Is it possible to attach a case notification email reply to the case as a case comment?

Question

Is it possible to have users' email replies to case notifications attached to that case as a case comment? I've looked pretty much everywhere, and even asked Salesforce support but no luck, they just say you need custom coding but don't say where to start. Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes. Assuming you can forward a mailbox, you can do this with very little code.

1. Enable Email-to-Case (On-Demand) with a Routing Addresses if you haven't already,

2. Setup > Customize > Cases > Email Messages > Triggers,

3. Create a new trigger; here's an example to get you started:

   trigger InboundCaseComment on EmailMessage (before insert) {
     List<CaseComment> comments = new List<CaseComment>();
     for (EmailMessage message : trigger.new) {
       comments.add(new CaseComment(
         IsPublished = true,
         ParentId    = message.ParentId,
         CommentBody = message.FromName + '\n' + message.TextBody
       ));
     }
     INSERT comments;
   }
   

Just be aware, you may need to tweak your configuration to avoid dual notifications now :-)

Edit: just did a sanity check per your comment... mine catches incoming replies ok:

So when the case owner sends emails, they're "from" the routing address which has a dedicated mailbox, eg support@example.com). The customer responds to the same. Your mail system must forward that mailbox to something like derp@q-12345.d-abcde.dl.case.salesforce.com

Reconfirming with the screenshot below, the nice short Email-to-Case address needs to be selected (From) when sending emails. Hopefully this addresses your comment about the users' send-to address.

From an engineering point of view, this whole function is pretty bang-bang out of the box. I'm surprised Salesforce don't crow about it more.

Answer 2

You would need to develop code around the EmailMessage object.

http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api/Content/sforce_api_objects_emailmessage.htm

Basically, the idea would be a trigger that takes the reply ("BODY"), and copies that into the parent case comment.