Support Mail Piping¶
Let customers open and reply to tickets by email — they email your support address and it becomes a ticket automatically, and their email replies land on the right ticket.
How it works¶
PNLCS checks a mailbox on a schedule (every 5 minutes). For each new message:
- A reply whose subject contains
[Ticket #123456]is added to that ticket. - Anything else opens a new ticket.
Outgoing ticket emails already carry the [Ticket #TID] marker, so customer
replies thread correctly.
Set it up¶
Configuration → Support Departments → (edit a department) → Mail Import
Fill in the mailbox this department should read:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Protocol | IMAP (recommended) or POP3 |
| Host | mail.your-domain.com |
| Port | 993 (IMAP SSL) / 995 (POP3 SSL) |
| Encryption | SSL or STARTTLS |
| Username | support@your-domain.com |
| Password | the mailbox password |
| Folder | INBOX |
Options:
- Delete after import — remove messages from the mailbox once processed (recommended for POP3).
- Accept unknown senders — create tickets from people who don't yet have a client account (useful for presales). Off by default.
Enable mail import for the department and save.
Safety built in¶
- Auto-replies and bounces (out-of-office, mailer-daemon, no-reply) are ignored, so you never get a ticket loop.
- The department's own address is skipped.
- A message that fails to process is left in the mailbox and retried next run.
Requirements¶
- A dedicated support mailbox you can connect to over IMAP/POP3.
- The
imapPHP extension (included in the official Docker image; install it on your server if you set PNLCS up manually).