Email to ticket and alert rules

Two things open tickets without anyone typing them in: mail to your support mailboxes, and alerts that match an alert rule. Both are set up under Settings.

Support mailboxes#

Settings > Support email lists your support mailboxes on its Mailboxes tab (the second tab, Email templates, holds the wording of other emails Tenvara sends). Mail to them becomes tickets and replies, and your team's public replies go out from them. Internal notes are never emailed.

What you need in Microsoft 365#

A Microsoft 365 mailbox connects through an app registration in Microsoft Entra:

1. In the Entra admin centre, register an app for Tenvara.
2. Give it the Microsoft Graph application permissions Mail.ReadWrite and Mail.Send, and grant admin consent.
3. Create a client secret and copy its value (not its ID).
4. Limit the app to the support mailbox with an Exchange Online application access policy, so it cannot read other mailboxes:

New-ApplicationAccessPolicy -AppId <application-client-id> `
  -PolicyScopeGroupId support@yourmsp.co.uk `
  -AccessRight RestrictAccess `
  -Description "Tenvara support mailbox only"

Add the mailbox#

1. In Settings > Support email, press Add mailbox.
2. Enter the Name mail goes out under, and the mailbox Address. Sender name on ticket mail can give this mailbox its own sender name; empty follows the setting for every mailbox.
3. Under Connection, choose Microsoft 365 and enter the Directory (tenant) ID, Application (client) ID and Client secret. The secret is stored encrypted and never shown again.
4. Under New tickets, choose the Queue tickets from this mailbox land in.
5. Leave Acknowledge new tickets on to reply to whoever opened a ticket by email with its reference. Edit the Acknowledgement text if you like: {name} is their first name, {reference} the ticket number, {subject} its subject, {mailbox} this mailbox's name, {portal_link} a link that opens the ticket in the portal and {response_due} when you aim to answer by.
6. Under Outgoing ticket mail, choose the Signature (the technician's, the mailbox's own or none) and whether replies carry the last two public messages under the new one (Earlier in this conversation).
7. In After handling, move mail to, enter a folder under the Inbox to file processed mail into (it is created if missing). Leave it blank to leave mail in the Inbox, marked as read.
8. Leave Enabled on and press Add mailbox.

Press Test connection on the mailbox to check the details, and Check now to fetch mail straight away.

Each mailbox is checked every minute. When your Tenvara server has a public https address, Microsoft 365 also tells Tenvara about new mail as it arrives, so tickets appear within seconds.

Forwarded mailboxes#

For a support address that is not a Microsoft 365 mailbox with an app registration (Google Workspace, Gmail, a mailbox at your web host), choose Forwarded under Connection. No app registration is needed for mail in: you forward the support address to an address Tenvara makes when you add the mailbox, and Set up forwarding on the mailbox walks you through the steps for your mail host.

1. In Add mailbox, choose Forwarded and enter the support address customers write to.
2. Under Replies are sent by, choose how replies leave: SMTP (enter the server, port, security, username and password; Fill in for sets the usual values for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), Microsoft 365, or Tenvara sending from one of your sending domains.
3. Add the mailbox, then press Set up forwarding and follow the steps. Test connection checks it.

Two cards on the same page belong to forwarded mailboxes. Inbound address shows where forwarded mailboxes get their addresses and the rules for mail that arrives that way: the spam scores at which mail is held or refused, the largest message and the blocklists checked. Sending domains lists the domains Tenvara sends from, each with the DKIM, SPF and DMARC records to publish at your DNS host and Check DNS to confirm them.

Note: Development folder, the third connection, reads and writes mail as files on the server instead of using a real mailbox. Use Microsoft 365 or Forwarded for the mailboxes your customers write to.

How mail is matched#

When mail arrives, Tenvara decides whether it is a reply to an existing ticket. The first match wins:

1. A [#1234] reference in the subject, when the sender is on that ticket or belongs to its customer.
2. The email headers pointing at a message Tenvara sent.
3. The Microsoft 365 conversation it belongs to.
4. A bare #1234 in a reply subject from someone already on that ticket.

