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Helpdesk System with SMTP

by investx
9 replies
Does anyone know of any customer service / helpdesk / support ticket scripts which has SMTP email capability?

Regards

Gary
#helpdesk #smtp #system
  • Profile picture of the author rwil02
    What do you meant by "supports SMTP"?
    Accepts tickets via email?
    Can send email notifications when tickets are updated?
    Emails the helpdesk staff when new tickets arrive?
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    Roger Willcocks
    L-Space Design
    Please vote to help me win a 3kW solar array

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    • Profile picture of the author investx
      Hi Roger

      Many ISP's and hosting providers are now insisting that their customers configure their email client or their PHP scripts to send email using SMTP protocols.

      SMTP is a method of securely sending email and being able to clearly identify the sender, rather than being able to anonymously send emails - which is sent using POP3 - this is the case.

      Obviously without the ability to send anonymous emails is a deterrent against spammers - and if the ISP or hosting provider insists on only STMP sendmail, this means theres a lot less chance of them (the ISP or host) being blacklisted.

      This then forces uses of scripts (particularly PHP) to ensure that any email the script sends out, such as replies to support tickets, signup confirmation emails - anything - is sent using STMP - so any script which doesn't have SMTP capabilities, and probably is only configured to send out emails by POP3 - simply won't send out emails.

      Even scripts which did work previously will simply stop working if the host switches over to SMPTP only.

      I know there are lots of helpdesk / support ticket scripts out there, but not sure which of them are set up with SMTP.

      Hope that makes sense.

      Kindest regards

      Gary



      Originally Posted by rwil02 View Post

      What do you meant by "supports SMTP"?
      Accepts tickets via email?
      Can send email notifications when tickets are updated?
      Emails the helpdesk staff when new tickets arrive?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[65906].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author rwil02
        I'm afraid that doesn't really make sense to me. Maybe I'm missing something.


        POP3 is a method of reading from mail boxes. SMTP is a method of sending and receiving email between servers.

        What is SMTP? - a definition from Whatis.com - see also: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

        POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) is the most recent version of a standard protocol for receiving e-mail. POP3 is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is ...
        SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a TCP/IP protocol used in sending and receiving e-mail. However, since it is limited in its ability to queue ...
        So a helpdesk that sends email would already have to use SMTP for sending.

        Identifying the sender would usually be a requirement of authenticated SMTP, and SMTP servers at hosting companies are usually configured to only accept email from the same server (in the case of web servers). Possibly you mean something more like SPF (Sender Protection Framework), but that is a DNS related mechanism, and has nothing to do with the mail server itself, but with a listing of what IP addresses are authorised to send email for a domain.
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        Roger Willcocks
        L-Space Design
        Please vote to help me win a 3kW solar array

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        • Profile picture of the author investx
          Hi Roger

          Sorry for the delay.

          You said in your reponse....

          "So a helpdesk that sends email would already have to use SMTP for sending."

          You would think so - wouldn't you! But not the case. There are many helpdesk systems / scripts - and even many other php scripts which don't use SMTP - or more importantly 'authenticated SMTP' which you quite rightly pointed out. I think I should have made that point clear from the start - that its has to be 'SMTP Authentication' - sorry for the confusion.

          Kindest regards

          Gary
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          • Profile picture of the author investx
            Just as a follow up - here is an exact quote from one hosting company on this very subject...


            "As it is shared reseller hosting server, spam emails were being sent from the email server due to vulnerable PHP scripts/Old installations/Poor PHP code of other customers. This resulted in the email server IP address of the server getting blacklisted in a number of spam databases. Due to this very reason we have blocked emails being sent out from the server as 'nobody'. PHP scripts run as the Apache user 'nobody'. In order to resolve the issue, you may proceed by configuring your PHP script which would sent emails out to use SMTP Email authentication. You may refer to the URL given below for instructions for the same, http://email.about.com/od/emailprogrammingtips/qt/et073006.htm"

            Kindest regards

            GARY
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            • Profile picture of the author rwil02
              That makes more sense. So you are after a helpdesk script that can send using authenticated SMTP, or a script that can easily have the emailing functionality modified to include authentication.

              And it looks like you want a PHP based one?

              ASP.NET I could help with. PHP I'm not familiar with unfortunately.
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              Roger Willcocks
              L-Space Design
              Please vote to help me win a 3kW solar array

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