Update Record

21 Oct 2024
8 Minutes to read

Update Record

Updated on 21 Oct 2024
8 Minutes to read

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Updating a record is explained with respect to its workflow and the user interface from Application Designer's perspective. To learn more about how the update record works and its configuration, refer to the following:

Workflow of Update Record

Update Record Mechanism

The Update Record action is always the second action that will be checked for any incoming mail. Once the conditions of the Approval action are not met the system will check the Update Record action. The workflow of the Update Record action is explained below:

The first step will be to check if the sender of the mail will match any of the personas(User, Analyst, or External User) for the record in the configuration.
If the sender of the mail is from the persona and is enabled, then the system will proceed to the next check. Otherwise, the system will disqualify the update record action for the record and will skip to the next action. Once the sender of the mail qualifies under a persona the system will check for which specific fields of the record it should be updated. This can be checked from the Map Fields section where the field of the record is mapped to the User-Defined Keys. The system will check whether the defined User Defined Keys match with the content of the mail.
If the content matches with the user-defined keys then the mapped fields will be updated with the values defined in the mail. The system will check if the entire email should be updated to any fields in the record. If none of the values match, then the mail will be considered unprocessed, and the system will proceed to the next action.
If the map fields section matches with the mail, then the system will next check for the update condition section. The Update Condition defines under what circumstances (based on the values of the fields in the record) the record should be updated. If the condition matches, then the system updates the record as per the Update Criteria. If the Update Criteria or Update Condition doesn’t match, then there is another option to either update the record or send a notification to the sender of the mail or the admin.
If the criteria or condition doesn’t match, then the fields of the record can be updated with some predefined values. If the update fields are not selected then the system will send a mail back to the sender or the admin with a custom message that’s defined at this level.

Configure Update Record

An Application Designer can view the mailbox configuration and decide upon what parameters a Record can be identified to Update it.

Record Identification - Mailbox Configuration

Record Identification will help the system to identify the records that need to be updated based on Record ID, Unique ID, and Email Subject.

To configure Record Identification - Mailbox Configuration, perform the following:

Select an option from the dropdown field named Process Emails based on.
Multiple options can be selected as well.

Following are the list of options:

Figure: Update Record - Multi-select field

Record ID

If Record ID is selected as the option, then this sub-section displays one more field with checkbox control. This is floated from the Mailbox Configuration.

Select Record ID.
An additional field Identify Record from Email is displayed.
Figure: Notification Parser - Update Record
By default, the Subject is selected as a target to identify the Record ID from the email.

Record ID Functionality

When this option is selected then the system will check for the presence of any Record ID in the Subject of the email.
If any value similar to the Record ID is found, then the system will try to match the found value with the Record ID available in the system for the selected module.
If the exact match is found, then the configured action will be applied for the record if the conditions defined in actions are met.

Unique ID

To configure processing of email based on Unique ID, perform the following:

Select Unique ID from the Process Emails based on dropdown list.

Figure: Notification Parser - Update Record

Unique ID Functionality

If the Unique ID is selected as an option, then the system will check if the configured data matches any of the previous emails in the mailbox.
Each email will have a Unique ID attached to it. The system must identify that ID and match it to the record to which it is linked.
Once the record is identified and the conditions match then the respective action will be applied to the record.

Note
Click on bulb icon to view info message about the Unique ID. Upon performing this action, following message is displayed.
This is referred to the unique ID in the email when the email is originally generated.

Email Subject

Email can process based on Subject and Subject Tags. This functionality will help users while processing emails with same subject line. When encountered by parser to identify and satisfy the condition of updating the record.

To process email based on Email Subject, perform the following steps:

Select Email Subject.
An additional field Subject Tag is displayed.
Figure: Update Record based on Email Subject
Enter Subject Tag.
One or more subject tags can be added. This Subject Tag will appear only when the Email Subject is selected as one of the option in the Process Email based on dropdown.
Figure: Notification Parser - Update Record
Note
Subject Tags provide more information about the subject, enter Subject Tag such as FW, RE (separated by Comma).
This allows the system to communicate if it is a Response, original email, or a New email.

