Email address of original sender is not kept

[ebeukhof]

Hello,

I encounter following effect when creating tickets throug email:

If a customer sends an email to OTRS, a ticket is created and, when the email addres is recognized as a customer, the customer properties are set with the ticket.
The customer receives a notification per email that a new ticket has been created.
The agents receive a notification per email that a new ticket has been created.
When the customer replies to the notification, it is added to the abovementioned ticket and the customer receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket.
When one of the agens reply to the notification, it is added to the abovementioned ticket and the customer receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket.
When one of the agents add information to the ticket (through the portal) as an "external note", the customer receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket.

So far, so good.
But...

If an unknown customer sends an email to OTRS (the "from" email address is not recognized as a customer), a ticket is created.
The customer (sender of the ticket creating mail) receives a notification per email that a new ticket has been created.
The agents receive a notification per email that a new ticket has been created.
When the customer replies to the notification, it is added to the abovementioned ticket and the customer receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket.
...and here comes the problem...
When one of the agens reply to the notification, it is added to the abovementioned ticket and the AGENT receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket (although the message is defined to go to "customer").
...and from that point onwards, the email address of the most recent message (in this case the one that came from the agent) is being used as the "customer" email address so all following correspondance is going to the agent instead of the sender of the ticket creating message.
Also, when one of the agents now add information to the ticket (through the portal) as an "external note", the AGENT receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket.
When someone else (for instance the person that started the ticket) sends an email to OTRS that can be matched to this ticket, the "customer" email address changes again to this sender's address...

It seems that, when the ticket has no recognized customer, OTRS treats the address of the most recent received email message as the customer's address.

This is, in my case, unwanted behaviour because we service companies where nearly everyone is allowed to create a ticket by sending an email and we do not want to add a "customer" for every potential sender.
Creating a filter that maps all correspondance to one "customer" (per company) is also not a nice solution because the original sender is not informed about any progress and the person that does receive all notifications will probably go nuts from all updates he/she receives...

Is this expected behaviour, a bug, a hidden feature?

More important: How can I force the system to keep the address of the sender of the original "ticket creating message" as recipient of all following notifications during the lifecycle of the specific ticket? (of course until in a few situations, manually another customer has been applied to the ticket)

Thank you very much,

Erwin

[gjs]

Hello Erwin,

Have tou received any usefull replies? I don't see them here. I landed on this page, facing more or less the same issue. Email sent from 'unknown' to an employee, dragged into OTRS. OTRS refuses to Reply to the From, being the unknown sender. If OTRS is supposed to work like a mail handler (which in core it is), it should follow email client behaviour.

KR, Frans

[crythias]

When one of the agens reply to the notification, it is added to the abovementioned ticket and the AGENT receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket (although the message is defined to go to "customer").

Agents cannot reply to tickets via email. They need to use the web interface. There is an addon for Subscription customers that enable Agents to reply via email, but in general, they shouldn't do that.

Also, when one of the agents now add information to the ticket (through the portal) as an "external note", the AGENT receives a notification that information has been added to an existing ticket.

This is expected. If the ticket is locked and the agent owner adds a note, no message is sent. If agent is not the owner or the ticket is unlocked, the agent owner or all agents who have the queue of the ticket highlighted in "My Queues" should receive notification of the note added. This is so all relevant watchers can know something is going on that someone who is not the owner did something.

When someone else (for instance the person that started the ticket) sends an email to OTRS that can be matched to this ticket, the "customer" email address changes again to this sender's address...

In general, if the agents aren't replying via email, none of the other issues should occur.