InterAct

From Clarizen

Clarizen’s InterAct feature is a powerful tool that allows you to define any type of workflow rule that will be triggered by sending an email.

Basically, Clarizen's InterAct feature allows you to create actions from emails.

Once enabled, InterAct will allow you to quickly add new issues, tasks, projects or any other object within the system simply by sending an email to a mailbox and supplying any necessary details, such as a task name and it's duration.

You can also create mailbox rules for specific objects, which will allow you to interact with that object and update or add any information.

Enabling InterAct will automatically install a set of Out of the Box mailboxes and rules that will allow you to get started right away.

Setting Your Domain Name

The first step in getting started is to select your domain name.

The domain name will be the ending for all emails sent in to Clarizen, for example, for the Bug mailbox on an account where the domain is myorg.clarizenmail.com the email address would be Bug@myorg.clarizenmail.com.

By default your organization domain name is set as your organization name with no spaces and will always end with clarizenmail.com.

To confirm the default domain name click Save, or you can choose to change it.

You can edit your domain name from any InterAct screen simply by clicking edit where ever it is displayed.

Domain names are 100% unique.

Once you have finished setting up your domain be sure to click the "Enable and Get Started" button.

Email to Case Mailboxes

Clarizen comes with three out of the box mailboxes and rules that allow for email to case and web to case ticketing.

These mailboxes include:

Support - Creates Issues
Bug - Creates Bugs
Request - Creates Requests

Note: If an entity is disabled in your account, such as "Bugs", it will not appear in InterAct as a mailbox. Access the System Settings to enable/disable specific issue types

These mailboxes are the only ones that do NOT check for an active Clarizen license and can therefore be used by non-licensed users and customers.

Email to Case Rules

Each of the three mailboxes has a set of two rules, one for the creation of a simple issue, bug or request and one that requires additional details from the end user.

These rules can be enabled/disabled as needed but cannot be edited.

To edit these rules click on the "Save As" option below a rule and save the rule as a copy on the selected mailbox.

To create a new rule on any mailbox click on the "New Rule" link located on the mailbox.

For Email to Case mailboxes certain actions will not be available due to the fact that these mailboxes do not check for licenses.

See creating a new rule for more information on creating a new InterAct rule.

Run Order

The Run Order of the rules within any given InterAct mailbox is crucial in order to ensure that the correct rule is activated by an incoming email.

The rule of thumb is that the more complex the rule, i.e. the more details is required by the end user, or alternatively the more complex the evaluation criteria, the higher the rule must be in the run order.

That means that a simple rule, that will just take an email subject as the title for a new issue should be set below a more complex rule that has an evaluation criteria requiring specific text in the email subject.

Setting the run order correctly will allow more complex rules to be by passed or triggered before the simple rules are reached.

The Out-of-the-Box email to case rules are already set in the correct Run Order, however, if you decide to add any additional rules to these mailboxes be sure to set their order according to their complexity.

General Mailboxes

General mailboxes are mailboxes that are not set for specific objects. These mailboxes are typically used for the creation of new objects in the system, such as a NewProject mailbox or NewTask mailbox.

Note: Because general mailboxes are not set for a specific object the "CurrentObject()" function will not be available. Any reference to specific objects can be done using the Formula_Editor

Creating a New Mailbox

To create a new General Mailbox click on the "Create New Mailbox" link on either the "All Mailboxes" or "General Mailboxes" pages of the InterAct center.

Once this link is selected you can then enter your mailbox name. The mailbox name is combined with your domain name to set the mailbox.

For example, if you create a new mailbox called NewProject, and your domain is set as myorg.clarizenmail.com then the email address for that mailbox will be NewProject@myorg.clarizenmail.com.

Once you set a valid name for a mailbox you must then create the first rule for that mailbox. See below for more information.

Note: A valid mailbox name must be unique and contain latin characters and numbers

Specific Mailboxes

Specific mailboxes are the ready to use mailboxes for Work Items and Issues. Basically this means that every work item (task, milestone, project) or issue (issues, bugs, requests, risks) you create in Clarizen will have it's own personal email address.

That means that you can communicate directly with these objects simply by sending an email. For example, you can update the progress of a specific task via email or update who is assigned to an issue.

Specific Object Email Addresses and Alias'

An objects email address is by default the objects system generated ID. So that the email address of a project with the system ID of "P-1" where your organization domain name is set to "myorg.clarizenmail.com", would be "P-1@myorg.clarizenmail.com".

You can also set an alias for any object by accessing the profile card of that object and entering an alias in the "Alias" field.

An Alias must be unique in your organization.

The Alias field can also be accessed in business rules, so that you can create a workflow rule that will automatically set the Alias of the object based on the objects name for example.

Note: For Issues, this field is located in the "Additional Info" tab, while in Work Items this field can be found in the "General" tab.

Interacting with Specific Objects

In order to interact with an object, you must first create rules that will be triggered by incoming emails.

Rules can be created for the following objects:

Work Items: Rules created here will affect projects, milestones and tasks

Project

Milestone

Task

All Issue Types: Rules created here will affect Issues, Requests, Bugs and Risks

Bug

Issue

Risk

Request

To create a new rule on any of these mailboxes click on the "New Rule" link on the given mailbox.

Creating a New Rule

To create a new rule for a General or specific objects click on the "New Rule" link located on the given mailbox.

Once this link is selected the new rule wizard opens. This wizard is similar to the business rule wizard for the creation of workflow rules and custom actions.

See below for an explanation on each section.

Properties

The following fields are displayed in the Properties section.

