Parsertongue: Another Important Autotask Fundamental
Greetings, fellow Autotask Warriors and Gladiators! Welcome back to another discussion on how to put the “Auto” in Autotask.
Lately, we’ve had a lot of questions and consulting requests around things I consider Autotask fundamentals. So, we’ve decided to take a few weeks to go over some of the basic functions and reporting of Autotask.
If you noticed the title of this article and are a Harry Potter fan, you may already have a clue where we are going this week. Yes, we’re going to talk about the Autotask mail parser, otherwise known as Incoming Email Processing.
Why are we discussing the mail parser? Isn’t that boring?
Yes, it’s boring, but boring often means automated. And I thought I’d give your eyeballs a break from the Live Reports we’ve been talking about recently.
Actually, the Autotask mail parser is a critically important item for any Autotask setup. Incoming Mail Processing is an Autotask feature that searches the Subject line and Body text of incoming emails for special text that is used to create tickets and add notes to tickets, tasks, and projects. Yes, I said tasks and projects. Techs can even add their time and notes via email. And these tickets can automagically be managed and modified by your existing workflow rules or triage process.
Imagine tickets automatically showing up in the Autotask triage queue and your Techs being able to get right to them without someone having to remember to check email, filter out the junk, and then copy and paste the date into a blank ticket before work can start. Think about 8 am when you walk in the door and have 50 emails to go through – it could be an hour before the ticket is ready to be worked.
The Autotask Mail Parser Will Save You Time
Many MSPs start out working tickets with email and Excel. When they graduate to a PSA like Autotask they often keep getting tickets in email and then someone (often a billable owner or Tech) is wasting their time copying and pasting the ticket info in the system. Or some buy a 3rd party add-on at a ton of extra money because of a ton of features they may (or may not) need…or they just don’t know any better. Or, even worse, they tell their Clients to call in all their tickets so they can tie up even more of your Team’s time.
For the record, we at Advanced Global have no issues with the vendors selling 3rd party email parsers that integrate with Autotask. The ones we are familiar with bring some really good features that the AT parser just can’t do. For Clients who have specific needs, we recommend these products. However, for most MSPs the Autotask mail parser (likely included in what you are already paying) works just fine. And it is a MASSIVE time saver over copying and pasting from email.
The #1 Reason Why MSPs Don’t Implement Incoming Email Processing is…
The single biggest reason we hear for not implementing Incoming Email Processing is that the process looks too time consuming, or the MSP owner is worried a ticket may not make it and a Client may be upset.
We also hear the dreaded, “This is how we’ve always done it.” I’m all about putting the automation in PSAutomation to create happy Techs and Clients working in a Zen-like environment, so “always done it this way,” isn’t going to cut it. We’re going to set up Autotask Incoming Mail Processing right now.
Note: If you want to DIY, then what comes next is right up your alley. If you’d like some help, then reach out to me at info@agmspcoaching.com or join our Autotask Gladiator’s Community and post your question there. Or you’re welcome to join one of the member’s only Webex calls with me and my Coaching team.
Step 1: Start With an Email Address
The first step is to make sure you have a support email address with your email provider. You may already have one in place that everyone checks. If not, create one now. Common addresses are below, but it can be whatever you want your clients to use:
Then tell all your Clients to stop emailing Team members directly and use the new support address instead. The only exceptions should be if your escalation or sales process doesn’t use tickets.
If using Microsoft 365, you will want to make sure that forwarding email outside your tenant is turned on.
Now You’re Ready to Head into Autotask:
Go to the hamburger menu, choose Admin, and then “Extensions and Integrations.”
Choose the “Automation” tab.
Under the “Email Notifications and Surveys” menu, click on “Incoming Email Processing.”
Don’t see this option? Contact your Datto/K rep to ensure this is enabled on your account.
While you can create multiple Autotask mailboxes for your platinum SLA Clients, firewall alerts, and things like that, we are going to create the primary mailbox which should be the “catch-all” for most of your Clients.
Clicking “New” gives us several options.
General Tab
The mailbox name can be anything you want. In the Mailbox Email box, you only need to add the first part of the Support email you created - in our example, “support,” as the rest will be added automatically after you click out of the box.
The attachment settings are up to you, but you should set something for the minimum width and height. Including the original email as an attachment can save you bacon down the road. Including the Incoming Mail Header can be useful for Techs and Managers being able to quickly see who the ticket email was copied to.
Ticket Tab
You’ll want to enable this and enable account/contact matching. We recommend using your “Zero Account” (which is your MSP account) for the Ticket Account that tickets will be created when they don’t match a Client.
For the Defaults, use what makes sense for your MSP. I recommend a status of New and sending it to your Triage queue and enabling additional contact handling.
Everything else you can leave at defaults if you wish. You may want to setup failure notifications to your Service Coordinator or Service Manager. You really don’t want to enable success notification, as we are going to handle all Client communication with our New Ticket Notification WFR.
Ticket Note Tab
The ticket note settings are optional, but I recommend enabling it and making sure that the status is set to your version of Customer Note Added when a note comes in. Again, you shouldn’t need to set up any notifications as your WFRs will handle these.
Once you have this in place, you will want to send your new Autotask Incoming Mail Processing address (from the general tab) a test email to make sure the ticket is created properly. Address any issues and then go into your email server and set up forwarding to your Autotask address. If you haven’t set up workflow rules to handle new tickets or new notes, you will want to do this now. Of course, Advanced Global is always here to help with that.
Summary
Using Autotask Incoming Email Processing is a cheap (likely free) and essential tool to free your Techs up from wasting time creating tickets from email. Using a Client Portal is often the best option, but email tickets are the next best thing - and they are much better than tickets coming in by phone. Learning parsertongue will make you a hero like Harry Potter.
Need some help with Incoming Mail Processing or just need to talk to a World Class Autotask Coach? Drop us a line: info@agmspcoaching.com.
Until next time.
Steve & Co