1. An email-based issue-tracking/ workflow system Zukhanye Kwinana Department of Computer Science Rhodes University

2. Introduction (1)  Tasks often involve multiple agents: some inside and some outside one’s organization  They are often not carried to completion  A system is needed to help keep track of what tasks have been requested or assigned

3. Introduction (2)  Traditional issue-tracking systems (or ticketing systems) have problems:  Exclusion if not registered within the system  Restriction to just one’s organisation  Emails are useful but lack “initiative” of issue tracking systems:  Everyone checks emails regularly  You are not excluded  Have no organisational boundaries

4. Aim of investigation  Implementing email-based issue- tracking system, take the best of both worlds…  See to what extent the idea is viable

5. Current issue tracking systems  Are instances of Groupware  Keep track of requested tasks within a group of people  Are often web-based systems for communicating, sharing of files and other resources as well as issue- tracking

6. Our solution (1)  We tag emails that we want to be tracked with a special tag e.g.  Something on the subject line  A special marker in a header field  In the body  An attachment  We intercept tagged emails  Either at the mail server, or at the mail client  We create a new issue (with a unique identifier) in the back-end tracker system

7. Our solution (2)  We add links to the bottom of the emails so that the recipient can mark the task as done, or add extra detail or remarks to the issue  Reminders, escalation, completion etc. are handled by the tracker system, which can send follow up emails  The user can get status reports of unresolved issues

8. SenderMail server Receiver Issue tracking system Proposed system Sender Receiver Issue tracking system Mail server Current architecture System architecture

9. Achievements so far (1)  Functioning system catering for single step, single recipient workflows.  Installed MailEnable mail server  Used Mail Transfer Agent to access emails before they are delivered to individual mailboxes thus edit the body- if marked to be tracked!

10. Tagged email gets links added to its body

11. Achievements so far (2)  Links are mapped to one not easy to guess  Links in the email navigate to a URL based on a unique identifier  Links are somewhat secure because they are almost impossible to guess  Links ensure access to the system and issue even though you are not registered

12. Achievements so far (3)  Functioning plug-in module for Outlook, migrating this function to the mail client.  A group of Honours students have built a Web Service interface and library to allow us to automate against one specific public-domain Issue-Tracking Engine

13. Way forward  Complete the current functions we are building  Refine the add-in for Outlook, Outlook Express and Pegasus Mail  Complete link to the back end issue tracker  Start testing user acceptance by deploying a trial system  Longer term: consider multi-step workflows, and multi-party tasks

14. Conclusion  Email based issue tracking system that can cross organizational boundaries seem promising  More tests and experience will give a clearer picture

15. An email based issue- tracking/ workflow system Zukhanye Kwinana Department of Computer Science Rhodes University