Automatic ticket updates

Automatic ticket updates#

When a new email is received in the Ask-JGI mailbox an automated response is generated, which looks something like:

Thank you for your Ask-JGI enquiry. Your query will be picked up by a member of the Ask-JGI team soon.

In the meantime please reply to this email to provide any
supplementary information to your question. 
Make sure you include this phrase somewhere in the email:
{AskJGI-110}. 
This helps us to track how the AskJGI service is used.

Suggested additional information:
 1. Your research question
 2. Any relevant papers / draft manuscripts etc.
 3. A description of your data (and a sample if you can send it)
 4. Any relevant analysis scripts/code that you have produced so far.

Note the {AskJGI-110} in the text above. The number corresponds to the Ask-JGI ticket number (110 in this example), which increments with each newly received query. This number acts as a unique identifier for the email thread, which is then used to open a new ticket in the Ask-JGI tracker. All subsequent emails that contain this same identifier will be associated with the newly created ticket (so that the ticket gets updated with each new email in the thread).

Duplicate tickets#

As noted above, when responding to a query it is important to reply to the latest email in the email thread (which includes the Ask-JGI automatic response) so that the Ask-JGI ticket number is included in the continuing email thread. This ensures that the same tracker ticket is updated as the email thread evolves.

Warning

The Ask-JGI tracker system will get messy if the Ask-JGI ticket number is not included in all emails in the thread.

The system breaks down if:

You reply directly to the query email instead of the auto-response and forget to manually include the tracking number in your reply.
The person who submitted the query removes the tracking number from the email thread (e.g. by trimming your email from the thread in their reply, thereby removing the tracking number).

The consequences of the system breaking down are as follows:

The person who submitted the query will get a new auto-response email generated each time they email the inbox (with a new tracking number).
There will be a new ticket logged in the tracker each time a new auto-response is generated by the querier, as shown in the example below:

Resolving duplicate tickets#

It is important that we remove any duplicated tickets from the Ask-JGI tracker, since we use the tracker for reporting purposes. This includes keeping a record of how many queries we get, and from which departments and faculties.

Note

Duplicate tickets can also arise when one querier sends multiple emails about the same query to the mailbox (e.g. starting a new email thread, or changing email title). So long as there are duplicate tickets that concern the same query they will still need to be cleaned up.

Please see the following instructions on what to do if you have a duplicate ticket in the tracker, depending on the situation:

Scenario 1: the tracking number was dropped from the thread
Scenario 2: the querier started a fresh email thread

Scenario 1: the tracking number was dropped from the thread#

If you find that there are duplicated tickets in the tracker (and new automated email replies in the email thread) as a consequence of the tracking number being omitted from an email, please follow these instructions to resolve the problem.

First, open the tracker and identify the original and duplicated ticket. You then need to:

Check the new ticket for any information that might be relevant to keep around. If there is important new info provided in this new email then you may need to manually copy/paste this information from the new ticket into the old ticket.
Update the old ticket to reflect the status of the new ticket (i.e. to update the date that the ticket was altered, and the new state of the ticket).
Once you are happy that you have copied any relevant information from the new ticket to the old ticket, you can delete the new ticket.

Then, once you have tidied up the duplicated tickets in the tracker, follow these steps:

The next time you compose a reply to the querier, remove any trace of the “new” tracking numbers from repeated auto-responses from the email thread. This may mean that you have to delete the quoted thread in the email body of your reply, so that your reply only includes your new text.
Include the original tracking ID in your reply.

Point out in your reply what has happened to acknowledge the repeated auto-replies and remind them to include the tracking number in subsequent emails:

As a reminder, please try to make sure you include this phrase
somewhere in subsequent emails in this thread: {AskJGI-XXX}. This
helps us to track how the AskJGI service is used and will suppress
repeated automatic responses.

Scenario 2: the querier started a fresh email thread#

Sometimes the querier may send a new or follow up email to the mailbox with a new subject line, and possibly new people included in cc. Unless they have copied their tracking number into their reply, this will trigger a new ticket in the tracker.