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Redmine for simple Service/Help Desk requirement, inbound emails from anonymous users?

Added by Adrian McPhee over 14 years ago

Hi everyone.

I've used Redmine extensively for issue tracking on software development projects and have found it to be terrific. Congrats to all.

I'm now about to launch a new application, which throughout development I used Redmine for issue tracking, and I have the need to have a "trouble ticketing" capability; should users have difficulty in using the application.

Because of my familiarity with Redmine and rails, I thought it would be good to investigate whether Redmine can easily be used/extended so as to provide basic servicedesk/helpdesk functionality - it seems a logical extension of what it does OOTB.

Here are my requirements:

  • People (I use this term as they're not registered users of Redmine) will send an email to "" or similar.
  • A script will poll the POP/IMAP service linked to "" with some frequency (called by cron or similar), and will download new mail.
  • The script will read any messages, and search for an ID/key corresponding to an existing Issue.
    • If there is an ID/key corresponding to an existing Issue, the message text will be appended to the history of the Issue.
    • If there is no recognisable ID/key then a new Issue will be created, the sender's email address recorded in the Issue object created.
  • The system will automatically assign Issues to a resource.
  • Any updates to an Issue will be forwarded to the originator of the message.

I suppose my main questions are:

  • Is it possible to have an anonymous person, just with an email address, invoke the process above based on Redmine's architecture?
  • If so, what's involved?

BTW, I have seen the script on http://www.redmine.org/issues/1110 which sees like it would get me some way towards where I need to be... but it doesn't answer to above.

If you have some thoughts please let me know. Thanks!


Replies (3)

RE: Redmine for simple Service/Help Desk requirement, inbound emails from anonymous users? - Added by Kirill Bezrukov (RedmineUP) over 12 years ago

I have just release commercial redmine helpdesk plugin with such functionality http://redminecrm.com/projects/helpdesk
To test it just send email to demo@redminecrm.com and try http://demo.redminecrm.com

RE: Redmine for simple Service/Help Desk requirement, inbound emails from anonymous users? - Added by dj jones over 7 years ago

This helpdesk plugin (free) has been popular with many people
- http://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_helpdesk

(see also a plugin mentioned to handle inbound emails with images embedded, so that the image is also embedded on the Redmine issue (and not attached as a file attachment)

Hosted at Github
- https://github.com/jfqd/redmine_helpdesk

And gets regular updates - it has versions for Redmine for 1 2 and 3.

Your main requirements seem to be easy to meet in Redmine now:

People (I use this term as they're not registered users of Redmine) will send an email to "support@mydomain.com" or similar.
A script will poll the POP/IMAP service linked to "support@mydomain.com" with some frequency (called by cron or similar), and will download new mail.
The script will read any messages, and search for an ID/key corresponding to an existing Issue.
If there is an ID/key corresponding to an existing Issue, the message text will be appended to the history of the Issue.
If there is no recognisable ID/key then a new Issue will be created, the sender's email address recorded in the Issue object created.

Regards this need:
Is it possible to have an anonymous person, just with an email address, invoke the process above based on Redmine's architecture?
If so, what's involved?

you can start researching here:
- http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/RedmineReceivingEmails

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