How to track & store email replies?

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+2 Q:

How to track & store email replies?

Currently on our system, when a user contacts us, we reply via our admin panel. The user is then sent an email containing our message and the other messages in the conversation.

Then the user has to click on 'Reply to this message' which opens up our website, with a contact enquiry form, and submits the message to the conversation (using a QueryString to tell which conversation it belongs to).

However, a lot of users like to simply reply to the email sent to them.

How can I track their reply and automatically add this to the same conversation?

We're currently using ASP.NET 3.5, IIS6 & SQL Server 2005, however will be upgrading to ASP.NET 4.0, IIS7 & SQL Server 2008

Thanks, Curt

+1 A:

It's not a full code solution (but hey, that's not what this place is for anyway), but this is a general idea:

Specify a reply-to header in the messages you send (or simply use the from address). Then set up a script that periodically reads the emails send to that address and inserts them into your database (to be viewed). In order to get the correct threads, you can use the in-reply-to header in the message sent to you. I don't know by heart how to find the message-id of a mail you sent, but a little research on your part should reveal that. (if worst comes to worst, you can always BCC yourself the message and read it from there, but there should be easier ways).

Note that some people (most notably GMail) refuse to use in-reply-to headers because of how people use email (though I don't think it would be much of a problem in the case you are describing) and use topics to create threads instead. This may be an easier solution, though it may be less reliable in your case.

Jasper 2010-08-25 12:10:15

thanks Jasper. One thing I'm struggling with however, is that if a user replies, my intial email to them is at the base of the email, including header information. Is there a way of cleaning these out?

Curt 2010-09-01 15:33:26

@Curt: You could do some pattern matching with either your original message as a pattern or some common quoting styles. However, to make a long story short, I would say it's just a lot of work, probably not worth the effort. Personally, I would opt to simply leave the messages as they are, after all, most people are used to ignoring the quoted original message anyway, as they have experience with email.

Jasper 2010-09-02 23:19:07

@Jasper Thanks for your response. I agree most users are used to simply ignoring the replies beneath an email, but we are stacking the different emails on top of each other (like an iPhone txt conversation). Therefore it gets confusing for the user when theres loads of repeated messages. However, I've gone with putting {Email-Start} at the top of the emails I sent out. Then when my code reads through the emails, it trims the email up to that point. This does leave From, To, Subject, Date fields from the previous email sitting at the bottom, but its better than nothing! Thanks!

Curt 2010-09-03 08:12:27

@Curt: That's a smart trick!

Jasper 2010-09-05 13:43:52

Also check http://pushreply.com. It sends reply notifications using HTTP POST requests so it's language agnostic.

Disclaimer: I'm the creator of this service.

Andrei Savu 2010-09-16 09:34:43

ansaurus

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How to track & store email replies?

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