Gsuite and support ticket departments + disallow clients opening tickets from email

[Brainchild Labs Pty Ltd]

Hi there,

I have spoken to WHMCS and they have given me some information on what I should do in my situation, but I thought before I go ahead and implement them I would reach out and see what others recommend. I have 2 questions.

1. I am using Gsuite a primary Gsuite account with 2 secondary domains attached to it, to create additional users. I already use Gsuite as one of my support ticket email addresses for one of the support departments. I asked WHMCS if I could use the same support email for 2 departments they said it can be used by not recommended because it will pipe all emails to the departments that is top most in my department queue. I would them obviously need to sort this out myself.

Having said this, I am using cPanel for my installation of whmcs and even thou the mx records are pointing to Gsuite isn't it also possible to use an email address that exists on the actual cPanel account for the sole purpose of piping ticket emails into whmcs ? If this is not possible then I would definitely need to create 2 physical Gsuite accounts for the support ticket departments which I am trying to avoid to minimize costs ?

2. I asked WHMCS if its possible to disable the ability to send emails and open tickets direct from email. They said this functionality does not exist in WHMCS but I could use the Ticket hook to not allow tickets from being open by email and in the Gsuite account create an autoresponder that basically says you do not allow tickets to be open via direct email and direct them to the customer portal. Which seems ok to do. But is there a better way of doing this ?

Thats pretty much it. Thanks for the assistance in advance.

Mitch

[brian!]

Hi Mitch,

i'll answer the second one...

1 hour ago, menkom said:

2. I asked WHMCS if its possible to disable the ability to send emails and open tickets direct from email. They said this functionality does not exist in WHMCS but I could use the Ticket hook to not allow tickets from being open by email and in the Gsuite account create an autoresponder that basically says you do not allow tickets to be open via direct email and direct them to the customer portal. Which seems ok to do. But is there a better way of doing this ?

unless i've misunderstood what you want to do, e.g if you wanted to block clients from using emails to OPEN tickets, then you can do that from settings (on a per department basis) with no need for a hook...

https://docs.whmcs.com/Support_Departments

Quote

• For the Pipe Replies Only option, select whether to require clients to log in to the client area to open new tickets. Attempts to open new tickets via email will not succeed. Clients can still respond to tickets via email.
• You can also configure whether to send an auto responder email when a new ticket opens, and whether it's hidden or visible. Clients can only access hidden departments via a direct link.

so with P.R.O enabled, users cannot open tickets by email, but can reply to existing tickets - though I don't recall whether WHMCS lets the user know the ticket hasn't been opened.

[Brainchild Labs Pty Ltd]

49 minutes ago, brian! said:

Hi Mitch,

i'll answer the second one...

unless i've misunderstood what you want to do, e.g if you wanted to block clients from using emails to OPEN tickets, then you can do that from settings (on a per department basis) with no need for a hook...

https://docs.whmcs.com/Support_Departments

so with P.R.O enabled, users cannot open tickets by email, but can reply to existing tickets - though I don't recall whether WHMCS lets the user know the ticket hasn't been opened.

Hi Brian you are right there is that option for NEW TICKETS, although if a client did happen to send a ticket direct like they are currently doing what happens ? is there a template for me to edit that basically says you need to open the ticket directly from the client portal ?

I would also want replies to follow the same protocol, not just new tickets. The main reason for all this is because I am sick and tired of clients forwarding emails to the ticket queue that other people or systems have emailed them and they get completely stripped out from the ticket queue. Also certain formatting is stripped from whmcs when someone sends a reply directly from something like OUTLOOK eg... they reply in RED TEXT, this does not exist in WHMCS... I understand why they strip this formatting but it makes it difficult for someone like me and my team to do our jobs.

Do you think the best option for me is to just use that Hook so that anything that comes from direct email will bounce with responder unless they OPEN or REPLY from the client portal ?

 

[brian!]

16 minutes ago, menkom said:

Hi Brian you are right there is that option for NEW TICKETS, although if a client did happen to send a ticket direct like they are currently doing what happens ?

I suspect if the email had an existing valid ticket ID in the subject, their reply would be added to the existing ticket thread; if there wasn't a valid subject tid, then the email would be rejected - though i'll add a disclaimer in that i've rarely used email piping in WHMCS, even in a development sense,  as I simply cannot stand the feature!

19 minutes ago, menkom said:

is there a template for me to edit that basically says you need to open the ticket directly from the client portal ?

apologies for asking a daft question, but i'm confused - what's the ultimate aim here ? is it to stop clients from opening new and/or replying to existing tickets by email ?? if so, then i'd just disable the piping and add an auto responder to those incoming emails saying they need to visit the site.

28 minutes ago, menkom said:

Do you think the best option for me is to just use that Hook so that anything that comes from direct email will bounce with responder unless they OPEN or REPLY from the client portal ?

you could use a hook, but if the idea is to prevent them from emailing you to create/reply to tickets, then disabling the piping would be a simpler path I think.

[Brainchild Labs Pty Ltd]

By disabling pipe you mean just remove the cronjob in cpanel, or is there another place also to disable piping inside whmcs ?

I also assume the auto responder would be at a cpanel level with a rule that says anything coming in to a particular email address reply with this message.

Or 

I could do it at the Gsuite level with a rule that says anything coming in to this email reply back with this Canned Response right ?

[brian!]

7 hours ago, menkom said:

By disabling pipe you mean just remove the cronjob in cpanel, or is there another place also to disable piping inside whmcs ?

yes just removing the cron job should stop WHMCS checking that mailbox - you have to remember that WHMCS doesn't pipe emails by default, you will have had to enable it yourself with the additional cron... so just undoing that step removes the connection between WHMCS and the mailbox.

7 hours ago, menkom said:

I also assume the auto responder would be at a cpanel level with a rule that says anything coming in to a particular email address reply with this message.

Or 

I could do it at the Gsuite level with a rule that says anything coming in to this email reply back with this Canned Response right ?

from your initial description, I suspect it would be GSuite where you set up the responder...

• https://docs.whmcs.com/Email_Piping
• https://docs.whmcs.com/Email_Piping:_Google_Apps