No Spam Control Wildcard?? huh??

[bluesteam]

Hi,

So I have just signed up with crisp.  My business email address is info@bluesteam.net.  Crisp asks for an email address when signing up and sends you the chat transcripts after the conversation is complete.

The problem is that Crisp sends these transcripts from some-random-sequence@bluesteam.on.crisp.email

Now I have piping enabled for info@bluesteam.net for my General Queries Department so I keep getting the transcript opening tickets on the support system.

NOW I have to go and delete every support ticket that gets opened because blacklisting each email address is pointless because the sequence will always change and never be the same so its useles to blacklist it.

I want to add a wildcard in the Spam Control System *@bluesteam.on.crisp.email so that NO transcripts can open a ticket but lo and behold, there is no such thing as a wildcard on the Spam Control.

How can this be?  It's such a simple feature that should be enabled with every spam control system.

Has anyone got a solution to this?

Thanks
Brett

Edited June 26, 2018 by bluesteam

[bluesteam]

So the emails from crisp are coming from transcripts@bluesteam.on.crisp.email but their reply-to address in the headers are some-random-sequence@bluesteam.on.crisp.email

The tickets are correctly opened using the reply-to address so I have added transcripts@bluesteam.on.crisp.email to the spam control facility and will see if this works.

However, wildcards are still sorely missing in WHMCS and I still cannot believe this is not implemented.  I have found plenty of requests for this feature over a period of several years and it seems to have been ignored.

[bluesteam]

Nope!  The Support System uses the reply-to address to important the emails.  so blocking the from address is useless!

Please can someone assist me on this!!

[brian!]

Hi Brett,

3 hours ago, bluesteam said:

So I have just signed up with crisp.  My business email address is info@bluesteam.net.  Crisp asks for an email address when signing up and sends you the chat transcripts after the conversation is complete.

The problem is that Crisp sends these transcripts from some-random-sequence@bluesteam.on.crisp.email

Now I have piping enabled for info@bluesteam.net for my General Queries Department so I keep getting the transcript opening tickets on the support system.

I have to say that I think it was a fatal, and obvious, mistake to sign up to Crisp using an email address that is already used for piping.. e.g if you are using the POP3 import method, the docs do say to create a unique email mailbox for each support department.

3 hours ago, bluesteam said:

I want to add a wildcard in the Spam Control System *@bluesteam.on.crisp.email so that NO transcripts can open a ticket but lo and behold, there is no such thing as a wildcard on the Spam Control.

How can this be?  It's such a simple feature that should be enabled with every spam control system.

if the server uses cPanel, wouldn't it be easier to create a forwarder to forward these Crisp emails to another email address - even if you're using the Forwarder method for piping, just have this crisp forwarder run before the piping forwarder, check the headers for bluesteam.on.crisp.email and forward those emails elsewhere.

... or is it an option to change your email address with Crisp? that's what i'd do as it prevents the need to mess around with the piping mailbox settings.

[bluesteam]

Quote

I have to say that I think it was a fatal, and obvious, mistake to sign up to Crisp using an email address that is already used for piping.. e.g if you are using the POP3 import method, the docs do say to create a unique email mailbox for each support department.

I can't tell you how much I completely disagree with this statement!  Firstly, I'm not using POP3 import method so that's a moot point.

Secondly, 90% of businesses use info@ for a general business email address and with this being the business account email address, I naturally signed up with Crisp using the business general email address.

info is used for general enquiries of my business or it's services which also has a General Enquiries department and it makes sense to have it piped to the support system. This is not unlike most business that use an info@ address for this.  

So i don't see at all that this was a "fatal, and obvious, mistake" as you put it.

What is "fatal and obvious" imo is the lacking feature of wildcard filtering in the Spam Control system that is so obvious to have implemented from the get go.

What you are essentially doing is defending the simple fact that WHMCS is lacking a very vital and obvious feature which is a wildcard on Spam protection at the expense of me having the right to choose what email account I want to use to sign up with various services for.

If the simple feature was available to filter out entire domains within WHMCS, this would not be an issue but it's clear that this vital feature has been ignored.

Quote

if the server uses cPanel, wouldn't it be easier to create a forwarder to forward these Crisp emails to another email address - even if you're using the Forwarder method for piping, just have this crisp forwarder run before the piping forwarder, check the headers for bluesteam.on.crisp.email and forward those emails elsewhere.

... or is it an option to change your email address with Crisp? that's what i'd do as it prevents the need to mess around with the piping mailbox settings.

Acutally, wouldn't it be FAAR better and more user friendly and not to mention efficient (whether easier or not) to implement the vital feature of a wildcard filter within WHMCS??  How could this have been overlooked?