Rule Name: The rule name is a required field that should be descriptive for the rule itself. Like workflow rules, this name does not need to be unique

Rule Alias: The rule alias allows you to set an alias for a rule, thus allowing you to send an email directly to a rule.; Rule Alias' need to be unique per mailbox; If set the email address for a rule is as follows - mailboxname.rulealias@domain.clarizenmail.com

Description: This is a mandatory field which is used to give a detailed explanation of a rule and the actions that will take place once triggered; The rule description will be sent out in vCards emails, and in the confirmation message once a rule is triggered; It is highly recommended that this description be as accurate as possible

Apply User Permissions: This checkbox allows you to decide if the given rule will only be available for those with permissions on a given object or within the system; For example, you may be creating a rule that will update the progress of a task, and only want the resources and managers to update the progress. In this case you would select to "Apply User Permissions"

Note: By default the apply user permissions checkbox is set to TRUE

Filter for specific object(s): This field is only available when creating rules for specific objects, such as work item, projects, issues, etc.; It allows you to include/exclude an object, or objects, from a rule.; For example, I may have a rule that will allow all users to update the progress of a project, but I only want this to work on the project "New Product Introduction". You would therefore select the "Include" option and select that project.

Note: The filter for specific object(s) is only applicable when creating rules for specific objects

User Input

The user input section allows you to enter the variables that you would like to receive from the end user.

Similar to Custom Actions this section allows you to set all the details for the variable.

Variables

Variables are data included in email messages by an end user. This data is parsed by InterAct and will be used in the actions when the InterAct rule runs.

Variable Name: The name that has to be used in formulas within the actions, so they use the data the user includes in the email.

Label: The field name that will be shown to the user.; There can be multiple lables, each separated with a comma. This is particularly useful when requiring several languages.

Type: Select the field data type from a list of possible data values. See the Help on [Field Types]

Mandatory: Check this so the end user will be forced to fill in a value on this field.; If set as mandatory and the data is not sent within the email then the rule will be bypassed

Email Format for User Input Data

When a user sends an email that requires a variable the correct email format is as follows:

Var1: some data
Var2: some other data
Var3: another

Where Var1, Var2 and Var3 represent a label for each variable, and any data after the colon will be used when the rule is confirmed and triggered.

Set Evaluation Criteria

The Evaluation Criteria sets the conditions for an InterAct rule to be triggered.

The evaluation criteria is not mandatory, and can be skipped if not relevant.

If used, the formula has to equal to True in run-time for the rule to be triggered.

When creating a formula you should use allowed system fields, system objects, functions and operators, available in the Formula Options.

Set Action List

The set action list allows you to set the actions that will take place after the rule is triggered and run.

Actions available are the same as those available for business rules, with the exception of InterAct Only Actions.

Accessing Email Fields

In addition to the standard variables that can be used in the Formula_Editor in all workflow rules, InterAct rules have the ability to access email fields.

These email fields can be found in the Variables tab of the formula editor under EmailObject fields and include the following:

CC - return type string
From - return type string
HTML Body - will return the body of the email in HTML format (can be used for rich text fields and objects, such as notes)
Sent By - return type reference to object (contacts from customers and Users)
Sent By fields - allows you to access all fields related to contacts and the resource entities
Subject - return type string
Text Body - return type string
To - return type string

InterAct Only Actions

The following actions are only available when creating mailbox rules in InterAct.

Save Attachment

Allows you to save email attachments onto objects within the system
Once this action is selected a "Filter File Types" input box is opened. This allows you to decide what file types you would like to upload into Clarizen, for example, if you only want to upload files of type .pdf and .doc then enter ".doc, .ppt" into the input box. This is an optional field
The AttachTo field will also be available once this action is selected, and requires you to insert the object onto which you would like to link the attachments.

Objects that attachments can be linked to must be either Issues, Work Items or Expenses
Users can input specific objects, or may refer to objects using the "Variables" tab in the "Formula Options"

Save Triggering Email

Allows you to attach the original email that was sent to activate a mailbox rule onto a newly created or existing object
Once this action is selected the "AttachTo" formula field will be available. This is a mandatory field that requires you to insert the object onto which you would like to link the email

Objects that emails can be linked to must be either Issues or Work Items
Users can input specific objects, or may refer to objects using the "Variables" tab in the "Formula Options"

Multiple Resource Assignment

This action allows you to assign multiple resources to a work item at once, and is meant to be used with either an emails CC list or with a variable of type text that contains a list of users all seperated by a comma
Once this action is selected two fields are available

WorkItem

This formula field must return an object of type Work Item and can either contain a specific object, reference to an object, or to an object available in the "Variables" tab in the "Formula Options"

ResourceList

This formula field can contain a string, or series of strings, each separated by a comma. For example to assign all users in the CC list of an email enter {EmailObject.CC}. You can also enter the following: {EmailObject.Cc}, {username}, email@domain.com, firstname lastname which would assign all existing CC users, a specific user set with the username, a user that is found with the email address, and a user whose first name and last name match the one entered.

Note: If a user is not found in the Resource List he/she will simply be skipped and the action will continue running

Success Email

The success email is the email that will be sent out to a user once the rule is triggered and run successfully.

The Success Email field can include formula's as fields that can be created/selected using the Formula Options link.

The email is always sent out to the original sender of the email that triggered the rule.

Sending an Email

When sending an email into InterAct the following must rules be adhered to:

The email address in the "from" can only contain the InterAct email address
Any variables should have the variable label followed by a colon and then the data- Var1: some data

Examples

coming soon!