Updated 25th June: Due to popular demand, we have added support for POP3 account polling as well as Email Piping
As mentioned in a previous blog entry, IP.Nexus supports Incoming Emails to be parsed as support requests.
Technical Requirements
In order for Incoming Emails to function, you will either need to configure your server to pipe Emails to a script, or a mail account which supports POP3.
Customers using our hosting service who are paying $5 for IP.Content and IP.Nexus will be happy to know their accounts support piping.
We strongly recommend piping over POP3 and customers not using our hosting service should check with their provider if either service is offered.
If piping is not available, most EMail accounts (including GMail) support POP3.
If using POP3 over piping, it is strongly recommended that you use a CRON job to poll the account. Check with your hosting provider if you are able to set up CRON jobs.
How it works
For Email piping:
- The user sends an Email to a special Email address which you have configured on your server to be piped to a script in IP.Board.
- Your server hands the Email to that script.
- If the Email is a reply, the script will detect this from the subject line and add the content of the Email as a reply. If it is a new request, the script will look for support departments with the Email address the Email was sent to and create a new request in that department.
For POP3 polling:
- The user sends an Email to a special Email address which you have configured on your server to be piped to a script in IP.Board.
- IP.Board periodically checks (by default every 30 minutes, but this can be configured) if there are any new messages on your server.
- If a message is found, it is pulled back to a script in IP.Board.
- If the Email is a reply, the script will detect this from the subject line and add the content of the Email as a reply. If it is a new request, the script will look for support departments with the Email address the Email was sent to and create a new request in that department.
If the user does not have an account, IP.Nexus will still create the support request and they will receive replies by Email.
If the user then decides to create an account, IP.Nexus will recognise that they already have support requests and assign them to the new account so they can view them in the client area.
Attachments are parsed as per the normal IP.Board attachment settings so you can Email images, zip files, etc. but any file types IP.Board wouldn't normally allow you to upload will be ignored.
They will be displayed in the support request, and treated as normal attachments, just as if they had been uploaded in the client area.
Information for Developers
This is actually a feature of IP.Board 3.1, we just haven't previously announced it since there was no application until now.
You can however, add incoming email support to your own application, and we have written a developer article here which explains how to do it: http://community.invisionpower.com/resources/documentation/index.html/_/hidden-staff-only/incomingemailsphp-r371