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I feel like this is an incredibly basic question, but I have read through the user guide, the admin guide, and searched stackexchange and google, and I have not found the answer.

I have set up an e-mail account to receive inbound emails, and I have successfully configured CiviCRM to check that account, pull in email, and turn those emails into Activities on the contact record. So far, so good.

But what I want is for any inbound e-mail to become a case in CiviCase.

I have read in the docs that inbound email will be tagged to an existing case if it contains a subject line field. And I have also read here:

In the CiviMail chapter the Email Processor was described as a way to get inbound and outbound emails into CiviCRM as non-case activities. When you enable CiviCase, a new action will be available that allows you to file any non-case activity onto a case.

Where is that new action? I edited the Scheduled Job for Process Inbound Email, and it doesn't have an option to put new emails into a case.

Thanks for your help.

CiviCRM 4.7.20 on Drupal if that matters

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3 Answers 3

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It can't do that out of the box but you could theoretically write an extension to use hook_civicrm_emailProcessor to create the case when an email comes in. But unless you always want the client to be the From address, you'd have to figure out how to decide who is the client if there's multiple To/Cc's. You'd also have to decide what to do when the client/case already exists for an incoming email or you might get duplicate cases.

For the second part of your question, there used to be a link that appears on the far right-hand side of activity search listings, and a button at the bottom of the page when you view activities, but it looks like maybe this has changed in the latest version. But I can see it under search results in the dropdown under Actions (e.g. after doing Search - Find Activities).

screenshot

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    Hi again. I was very surprised that this is not default behaviour out of the box. I guess CiviCase is not intended to replace like a ticketing system? Anyway, I have posted a new question to ask about best practices for inbound email handling: civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/24177/…. The fact that this is not default behaviour for CiviCase makes me think perhaps it is not the appropriate tool for the job? Any thoughts?
    – richardsplayground
    Commented Mar 18, 2018 at 22:36
  • We tried it once internally as a ticket system, as an "eat your own dogfood" type of thing. But I remember what I said at the time was sometimes you need a truck and sometimes you need a van. They're similar vehicles but depends what you need to do.
    – Demerit
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 1:34
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You could achieve this with the CiviRules extension, although I am not sure if all the conditions and actions you would require are in the box yet. It would be fairly straightforward to develop them.

Having said so, I would also not use CiviCase as a ticketing system, I think there are better alternatives. As Demerit pointed out there are many types of vehicle....sometimes I prefer the bicycle and sometimes the car :-)

You can find the CiviRules extension here: https://civicrm.org/extensions/civirules and documentation (inluding how to develop conditions and actions) here: https://docs.civicrm.org/civirules/en/latest/

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another alternative is to investigate using a webform for people to submit their issue to you, rather than by email. The webform can create cases.

Best

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