Tie Email Responses back to Lead Object

Question

I am attempting to allow users from my company's sales department to email potential customers from a lead in service cloud, then if the customer replies to their email i need to display the email response on the lead, however, the email they are replying to is also setup for email-to-case so it creates a case (which i need it to not create) and links the email message to the case record. I have attempted to do things like clone the email message and create emailmessagerelation records to link the message to the lead but i am not having success having them display on the lead record. My only 'workaround' currently is that i created a Lead__c lookup from the emailmessage object and i populate that based on the reference:{xxxxxxxx(lead id)} that the sales user will add to the message before sending the email so the emailMessage trigger will know that the message should be linked to a lead record, then i have a related messages component (related list) where those messages are displayed. I need the email message records to display in the standard chatter publisher component like it normally would when a customer replies to an email sent from a case. Keep in mind, i am not looking for code to create a lead, just link an inbound email message to its existing lead.

   public static void parseEmailSubjectForLeadRelation(List<EmailMessage> emailList){
    system.debug('Entered parseEmailSubjectForLeadRelation');
    //List<EmailMessage> emList = new List<EmailMessage>();
    List<EmailMessageRelation> emrList = new List<EmailMessageRelation>();
    for(EmailMessage email : emailList) {
        string leadId;
        if(email.Incoming == true && email.ParentId != null && email.TextBody != null) {
            if(email.TextBody.contains('reference:') /*&& email.ToAddress == 'salessupport.eu@msts.com'*/){
                leadId = email.TextBody.substringBetween('reference:{', '}');
                //if(leadId != null) {
                    email.Status = null;
                    email.ParentId = null;
                    //email.RelatedToId = leadId;
                //}
            }
        }
    }
}

public static void parseEmailSubjectForLeadRelation0(List<EmailMessage> emailList){
    system.debug('Entered parseEmailSubjectForLeadRelation0');
    //List<EmailMessage> emList = new List<EmailMessage>();
    List<EmailMessageRelation> emrList = new List<EmailMessageRelation>();
    list<EmailMessage> emsToInsert = new list<EmailMessage>();
    list<EmailMessage> emsToUpdate0 = new list<EmailMessage>();
    list<Case> casesToDelete = new list<Case>();
    string leadId;
    for(EmailMessage email : emailList) {
        if(email.Incoming == true && email.ParentId != null && email.TextBody != null && email.CreatedByTrigger__c == false 
           && email.TextBody.contains('reference:') /*&& email.ToAddress == 'salessupport.eu@msts.com'*/) {
                case case0 = new case(id = email.ParentId);
                casesToDelete.add(case0);
                leadId = email.TextBody.substringBetween('reference:{', '}');
                EmailMessage emsg = new EmailMessage();

               emsg.ToAddress =  email.toAddress;
               emsg.FromAddress =  email.FromAddress;
               emsg.FromName = email.FromName;
               emsg.Subject = email.subject;
               emsg.status = '2';
               emsg.Incoming= True;
               emsg.TextBody = email.TextBody;
               System.debug('TextBody:>>>>> ' + email.TextBody);
               emsg.Lead__c = leadId;

                emsg.parentId = null;
                //emsg.Lead__c = leadId;
                emsg.CreatedByTrigger__c = true;
                emsToInsert.add(emsg);
        } else if(email.CreatedByTrigger__c == true) {
            leadId = email.TextBody.substringBetween('reference:{', '}');
            EmailMessageRelation emr = new EmailMessageRelation(
                EmailMessageId = email.id,
                RelationId = leadId,
                RelationType = 'FromAddress',
                RelationAddress = email.FromAddress
            );
            emrList.add(emr);
        }
    }
    if(emsToInsert != null && emsToInsert.size() > 0) {
        insert emsToInsert;
    }


    if(emrList != null && emrList.size() > 0) {
        system.debug('emrList == ' + emrList);
        insert emrList;
    }

    if(casesToDelete != null) {
        system.debug('casesToDelete == ' + casesToDelete);
        delete casesToDelete;
    }
}

I have the two methods above being called from the EmailMessage trigger, parseEmailSubjectForLeadRelation on beforeInsert and parseEmailSubjectForLeadRelation0 on afterInsert. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

The simplest solution is as follows:

• Decouple the replyTo email address (e.g. foo@mycompany.com) from email-to-case
• Create an Apex email service that you bind to foo@mycompany.com
• Within the Apex email service, parse/use regex/inspect the email body for the filter key you need to look up the Lead. Then attach the email to that Lead and do whatever other processing you need.