Update Record Algorithm

As a general condition, any incoming email that fails the Approval condition is considered for update criteria.
This will now check Process Email Based on configuration.
Figure: Process emails based on
This will help in addressing the following Condition:
1. If the incoming email has a Record ID in the Subject. (OR)
2. If the incoming email has an Unique ID. (OR)
3. if it must be parsed based on Email Subject.
if the Subject of this incoming email has any of the mentioned Subject Tags (applicable only if the Email Subject is enabled).
Check if the from email ID is configured as one of the personas eligible to update the record, as displayed in the following.
Figure: Update Record - Criteria
Note
According to this configuration, if an email is from any of these Personas such as Requestor/ Analyst or CC User, then its eligible and passes this stage.
Now, check the defined condition of the records.
Figure: Process email only if condition matches
Note
According to the above example, Update will be applied only on the Records that are Open (Not Resolved). Now, this might lead to the shortlisting of multiple records, lets proceed to next part of the algorithm.
Now, check if the Sender of this email is a Requestor, Analyst, or CC’ed user from the multiple records that got shortlisted.
From previous step it may still lead to shortlisting of multiple tickets to address this the Latest Updated ticket in set of multiple record should be considered and Updated.
If the Algorithm fails at any stage, then Update of Record fails and this leads to creation of new records.

Update Criteria

The Application Designer can define the persona to update the criteria. This section contains two other sub sections as part of Criteria configuration as follows:

To configure a user persona to update record as a criteria, perform the following:

Expand Update Criteria and search the persona from the pre-selected transaction table.

Figure: Update Criteria

This field supports dot walking mechanism.
Example: Consider if the email is from the Requestor who is a manager, then you can add dot(.) walking mechanism to update the record as Requestor.Manager for more information, refer to Dot Walking.

Figure: Update Criteria using Dot Walking

Role of CC’ed and To Recipient User

Recipients captured as CC or To Recipients can update the ticked based on Record Id, Unique Id or Email Subject as displayed in the following image.

Figure: Update Criteria

Note
Upon selecting Allow External Users to update the record, Unregistered users and Registered users who are not linked to the record will be considered as External Users when updating the record.

Update the email content in the Record

Expand Update the Email content in the record label.
Select a Field value from the dropdown that is populated with preselected transaction table fields.
Note
This section will display all the Textbox, Text Area & Attachment Controls of the record in a dropdown.

Figure: Update Criteria - Update Email content in the Record

Attachment as Field value

Attachment: Select this option is used to map and parse the attachment of the incoming mail to the New Record.

There are pre-defined extensions allowed within the system, where the parser will parse with these extensions based on the selected attachment.
Users will not be able to restrict allowed extensions in Parser. All the extensions (33 extensions) that are supported in the current application will be attached in Mail to Ticket.

The following extensions are allowed:

3gp	m4v/MP4	docx	png	html	pdf
ppt	mp3	ogg	eml	ogv	odt
wav	mp4/M4V	m4a	pptx	xlsx	msg
jpeg	zip	xls	pps	gif	doc
wmv	ppsx	txt	avi	mpg	jpg
webp	json	sql

Note
All the .msg attachments will parse emails to ticket as .eml or .msg attachments.

Update and Parse content in specific fields in the record

Expand Update & Parse content in specific fields in the record label.
Select Field and Key values from the dropdown list.
Figure: Update and Parse Content

Process the Mails only of the Condition Matches

Emails will be processed only if the defined conditions are met.

To configure the conditions for processing emails, perform the following steps:

Select Add Filter Set.
Fields, Operators, and Value dropdown is displayed.
Figure: Process the Mail only if the Condition matches
Click Group.
This option allows to group the condition in order to process the mail.
Figure: Group

What if the Update Criteria & Conditions are not met?

The Application Designer has the privilege to configure settings if the criteria or conditions are not met for a Record Creation.

The following actions can be performed by the Application Designer.

Update Fields

This allows Application Designer to update the record fields if the conditions are not met.

To Configure the Update Fields, perform the following steps:

Select Fields.
A dropdown with a list of options for the selected Module and table is displayed.

2. Select Values.
A dropdown with a list of options for the selected field is displayed.
Figure: Update Fields

Send Notification

Upon selecting Send Notification, an option to either select Notify Sender or an Administrator is displayed.

To configure the notification for the sender or administrator, perform the following:

Click Notify Sender.
A rich text field is displayed for typing a message in order to send a notification.

Figure: Notify Sender

OR
Click Notify Administrator.
The recipients' field is displayed for choosing the administrators.

Figure: Notify Administrator

The Active switch indicates if the Update Record feature is active or not.

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Table of contents

Workflow of Update Record
Configure Update Record
Record Identification - Mailbox Configuration
Update Criteria
Process the Mails only of the Condition Matches
What if the Update Criteria & Conditions are not met?