Is there a better way?

[aruntechie123]

Hello All,

I am unable to imagine a simple solution to this problem. Was
wondering if there is some bright way to deal with it.


The related technologies are :


(a) Exchange 2003; Outlook 2003


(b) REMEDY : This is a ticket logging system. It can be configured to
create a ticket upon receipt of an email. The ticket is then
automatically assigned to the relavent support group based on the
sender's email address. (FYI, each sender's email address is mapped to
a support group in Remedy).


A constaint is that REMEDY will not raise a ticket if the subject line
is prefixed with "RE" or "FW"


(c) SCOM (Microsoft Server Monitoring system) : This is configured to
generate email notifications upon receipts of alerts from servers. The
subject line contains the server name which clearly indicates which
support group will service the alert.


We would like to setup such that SCOM mails REMEDY to create a tickets
and assign it to the correct support group which is based on the
server name in the subject line.


The problem here is that the SCOM always mails from the same email
address, hence the tickets generated by REMEDY is always assigned to
the same support group.


There are 3 potential solutions we could imagine. All of these
requires Creation of dummy mailboxes or Security Group Email address for
each support group with "Send As" rights granted to SCOM user.


(1) Have SCOM run a script on recepit of each alert to parse the
subject line and "Send As" the appropriate Email address to REMEDY.


(2) Have SCOM mail an intermediate mailbox (instead of REMEDY) which
will use an Event Sink to parse the subject line and "Send As" the
appropriate Email address to REMEDY.


(3) Have SCOM mail an intermediate mailbox which has a rule configured
to auto-forward to a dummy mailbox of a support group which in turn will
auto-forward the mail to REMEDY. But the mail received by REMEDY will have
"FW" in the subject line and hence ignorned by it. Can some sort of language
customization in Outlook help here to mask out "FW" with a different prefix?

Solutions (1) and (2) would work fine I guess, but it requires some
nerdy programming which I am not so experienced with. It also requires
quite some approvals from SCOM/Exchange admins.

Is there a better way? Kindly help.

 

[Dennis C. in Virginia Beach, VA]

This looks like the type of question that might be handled better in
Experts-Exchange.com's discussion threads.

No offense to anyone reading this (MVPs included), but what you are seeking
sounds like much more than a "General" question...

To bad you cannot get Remedy to look at the first three lines of text in the
Body of these e-mails rather than the "Subject:" line.

Best wishes!,

~

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

This looks like the type of question that might be handled better in
Experts-Exchange.com's discussion threads.

Where do you think Experts Exchange gets a lot of their information? They
scarf up these newsgroups to make it look like their own.

 

[Gordon]

Where do you think Experts Exchange gets a lot of their information?
They scarf up these newsgroups to make it look like their own.

And you have to subscribe, as in handing over dosh.

 

[Dennis C. in Virginia Beach, VA]

And you have to subscribe, as in handing over dosh.

Well, it may be true that answers are found from time to time in newsgroups
such as this one but, in my case I often find answers within the pages of
Microsoft's Knowledge Base or have "refined" processes coming from first hand
experience.

Also, Experts-Exchange is a cooperative environment and users do NOT have to
hand over any "dosh" (cash?) in order to obtain an answer; all they need do
is participate in the system for a brief period and earn "status". This was
something I did not know going in to the process and was surprised to learn I
had been granted a slightly higher level of privileges because of ongoing
participation. I believe it took less than 30 days to achieve this and the
stipulation to retain the privileges was that I continue posting answers at a
rate that earned X,XXX "points" per month. However, once this status was
achieved it seems I have never lost it even for months in which it was not
possible to participate at the X,XXX point-earning level.

Newsgroups are great but the only proof someone has provided you with a
quality answer is in the testing of the answer. With the E-E site there is
an indicator the "Member" has been around for some time because they are
assigned a Rank and also have a Profile where specific areas of expertise may
be described. I am not definitively saying this is "better" than Newsgroups,
just a different approach and some of the answers I have seen there were
FIRST CLASS in content and composition.

FWiW (for whatever its worth)

~

 

[aruntechie123]

Thanks Gentlemen, I gather that I am not missing anything obvious/simple.