Custom Ticket Rules for Email Address Validation and Ticket Loops (4289973)

Invalid email addresses can cause the following problems in the K1000 Service Desk:

• An email loop: The K1000 appliance emails an invalid address and then receive a non-delivery report (NDR) from the domain's mail server. The postmaster will often not use the same subject that was used in the original email; thus the postmaster's reply will generate a new ticket in the K1000 appliance service desk. If email on events or a ticket rule is configured to email the user on a new ticket, then the K1000 appliance will create an email receipt for that ticket that is sent back to the postmaster. Most postmasters will not accept mail and will often email back another NDR. This error will create another ticket, and so on. Now an email loop exists between the K1000 appliance and the postmaster that, if left unchecked, will likely generate many tickets in a short amount of time.
• Invalid tickets: Even without an NDR email loop, invalid tickets can clog up the K1000 service desk with erroneous tickets.
• Ambiguity: Emails being sent to invalid addresses may be cause for concern, as K1000 ticket owners may be unaware of ticket notifications that are not being sent correctly.

1.1 and 1.2 are Custom Ticket Rules (CTRs) designed, tested, and maintained by KACE Technical Support as a courtesy.

Disclaimer: The attached custom ticket rules are offered with no expressed or implied warranty and are to be used at your own risk. KACE does not warranty the use of custom ticket rules unless designed by the KACE Professional Services team, nor does KACE guarantee the functionality or existence of these rules in future versions of the K1000. Improper use of custom ticket rules can cause irreparable damage to the K1000 database. Please proceed with caution.

Any further customization of these or any custom ticket rules is offered as a fee-based service by our Professional Services team. Please contact your sales representative for details.

NOTE: No matter which queue you import these CTRs into, they are designed to affect all queues. If effects are only desired on the queue where the rule exists, then the update query must be modified accordingly. If multiple K1000 organizations exist, then the rule(s) must be imported into at least one queue in the desired organization(s).

1.1                       CC List Email Address Validation (Ticket-Rule-13.kpkg)

A bad email address in the cc list is common since they are often typed manually - leading to typos and invalid delimiters. This rule will check that all addresses listed in the cc list are formatted correctly (e.g. user@domain.suffix) and the delimiter are valid. If one or more invalid addresses are detected, the CC list field will revert to its value prior to the attempted change. For details about importing and exporting K1000 resources, please visit this article.

1.2                       Bad Email Address in Submitter Record (Ticket-Rule-14.kpkg)

A bad email address is less common but can certainly happen. The easiest way to avoid it is to import users from an LDAP source. However, if "Accept email from unknown users" is enabled on a queue, the potential for this issue is ever-present. This rule will examine the email address of the submitter only. If the address is not in valid email address format (e.g. user@domain.suffix) then the submitter will be removed from the ticket and the ticket owner will be notified. For details about importing and exporting K1000 resources, please visit this article.

1.3                       Out Of Office Emails

Out of office email loops are easily prevented by configuring the sending server to only reply once to each sender during Out of Office response time frames. See this article for more detail.

1.4                      Emails from the K1000 appliance to itself

An email from one queue to another can create tickets and cause a loop between queues. To avoid this, queues should not be configured to email one another.