Latest revision as of 18:08, 4 October 2016

1 Overview

This wixi discusses integration with a mailbox to allow for continued email conversations and to allow social media interaction and continuation of conversations.

This wixi assumes you have a strong operational / working knowledge of bxp, primarily in the areas of Form and Security management of the system.

To understand how bxp and social media work together Scenario_-_bxp_and_Social_Media
For the technical setup of the social media integrations Bxp_Social_Media_integration_setup

2 Mailbox integration

Firstly you must have an email account you can control and test with.

• This email account must have POP3 capability.
• This email account must be accessible from outside your organisation.

An initial guide to creating a form which can retrieve email is detailed here BEmail_(_Email-2-Campaign_)

If you are having trouble configuring this solution, here are some mailbox login troubleshooting tips. Troubleshooting_-_Mailbox_logins

3 Conversation continuation

So we have a form, we have fields and we have the ability to read emails into this form. We have also tested with sample emails and they are being logged in the form.

The next step is to allow continuation.

3.1 Step 1. Configure the outcome to include a unique identifier

For this scenario we can use the CDA Id, though any unique field in the form could be used, i.e. existing Customer Id or reference codes.

We create an outcome to email the customer for continuation. Please see CC-1-5 for more information on managing outcomes if required Contact_Centre_Training

Main Menu > Form Management > Form - Outcome Management > Outcome - Add > Choose the form > External communication

We configure the outcome to send an external communication email. In the subject of the outcome we use the title:

• Demonstration Outcome ###--intCDA_X_Id--#

Where X is the Id of the demonstration form this is being set up in.

When using this outcome, the email reply to the user should contain the CDA Id in the subject of the email.

Test this outcome now to ensure the Id is properly appearing in your Inbox in the subject of the email.

3.2 Step 2. Configure the form to read the reference

It is now possible to configure the form to read the

Main Menu > Form Management > Form - Primary Management > Form - Advanced Settings > Choose the form > Inbox Management

1. Identify "Attempt matching?" and set to True.
2. In "Field to match on" select the intCDA_X_Id field
3. In "Match pattern" enter the following without the double quotes "###--ID--#"

The engine uses --ID-- as a separator. So whatever is before the --ID-- will be searched for and the content read until what is after the --ID--.

So if the subject was

• "This is a very long ###123# demonstration subject for an email with 45 characters or more in it."

The process:

• It would split the subject on ###
• It would then read the second element in the array until the # was found
• The engine then performs a "force numeric function" to ensure a number. If anything other than a number is in there... an Id of 0 will be returned
• If the number is > 0 then this will be entered into the existing id

It is possible to create obfuscation in the Ids if required. e.g. ##abc###123#3223####2332 this will still identify 123 as the Id, as the first two ## don't split the string. Then reading only the second part of the string up to the first # is only considered.

With this pattern identified, you can test continuation of email conversations. Just by constructing a manual subject in your email will allow continuation.

4 Conversation optimisations

4.1 Matching on different criteria

The "field to match on" does not have to be set to the Id field. For example if there was an email field and you wanted to match the incoming email address to an existing account.

1. Identify "Attempt matching?" and set to True.
2. In "Field to match on" select the From address field
3. In "Match pattern" enter the following without the double quotes "@--ID--"

So this will match from the @ symbol to the end of the field.

This approach is often used in the social media configuration ability.

4.2 Body embedding

For security reasons some operations don't like to advertise continuation. For this reason it is possible to embed the reference into the body of the email itself.

• When setting up your external communication outcome put into the body of the email near the end of the email the reference code. You could for HTML emails also include the content in a hidden field to reduce the chance of tampering. So if you put <input type=hidden name=hiddenRef id=hiddenRef value=123/>

• In "field to match on" choose the body of the email instead.
• Match pattern, without the double quotes could be "hiddenRef value=--ID--/"

5 Content Retrieval

To speed up data extraction it is possible to retrieve content from the body of a structured or semi structured email.

Full details on the Content Retrieval process is available here BEmail_Content_Retrieval. Using this process custom flags can be set, such as "spam" as an optional field in the data to make filtering incoming email easier.

6 Social Media Integration

A full description on setting up Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is available here Scenario_-_bxp_and_Social_Media

Please note that once the social media can email you a notification, then integration with the platform is possible.

More advanced platforms have APIs which can also be leveraged. The medium of email is used for convenience. More secure and timely results are achieved through the use of APIs.