How aishaa links emails to the right conversation

In short: When an email comes in, aishaa decides whether it is a reply to an existing ticket or the start of a new conversation. aishaa only links an email to an existing ticket on the basis of technical evidence contained in the email itself. The subject text, an order number in the email or the fact that a customer emailed recently never count as evidence. Without evidence, aishaa creates a new ticket; that is deliberately the safe choice.

Where to find this

This behaviour has no settings page of its own; it works automatically for every incoming email in every organisation. The only setting that affects it is the E-mail reopen window (days) in the way of working of the organisation or the account (see below). You can see what happened to a message in the ticket timeline, next to the message itself.

Who: everyone can see the result, from the Viewer role. Correcting (merging or splitting) is possible from the Agent role.

The order in which aishaa assesses an email

1. Blocked or spam? An email that is blocked by an incoming email rule is not processed. A new message above the spam threshold goes to Spam.
2. Received before? If exactly the same email comes in twice (for example via forwarding and via a connected mailbox), aishaa processes it once.
3. Reply from an external party? A reply to a message that was forwarded from a ticket to a supplier or other external party is added to that ticket as a message from an external participant.
4. Reply from the customer with evidence? aishaa looks for the evidence below. If there is an unambiguous match, the message goes into that ticket.
5. No evidence? Then aishaa creates a new ticket, with one exception: the cautious fallback on the sender address (see below).

Which evidence aishaa accepts

aishaa only links an email to an existing ticket if the email contains one of these pieces of evidence:

aishaa markers can expire or be revoked. An invalid or expired marker does not count as half evidence: it simply counts as “no evidence” and a new ticket is created. If two pieces of evidence point to different tickets, aishaa does not guess and also creates a new ticket.

What never counts as evidence

• The subject text. Two emails with the same subject do not automatically belong together.
• An order number, file number or customer number in the text.
• How recently the customer emailed.
• The number of open tickets the customer has.
• The sender address on its own. The same customer can have several separate conversations at the same time, and several people can be behind one address (such as a shared info address or a contact form).

The sender address does play a role in the customer history: all tickets from the same address belong to the same customer and are visible in the customer profile next to the ticket. So a new ticket never means the history is lost.

The cautious fallback on the sender address

If aishaa finds no evidence at all, it looks at the sender address one more time, under strict conditions. The message is only added to an existing ticket if:

• the organisation has exactly one ticket from this address that is not set to Closed and still had activity within the E-mail reopen window;
• that ticket came in on the same mailbox as the new message;
• the customer is not set to Conversations per ticket in the customer profile.

If there are zero, or two or more, such tickets, a new ticket is created. Closed tickets are never eligible for this fallback.

You set the E-mail reopen window (days) under the way of working of the organisation or the account: 7 days with the Webshop way of working, 30 days with Service provider, adjustable yourself from 1 to 3650 days. See Way of working: webshop or service provider.

Closed tickets and reopening

• If a live email with evidence comes in for a ticket that is set to Closed, aishaa adds the message to that ticket and the ticket opens again. How old the ticket is does not matter; a reply to a conversation belongs to that conversation in terms of content.
• Imported email history is not a live customer action. An import adds messages to tickets, but does not change the status and does not reopen a closed ticket. See Import email history.
• A message that comes in via the fallback on the sender address always goes into a ticket that was not yet closed, so reopening does not apply there.

Keep conversations separate per ticket

By default, aishaa shows all emails from the same address in one continuous conversation, with a subheading per ticket. For addresses behind which there are several people or subjects (a supplier, a shared address), you can choose Keep conversations separated per ticket in the customer profile next to the ticket. The customer is then set to Conversations per ticket:

• A message without evidence always becomes a new ticket; the fallback on the sender address does not apply.
• Replies with evidence simply stay with the right ticket.
• The ticket opens by default in the view of that ticket only.

You can switch back with Show conversations as one continuous history. See Continuous conversation or per ticket.

How ticket titles are created

• A new email ticket automatically gets the subject of the email as its title.
• If a proven reply comes in with a different subject, aishaa updates the automatic title. A reply that only adds a prefix (such as “RE:” or “FW:”) does not change the title.
• If a colleague has changed the title manually, aishaa never overwrites it automatically again.
• Every automatic title change appears in the ticket timeline. In addition, the original subject of each email remains visible per message.

Replying via another channel

A conversation belongs to the channel the customer wrote on. If the customer also uses another channel, for example WhatsApp, you can reply to an email ticket via that channel (and the other way round). The customer’s reply then comes back in the same ticket.

1. On the customer card at the top of the ticket, look at the icons of this customer’s other channels (Channels of this customer). Hover over an icon for the address, the last contact and Click to reply via (channel).
2. Click the icon. Above the reply box it now says You are replying via (channel) instead of (channel), the border of the reply box takes on the colour of the channel and the send button names the channel. You briefly see The reply goes via (channel) with Undo.
3. Send the reply. Back to (channel) takes you back to the channel of the conversation.

What happens to the text:

• If there was a proposal from aishaa that you had not changed yet, aishaa rewrites it straight away for the new channel (aishaa is rewriting the proposal for (channel)…). Facts, amounts, names and links stay the same. If you go back, the version from before the switch comes back.
• If you had already written text yourself, it stays. The bar says Your text is still written for (channel). and offers Rewrite for (channel).
• If you switch from email to another channel, CC and BCC are dropped (Cc and Bcc fall away.).
• If the 24-hour window is closed for WhatsApp, the customer card shows a padlock and Window closed: template only. Only a WhatsApp template then reaches the customer.

Where the reply comes back:

• Your reply goes to the address the customer used on that channel themselves. A WhatsApp template comes from the number the reply goes out on.
• If the customer replies via that other channel, the message comes into the same ticket, as long as that ticket is open or falls within the reopen window.
• The choice applies as long as you stay on the ticket. If the customer writes on another channel in the meantime, the reply follows the customer there.
• If the customer already has an open ticket on the other channel, clicking the icon opens that ticket (Open ticket #(number)) instead of switching.
• You cannot reply this way via a phone line. With Send to you only choose another address within the same channel.

If an email still ends up in the wrong place

• If a reply is in a new ticket while it belongs to an existing ticket, merge the tickets.
• If two separate conversations are in one ticket, split the ticket.
• See Merge, split, move and link.

Good to know

• If a customer does not reply with “Reply” but with a new email (for example by typing your address again), there is no evidence in the email. aishaa then creates a new ticket, unless the fallback on the sender address applies.
• When forwarding from another mailbox to your aishaa Mail address, the standard email references usually go along. The Gmail or Outlook conversation ID is not included when forwarding; it only works with a directly connected mailbox.
• If you use several mailboxes in one organisation, the fallback on the sender address only links within the same mailbox. A customer who writes to a different address of yours gets a new ticket.
• Linking works differently for WhatsApp and telephony (based on the phone number and a separate reopen window); this article is otherwise only about email.

Related

• Merge, split, move and link
• Continuous conversation or per ticket
• Ticket statuses and lifecycle
• Way of working: webshop or service provider
• Spam filter and allowed senders
• Incoming email rules
• Import email history
• The customer profile
• The 24-hour window