[rt-users] Creating Tickets from forwarded emails?

[Jonathan Mills]

Dear RT Users:

Imagine an example where an external user sends an email to an employee, rather than directly to RT.  The employee now wants to create a ticket on behalf of the requestor in the quickest, easiest way possible.

We know that there is the 'Redirect' or 'Bounce' button available in some email clients.  However, it's often not an easy function to find.  It is also no longer a default function of Thunderbird, at all, in any recent version of that popular client.  Asking employees to modify Thunderbird with plugins, etc, to enable a 'Redirect' button would pose an insurmountable challenge to support staff.

Secondly, we know it is possible to forward an email to RT, and add the original requestor's email address to the Reply-To header field of the forward.  While not tested, I have read that RT will understand this natively.  However, this is another educational challenge, asking support staff to always remember to custom modify this Reply-To field.

In short, I need a solution that requires "no thought" on the part of support staff, since they already have plenty of other things to think about.

Is it possible to modify the configuration of RT itself -- perhaps with some kind of plugin from CPAN -- to make RT smart enough to understand a forwarded email, and automatically locate the original sender's address and make that person the Requestor of the ticket?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers,

--
Jonathan Mills
Systems Administrator
Renaissance Computing Institute
UNC-Chapel Hill