Within BPA it is possible to add a custom message body. These are not in the documentation, but are very useful. These functions override the standard operation and allow you to modify the document before it is sent by POST.
(In the screenshot below, the word “TEST” appears before the XML generated as part of the input step.)
Operations need to be wrapped within Curly brackets.
A few examples:
{=ThisOperation.XML}
The XML created from the input data.
{=ThisOperation.JSON}
The JSON created from the input data
{=FunctionCall(ThisOperation.XML)}
Call the function “FunctionCall” passing in the XML Input Data.
{=ThisOperation.Parameters(“ParameterName”)}
The parameter “ParameterName”.
Multiple steps can be wrapped together too, for example:
This calls the “BuildRequest” function, passing in the XML, the text “CREATE” and the inputparameter “APIKEY”. The output is wrote into the body of the message.
In this day and age, everyone is looking for prompt responses to e-mails and support requests. In this blog post I’m going to cover integrating FOAAS into e-mail using Taskcentre in order to provide prompt responses to support requests.
By responding quickly to emails, it can greatly improve satisfaction levels, plus also using FOAAS’s technology can also reduce the number of support requests*.
In order to integrate the solution, we need to break it down into 3 major steps:
Intercept Email
Call Web Service
Send Response
Intercept E-Mail In order to intercept the email, we use a standard “SMTP” input trigger. This trigger stores the following into variables:
From E-Mail
E-Mail Subject
E-Mail Body
Additionally, we also need to use the “Text Parser” tool in order to extract the following from the “From E-Mail”
Sender Name
Sender E-Mail
Call Webservice FOAAS is a REST based webservice. So I’ve built up a web service call, passing through the following parameters:
Sender Name
From Name
This web service returns two values:
message
subtitle
Additionally, the web service requires custom headers which have been amended using the tool
Send Response A response is then sent to the inbound e-mail automatically, using the following steps:
XML to Recordset (HTML Tool only recognises recordsets)
HTML (To build up an email)
Outbound SMTP
Example
Below you can see an inbound email from a used. As you can see, the email contains both a subject and a request for the support helpdesk. In my VM, the “From” name is “James – Demonstration”, as I use the VM for testing and demonstration purposes.
Here is the response to the email, including the automated response to the web service:
Source Task and Installation
Below is the download link for the example, plus also the web service connector. In order to install the task, the install needs to be done in the following order:
