Introduction: Streamlining Support with Vtiger Email Customizations
In the fast-paced world of customer support, efficient handling of support tickets is vital. At Boru, we recognized this need and took on the challenge of customizing Vtiger Open Source for one of our clients, who primarily uses Vtiger as a email support ticketing system. Our focus was on improving mail scraping and ticket record handling, ensuring a seamless flow from email receipt to ticket resolution.
Key Customizations for Optimized Ticket Handling
1. Implementing a ‘Heartbeat’ System
To ensure reliability in ticket creation from customer emails, we implemented an automated ‘heartbeat’ program. This system periodically sends an email into the client’s system, creating a ‘heartbeat ticket’ that is immediately deleted after confirmation. If a heartbeat ticket isn’t received within 30 minutes, it triggers an alert to our team to investigate potential issues with the ticket scraping process or email handling.
2. Enhancing Email Body Handling
Understanding that the email body contains crucial information for support tickets, we initially set up a text field to display email contents with HTML formatting. However, to prevent data loss from formatting errors, we introduced a two-step process. First, we save the email body as plain text with HTML source code. Then, for user readability, we display this data in a customized HTML widget on the ticket’s summary page, ensuring that images, hyperlinks, and other styling remain intact.
3. Improved Reporting with Mandatory Categories
To assist in the client’s reporting initiatives and manage diverse support queries, we added a mandatory ‘Category’ field to the ticket records. A pop-up prompts users to set this category for any ticket created in the past year that lacks this information, enhancing data categorization and reporting accuracy.
The Impact: Reliable and Efficient Support Ticketing
1. Reliable Email-to-Ticket Conversion
The heartbeat system has significantly improved the reliability of the email scraping to ticket creation process. It ensures that the system is always operational, and any issues are promptly identified and addressed.
2. Comprehensive Data Capture
With the enhanced email body handling, no critical information is lost during the conversion of emails to support tickets. The plain text and HTML widget approach ensures that all relevant data, including links and attachments, are preserved and easily accessible to customer service users.
3. Streamlined User Workflow
The addition of the mandatory ‘Category’ field, coupled with the pop-up mechanism, has streamlined the ticket processing workflow. This structure allows users to efficiently categorize and address tickets, improving overall productivity and the quality of support provided.
Conclusion: Boru’s Dedication to CRM Excellence
At Boru, our commitment to customizing CRM solutions like Vtiger is driven by our desire to enhance our clients’ operational efficiencies. The improvements made in email management and ticket handling for this client are a testament to our ability to tailor Vtiger to meet specific business needs. Our customizations not only ensure reliability in critical processes but also enhance user experience and reporting capabilities. If you’re looking to optimize your CRM system for better support management, reach out to us and explore how we can transform your Vtiger CRM system.