In order to resolve this now, I have to do some fancy footwork and tap dancing to avoid my ticket system from being spammed.

Edited June 26, 2018 by bluesteam

[brian!]

1 hour ago, bluesteam said:

I can't tell you how much I completely disagree with this statement! 

I feel that you're going to though.

1 hour ago, bluesteam said:

Secondly, 90% of businesses use info@ for a general business email address and with this being the business account email address, I naturally signed up with Crisp using the business general email address.

well I would be in that 90% too, but I wouldn't use it for piping... actually, I don't use piping at all - it's just another one of those limitedly developed features that I find it easier to opt out of using.

1 hour ago, bluesteam said:

info is used for general enquiries of my business or it's services which also has a General Enquiries department and it makes sense to have it piped to the support system.

we'll disagree on that last point... doesn't make either of us wrong, we're just looking at the same thing from different angles.

1 hour ago, bluesteam said:

what you are essentially doing is defending the simple fact that WHMCS is lacking a very vital and obvious feature which is a wildcard on Spam protection at the expense of me having the right to choose what email account I want to use to sign up with various services for.

no what I was doing in REALITY was trying to give you a quick fix to a problem that you got yourself into!

i'm certainly not defending whether WHMCS is lacking any vital function or feature... but let's say that it is - on a practical level, what can be done to fix it? if it's a bug (and they see it as such - but they won't as it isn't), then it would take months at best to get fixed... or let's say it's a feature request (which it is), then those can take 5+ years to get completed... there's nothing I can do to speed that up - if there was, i'd do it...

I don't work for WHMCS (never have, never will) and so have got zero influence over this - and am one of it's most vocal complainants about it's slow buggy development... if I was on the WHMCS payroll, I wouldn't be allowed to say those sort of things publicly... but i'm just a WHMCS user like you who would happily say them more frequently if I thought it would do any good, but it won't.

if you know of a practical way to speed up feature requests, i'm happy to hear about it... but coming to these communities and saying WHMCS should do X, Y & Z is pointless.... oh I so wish that it wasn't, but in practical terms it's pointless - other than to publicly vent frustration sometimes.

1 hour ago, bluesteam said:

If the simple feature was available to filter out entire domains within WHMCS, this would not be an issue but it's clear that this vital feature has been ignored.

it's hardly unique in that respect.

1 hour ago, bluesteam said:

Actually, wouldn't it be FAAR better and more user friendly and not to mention efficient (whether easier or not) to implement the vital feature of a wildcard filter within WHMCS??

yes - but neither of us can implement it can we - only WHMCS can (unless a third-party produces an addon).... if you prefer, I could have trotted out the usual trite official line of submitting a feature request - but that's not going to solve your problem today is it? it's not even going to solve it this decade - cue the obligatory link to a 4-year old request that got 5 votes and has been archived...

the thing is with WHMCS, prevention is far better (easier) than cure - 8,500 posts, plus my own experience of using WHMCS, has taught me that!

so if you had signed up to Crisp using another email address, we wouldn't have even been having this conversation.... yes, you can see say "oh I shouldn't have to do that, I use this address all the time", and I get that (I really do), but I would have seen not doing that as asking for trouble if it's being used for piping... now maybe that's from answering other similar questions over the years, but when I read your post, that was the first thought that came to mind... why did he do that ???

to put it simply - it's quicker to fix things that you have control over compared to getting WHMCS to fix things that they have control of... to a certain extent, it will always be that way... though it shouldn't be so lopsided as it currently is, but that's just how things are.

1 hour ago, bluesteam said:

In order to resolve this now, I have to do some fancy footwork and tap dancing to avoid my ticket system from being spammed.

it's a self-inflicted wound - try as I might, I can't really generate any sympathy... sorry.

[bluesteam]

As I was reading your reply, I had a response to each statement but I don't really have the time to sit here typing lengthy posts quoting each line just to prove my points.

I can see that you come from a good point of view but we will have to agree to disagree.  People do things their own way.  Just because you believe that you wouldn't do it the way that I did it doesn't make it wrong and to say it was a fatal mistake is your opinion and it will remain that as I should not be limited/forced/told on how I use my own email accounts.

I don't think it was at ALL a mistake on my part in any way.

I think that the moment a piece of software starts putting you in a box like this does, forcing me to use an alternative email address just because they don't have a common feature(it was always said that it was not a unique feature.  Hence why it should be implemented) of wildcard filtering, then there is something wrong with that software.  Again, my opinion but I suspect most people would agree with that opinion.

And lastly, for the record, I know you don't work for WHMCS.  I never implied that you do.

Edited June 26, 2018 by bluesteam

[bluesteam]

Thanks for your input.  I still feel that WHMCS needs to improve the Spam Filtering facility which is what this post was about.