when speaking with new customers inquiring about the product, they have a general understanding of what the product is, why they want it, and what they want to do with it. MailFlow on the other hand is a foreign technology to most new, prospective users, and it takes some time and explaining for most to understand what MailFlow does and what it can do for them.

Why is that you might ask (as I often do)? In my opinion, it’s primarily because email management applications like MailFlow simply are not a standard technology used or understood by most organizations. Most companies use Outlook or whichever isolated email client that they prefer, and are unaware of the fact that:

a. Emails are going unanswered or are responded to improperly.
b. There is a better way to handle their customer correspondence.

So, what causes people to look for a product like MailFlow? In my experience, it’s because they’ve realized a problem in the way they’re managing their email. Whether it's a specific incident or a combination of issues, they’re looking for a better way. Some of the most common statements I hear from new users looking at MailFlow are: “We’re currently using shared folders in Outlook and we have one person assigning emails to the appropriate agent however it’s time consuming and becoming unmanageable.” Once organizations make this realization it’s a pretty short walk to a solution like MailFlow that is designed to do what Outlook isn’t, namely, manage email customer service.

The other factor that leads users to MailFlow is the oldest trick in the book, that’s helped Deerfield.com and MailFlow more than any other marketing strategy: word of mouth. MailFlow users are some of our most loyal customers, and most of them are eager to testify and spread the word on how MailFlow can help businesses efficiently handle their email traffic. In the early going, word of mouth was the primary vehicle for driving new MailFlow users to the product, but recently we’ve seen a growing trend of organizations actively looking for an email management solution, and finding MailFlow on their own. Feel free to share your own stories of what lead you to MailFlow. You can reach me directly at mryan at deerfield.com.

Using Firefox with MailFlow

A somewhat well kept secret is that now you can use Mozilla Firefox with MailFlow if you prefer. From inception, MailFlow was designed to be used by desktop computers running Windows and Internet Explorer. Now, through the use of a free Firefox plug-in you can use MailFlow with either IE or Firefox under Windows. In our experience, there is no degradation of performance with Firefox, and it is very stable.

NOTE: This article only applies to installations of Firefox that are installed on a Windows Operating System.

In order to use Firefox with VisNetic MailFlow, the following addon must be installed:

IETab – This addon is for Windows only

Once the addon is installed into Firefox follow these steps:

1. Open Firefox


2. Click on Tools


3. Click on IETab Options


4. Specify the URL you access MailFlow with, followed by a /* (For example: http://mailflow.domain.com/* ) NOTE: All entries need http:// before adding and also need /* at the end.


5. Click Add

Now when you open this URL in FireFox the page will load in an IE Tab.

TicketBox Security

"How do I restrict an Agent from accessing a TicketBox?"

First a little about MailFlow's security.

VisNetic MailFlow provides a secure environment where all members of the organization can perform their job functions through the same interface without being able to view or modify privileged information. Implementing a security policy involves customizing access control lists to securable objects.

Securable objects include: Agents, TicketBoxes, Contacts, Groups, Standard Responses, Ticket Categories, Standard Reports, Scheduled Reports, Auto Reopen Tickets and Agent Audit.

Access Rights:
None/Deny: No access
Read: Read-only
List: The ability to enumerate objects in this category
Edit: Read and write access
Delete/Allow: Full access

MailFlow uses a least restrictive security model. If everyone is granted full access to a TicketBox, then creating "None" access for a particular agent will have no effect. To restrict access for one agent, lower the access level to "None" for everyone, and create a group that contains everyone but the particular agent, and grant the group full access.

Agents in the administrators group have full access to everything. The "Everyone" group also has full access by default. The first step in implementing a security policy is to lower the privileges to the "Everyone" group. The next step is to grant access to the agents and or groups that need them.