If none match, it is a new ticket. The sender is matched to a contact (by their main address or any extra one), else to a customer by their email domain, else the mailbox's setting for unknown senders decides (below).

A new email from someone with the same subject as one of their open tickets from the last two hours is added to that ticket instead of opening another, with a line saying so and Make it its own ticket to undo it. Change the time, or turn it off with 0, under Duplicate tickets on the Workflow tab of Settings > Ticket setup.

A reply to a ticket resolved or closed longer ago than the Reopen window (14 days by default, on the Rules tab of Settings > Ticket setup) opens a new ticket that follows on from the old one, rather than reopening it.

Mail from your team#

When a technician answers a ticket email from their own Outlook instead of Tenvara, it still lands on the ticket as them, without reopening it or counting as the customer replying. Each mailbox chooses what it becomes under Mail from staff becomes:

• A reply if the customer was on it (recommended): a public reply when the requester, someone copied in, one of the customer's contacts or an address at their email domain was in To or Cc. Otherwise an internal note, such as a technician copying the support address into a conversation with a supplier.
• Always a reply.
• An internal note.

A first line of #note or #reply decides for one email, and mail sent only to the support address is always a note.

Suppliers and third parties#

Tickets forwarded to a supplier from the composer carry the ticket reference, so the supplier's answer threads back onto the ticket as an internal Third party message and the assignee is told. Third party mail never reaches the portal and never counts as the customer replying. See Replies, forwarding and scheduled send.

Replies have quoted history and common signatures stripped, so the conversation stays readable. Tenvara ignores automatic replies, bulk and mailing list mail, mail from its own mailboxes and floods from one sender. Bounces of your own replies are logged on the ticket (see Bounced email below).

Newsletters and other automatic mail that a mailbox rule or an allow list lets through are not dropped: they open in the Probably not support view, with no acknowledgement and no SLA clock, for someone to decide It is support, Not a ticket or Block sender. See Newsletters and automatic mail: Probably not support.

Nothing automatic is ever emailed to a no-reply or robot address: no acknowledgement, customer email, resolution or rating email, chaser or out-of-hours reply.

Mailbox rules#

Rules sort mail before it becomes a ticket. Each mailbox has its own rules (the Rules button on the mailbox, which shows how many it has), and Rules for every mailbox apply to all of them. Rules run in order; the first rule to choose a queue, type, priority, customer or assignee keeps it.

To add one, press Add a rule, then:

1. Add conditions on the sender, name, domain, subject, message text, To, Cc, attachments or attachment names. Each can contain, be, start or end with a value, or match a pattern. Choose whether all or any must match.
2. Choose what it does: put the ticket in a queue, set the type, priority, customer or assignee, add tags, ignore the message, or add it as a note to the ticket it names (by reference, or by a pattern in the subject, such as a supplier's case number).
3. Choose whether rules after it still run (Goes on) or it stops there.
4. Save. The rule shows how many messages it matched and when it last did.

Use Try a message to see which rules a message would match before you rely on them. Ignore and allow keeps lists of robot addresses and senders to always ignore or always let through. The mail log shows which rules matched each message.

Senders Tenvara does not know#

Each mailbox chooses what happens to new mail from someone who is not a contact. Edit the mailbox and look under Senders it does not know:

• Leave it in triage: the ticket waits with their name and address until someone files it.
• Make them a contact: they become a contact of a catch-all customer you choose, and the ticket is theirs.
• File it under a catch-all customer, with them as the requester.
• Refuse it with a reply: no ticket; they get your reply (at most once a day), and the mail log says it was refused.

A sender at a customer's email domain is always filed under that customer, whatever you choose. New requests set to Replies only makes a mailbox take replies on tickets only and refuse other mail with a reply saying where to raise a request.

Spam and blocking a sender#

When junk gets through as a ticket, choose Mark as spam in the ticket's More actions (or on the bulk bar for several tickets, or in Recent mail).

1. Under What to block, choose Block the sender's address, or Block everyone at their domain for spam sent from many addresses. Your own domains and common mail providers can never be blocked, and Tenvara warns you if a customer uses the domain.
2. Press Mark as spam.

The ticket goes to the recycle bin and the sender is put on the ignore list of the mailbox it came through. Marked as spam in Settings > Support email lists everyone blocked this way, with the ticket it came from and who did it. Not spam takes a sender off the ignore list and lets their mail through again. For forwarded mailboxes, mail from a sender or sending server marked as spam also scores higher in the spam check (Points for a sender marked as spam).

Bounced email#

When a reply from a ticket bounces, Tenvara notes it on the ticket and marks the reply as failed. Bounced email in Settings > Support email decides the rest:

• Mark a contact's address as bouncing: shown on the contact and as a warning in the composer on their tickets, until the address changes, they write in, or someone clears it.
• Tell the assignee with a notification.
• Set the ticket's status so it is looked at again.

Bounces that Microsoft 365 files in Junk Email are found and handled too.

Outgoing mail#

Replies go from the mailbox the customer last wrote to (else the one for the ticket's queue, else the first enabled mailbox), with the subject [#1234] Subject so the answer threads back. Each reply on the ticket shows whether it was emailed, and a failed one can be sent again.

Every ticket email carries:

• a grey Reply line at the top. When the customer answers, their reply is cut where their mail quotes it, so only what they wrote reaches the ticket. A mailbox can have its own wording, and earlier wordings are still recognised.
• preview text: the first words of your message, which mail apps show in the inbox list.
• a "View your ticket online" button that opens the ticket in the portal and signs the contact in once with a short-lived link, while the portal is on and the contact may use it.
• your signature, from Company signature in Settings > Support email or your own.

Outgoing mail on the same page also sets the Ticket email footer and the Name ticket mail is sent under.

One name on every customer email#

Every email a customer gets is from one name, the name the customer portal wears too, so nobody mistakes you for someone else. Who customer emails are from, on Settings > Support email, shows the name each kind of email uses (ticket replies and automatic ticket emails, portal sign-in links and notices, signing and verification codes), where that name comes from, and any mailbox with a name of its own.

What customers are emailed#

The Customer emails tab of Settings > Ticket setup decides what the customer is told as their ticket moves, whatever way it came in (email, phone, chat, the portal or the bot):

Email	Sent when
Ticket logged for them	Staff, the portal, chat or the bot logged a ticket for them. Emailed tickets get the mailbox's acknowledgement instead
Someone is looking after it	A technician is given the ticket
Waiting on them	The ticket moves to a status that waits on the customer
On hold or waiting on a supplier	It moves to any other waiting status
Resolved	It is resolved without a reply to them

For each, choose Who gets it (the requester, everyone copied in, the customer's primary contacts), whether it is On, and the Wording. A customer can choose differently on its Settings tab, and the New ticket dialog's Send the customer a confirmation can leave the first one out for one ticket. Emails that are not essential are not sent to contacts who turned off ticket updates in the portal.

Under Fewer emails, No "waiting on them" email within (15 minutes unless you change it) skips the Waiting on them email when the ticket is set to wait on the requester just after a public reply: the reply already said what is needed. 0 sends it every time. The Resolved email is sent once, with your resolution summary in it when you chose to share it, and the rating question when ratings are on.

The mail log#

Recent mail, at the bottom of Settings > Support email, lists every message in and out, what became of it and why. Filter by Way (in or out) and Outcome, or switch between All, Received, Forwarded and Sent. Open a message to see its checks. It refreshes every 30 seconds. Typical outcomes:

Outcome	Why
New ticket	For example "Contact Martin Marsh", "Customer ... by email domain" or "Sender not recognised, waiting in triage"
Added to ticket	For example "Matched by subject reference"
Ignored	For example "Automatic reply" or "Bulk or list mail"
Sent	For example "Acknowledgement of a new ticket"

Tip: When a customer says "I emailed you and nothing happened", the mail log tells you in seconds whether the message arrived and what Tenvara did with it.

