CCS HELPDESK 4.0
Install & Configuration Manual
for Event Sink
Crow Canyon Systems, Inc.
This Manual describes setting up the Event
Sink for Exchange Server 2003 and 2007.
Overview
CCS HelpDesk 4.0 Standard and Professional editions include
an Event Sink that runs on the Exchange Server and converts incoming emails
into new Help Desk Tickets. The Event Sink provides an efficient, automated way
to handle support requests coming in by email.
Users can send in emails from any account, whether part of
the Exchange system or an outside account, to the Help Desk folder. The emails
can also come from a web-based form that sends the data as email. For example,
a company’s support site could include a web form to submit a support ticket.
This would be sent as email to the Help Desk folder and turned into a new
ticket.
The Event Sink detects the arrival of new email in the
folder and then acts to convert that email into a new Ticket, while also
sending an auto-reply to the user and notifications to staff if configured to
do so.
Attachments are passed from the incoming email to the new
ticket. The sender’s name and email are looked up in Active Directory and, if
found, the contact information on the new ticket is filled in with the sender’s
department, office, and other data. Emails with “RE:” as the first part of the
subject are not processed so that replies to the Help Desk folder are not
transformed into ticket.
Installation
The files are installed by running the CCSEventSinkSetup.EXE
that comes in the program download package. The installation is done on the
Exchange server that has the Help Desk folder replica on it. In a multi-server
environment or cluster, it can be placed on each server or node that has a
replica of the Help Desk folder.
When the Setup runs, there is an Introduction screen, a
License Agreement screen, and then the “User Account and Permissions”.
One note: “User Name” needs to be in the “Domain\Username”.
After
filling in the screen, a Confirmation screen comes up, then the Install
progress screen is shown. After installation, the utility will report either
success or any error messages.
Event Sink Logging
The Event Sink
has a log file that sits in the same directory where the CCSEventSinkSetup was
run from. The actions of this log file are controlled by the following registry
values on the Exchange Server, which are initially set automatically upon
installation:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Crow
Canyon (Help Desk)\Event Sink]
"EnableTraceLog"="true"
"PrefixSubject"="RE:"
"TraceLog Folder
Path"="C:\\CrowCanyon\\Event Sink\\Setup"
"TraceLog Level
(Information/Error)"="Error"
“EnableTraceLog”
turns the logging on and off
“PrefixSubject”
tells the Event Sink to not process emails that have Subject lines that begin
with the prefixes in this key. The entries can be any length and are not
case-sensitive. Multiple entries must be separated by a semi-colon. The entries
are assumed to start at that very beginning of the Subject line, meaning that
if the PrefixSubject was “RE:”, the Event Sink would not process a Subject like
“RE: Printer not working” but would process “Printer is down, RE: out of
paper”.
“TraceLog
Folder Path” determines where the log file resides
“TrackLog Level
(Information/Error)” sets whether all information about the running of the Sink
is recorded in the Log (best for troubleshooting) or only errors are recorded
(best for normal operation).
Upon contacting Crow Canyon Support
for Event Sink issues, you will often be asked to provide this file for
analysis.
Troubleshooting Event Sink Installation
The error below
usually means the Email Domain or Folder Path are wrong on the set up screen:
The error below means the User Name or Password were entered
incorrectly. The User Name needs to be in Domain\UserName format:
Troubleshooting the Event Sink
Operation
After
installing the Event Sink, you should be able to send an email to the Help Desk
folder and it should get converted to a new Help Desk ticket. This usually only
takes a few seconds. If this does not work, here are some troubleshooting tips:
The email conversion is a
two-step process. First, the email has to arrive at the folder. After arriving,
it gets converted into a ticket.
1) If emails do NOT arrive at the folder:
If emails do not arrive in the folder, then
the error is in the configuration of the Help Desk folder, not in the Event
Sink. The folder must be Mail-enabled in the Exchange System Manager. If you
want the folder to receive mails from outside customers, then the Anonymous
permission on the Help Desk folder must be set to Contributor.
The email address of the Help Desk folder
can be set in Exchange System Manager. This address could be used by people
inside or outside your company. For people inside your company, you can set the
folder to show in the Global Address List. If it is listed in there, then your
users can find it easily when sending an email.
Another
consideration is if there are multiple Exchange servers with replicas of the
Help Desk folder. If that is the case, the email could be arriving at another
server different than the one with the Event Sink installed. In that case, put
the Event Sink on both servers or reduce it to one replica.
2) If emails do arrive at the folder, but are not converted properly:
If emails
arrive at the folder but are not converted properly, then it is most likely an
issue with the Event Sink configuration. The Sink has error handling built in
as follows:
Event Sink Logging – As mentioned above, the Event Sink has a log file that sits in the same
directory where the CCSEventSinkSetup was run from. Upon contacting Crow Canyon
Support for Event Sink issues, you will often be asked to provide this file for
analysis.
Emails arrive at the folder but are converted into
regular Tasks
The most common
reason for this is that you are using the wrong DLL. Contact us for more
information on this.
Check COM+ Application Account
The account that the COM+ Application runs
under needs to be mail-enabled, and its Exchange mailbox must be Owner of the
Help Desk folder. This is the account entered in the Setup screen. Sometimes
the password on this account is changed, but not changed in the COM+
Application, which causes the Event Sink to fail.