Redacting a message#

When someone emails a password or other sensitive text into a ticket, you can remove it. People with the Redacting ticket messages permission (administrators by default) have it on each message's actions menu:

1. Select the text in the message, then open the message's actions menu and choose Redact text... (or type the text exactly as it appears).
2. Press Redact.

Every copy of the text is replaced with [redacted]: in the message, the AI's notes on the ticket, notifications, the ticket's log and the stored copy of the email. A file can be removed from a message the same way. The message keeps a note of what was redacted, by whom and when (never the text itself), and the audit log records it. Email already sent, and copies outside Tenvara such as the customer's mailbox, are not changed.

Replies, resolving and merging#

The Rules tab of Settings > Ticket setup holds a few related choices:

• The composer starts on a public reply or an internal note, and Email public replies decides whether a reply is emailed unless the technician turns the Email switch off for that reply. A reply that is not emailed still shows in the portal. Each person can choose their own in their profile.
• Undo send, how long authors can change their notes, and whether a scheduled reply is cancelled when the customer writes first.
• Time required when resolving stops a ticket being resolved or closed until time is logged on it.
• Warn about time when resolving points out a ticket with no time logged, time that will not be charged, or a timer still running. It is advice, never a block.
• Ask the customer to confirm a resolution emails the requester "Is it fixed?" with two buttons, and asks in the portal too. Yes closes the ticket; no reopens it with their reason. A ticket type can always or never ask, and a customer can have its own setting.
• Merging tickets sets the Status of a merged ticket and whether Its conversation on the ticket it went into stays as it was (replies public) or becomes internal notes. The merge dialog can choose differently for one merge.

Alert rules#

Every part of Tenvara raises alerts: monitoring, backup, security, Microsoft 365, infrastructure and more. Settings > Alert rules (in the Devices and monitoring group, and behind Alerts settings in the Alerts sidebar) decides which of them become tickets. Its second tab, Alert types, lists every kind of alert Tenvara can raise (see Alert types). Rules are tried from the top, and the first enabled rule that matches decides. An alert that no rule matches stays in the alert list without a ticket.

Each rule shows what it matches, what it does, how many alerts it has matched and when it last did. Drag rules or use the arrows to change the order, and use the switch to turn a rule off.

Add a rule#

1. Press New rule and enter a Name, such as "Backup failures at Brightwater".
2. Under When an alert matches, pick the Source modules, the Severity (Critical, Warning, Info) and the Customers. Leave any of them empty to match all.
3. Under Then, choose Open a ticket or Ignore the alert.
4. For a ticket, choose the Queue, Priority, Type and who to Assign to (or nobody, so the queue picks it up).
5. Leave Resolve the ticket when the alert clears on to close the loop by itself. It only resolves once every alert on the ticket has cleared and nobody has replied to the customer.
6. Turn on Also email about these alerts to email the customer's contacts, their own IT or any address about matching alerts, whether or not a ticket is opened.
7. Use Test against recent alerts to see what the rule would have caught.
8. Press Add rule.

What happens after#

• One open ticket per problem: the same alert again (same source and the same underlying issue) is added to its open ticket instead of opening another.
• An alert that comes back within a day of its ticket resolving by itself reopens that ticket.
• Alerts that are not for a customer never open tickets.
• The ticket links back to its alert: an Alert linked line in its activity names the rule and opens the alert, and a live card at the top of the details panel shows whether the alert is still true and its fix (see Tickets that link back to their alert or chat).
• Raising a ticket by hand from an alert starts it in the queue, type and priority the first matching rule would give it, with Send the customer a confirmation off.

Recent alerts, under the rules, shows what the rules as they stand would do with the latest alerts. Nothing is changed, so it is a safe way to check a new rule before relying on it.