The Filters List provides a quick overview for each filter, including the fields matched in its regular expression and a list of action steps in the filter. You can delete filters by selecting them and clicking Delete Filter.

The filters list

Filters are grouped together before they are applied to mailboxes or topics. The Filter Groups List provides summary information for each group. You can delete a group by selecting it from the list and clicking Delete Group.

The Filter Groups List

Filters are created with an Expression (if this pattern exists) and Actions (do these actions). Actions may contain multiple action steps. Filters look for matching expressions within the subject, body, to, from, or contact properties of the sender of an incoming question. When that condition is met, the associated filter action is executed.
 

To create a new filter, click the New Filter button and complete the configuration as described below.

Creating a new filter

1) Name - This is the name of the filter. It is used to identify the filter when assigning it to a mailbox or topic. Select a short name that will be easily viewed from a drop down menu.
 
2) Description - Description is used only within the Filter Administration page to describe the objectives for the filter. Enter a description that will help others understand how the filter is intended to be used.
 
3) Expression - The Expression box is where you enter the pattern to match. iService will look for matches to these terms when the filter is executed against incoming questions.  Regular expression formula’s are supported such as including the pipe character (|) to represent an “or” condition.  If special characters are included in the search terms they must be preceded with a “\”.  Example:  If e-card was a term to be searched for it would be entered as “e\-card” in the Terms section because “-“ is a special regex character.

iService allows up to 1,024 characters in the Expression field.  For more information about Regular Expression, please refer to the following Microsoft link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az24scfc.aspx

4) Match In - iService can match text patterns in the following areas:

Subject - This is the Subject of the question entered within a ticket or the subject line of incoming email.
 
Body - This is the body of the question entered within a ticket or the body of incoming email.
 

Mailbox Name - This is the mailbox in iService that received the message. It contains both the Display Name and the Reply-To address configured for the mailbox.

 
From - This is the From Address line within an incoming email (i.e., the sender).
 

Contact Properties - This option evaluates the expression against all the contact property values of the contact. To limit the match to a specific contact property, use the following as your regular expression.

 propertyname: value

The propertyname is a contact property, like customer type. The value is the value you want to match. To match on a sender that has a contact type of SPAM, the expression would be

 customer type: SPAM

Text Attachments - This option evaluates the expression against all of the attachments to the email message. This works best with text files, like files attached to non-delivery records, rather than binary files like MS Excel.

 
5) Filter Actions - There are ten filter action steps that can be performed on incoming questions when an expression match occurs. A single filter can include multiple multiple actions. These actions are explained below.

This action is used to make the incoming question part of an existing case, rather than create a new case. Replies to existing cases are automatically added into the case based upon the Ref # in the subject of the message. But, if the incoming message does not have that matching reference number, you can still make it part of another case if you can match on an interaction property value previously set for a case.

For instance, let’s say you have an interaction property named Quote # that contains the ID for a quote sent to a customer. If a customer submits a question about the quote from an iService form and enters the Quote # when submitting the form, their question would be associated with the existing case.

A ChangeInteraction Parent Filter

You can combine the Set Interaction Property action with the Change Interaction Property to parse the contents of a new question and use a matching value for this filter. In the example below, the first filter looks for the Quote # in the subject line. If it is found, it saves that value and then runs the Change Interaction Parent filter.

Using Set Interaction with Change Interaction Parent

The Change Topic action is used to move a question into a specific topic. When the filter expression finds a match, it will assign the incoming question to a specified topic. This most commonly used to modify the topic that a mailbox would use as its default.  You can select any topic in the tenant, regardless of the segment that received the question.

In the example below, if the subject line includes any of the words phone, android, or iPhone the topic is set to Cell Phones.

A Simple Topic Change filter

Filters can use an action step to run another filter based on an expression match. This effectively creates and AND condition where the expression must match in the first filter and the second filter that is referenced.

For example, if you want to identify undeliverable notices (Non-delivery Report) and then extract the reason for the bounce, you need to match two separate expressions (first determine the email is an NDR notice, and then extract the bounce reason). This can be done using the Run Filter action to evaluate the second expression.

The first filter determines the incoming email is an NDR record based on the subject line. It changes the topic to _Undeliverable, and then runs the second filter to save the bounce reason.

The first filter limits actions to bounce notices

Then, a the second filter extracts the bounce reason and saves it into a property. This filter would never be run on its own, because it could match emails that are not NDR records.

The second filter action extracts the bounce reason

The updated interaction will include the bounce reason, which can be used for searching, reporting, or taking special actions.

The updated interaction property

IMPORTANT NOTE: Never add the second filter directly to a group!

When using the Run Filter action, you should NOT include the second filter directly into any group or directly attach it to a mailbox. The second filter should only be run when requested by the first filter.

If you want to use the external answer page, you must enable a GUID for questions that will be answered using that page. This GUID allows anonymous users to answer questions from the external answer page without logging into iService. The GUID is created using the Forward to External filter action.

You can limit this capability to any interaction based on the expression used, and the group or topic to which the filter is assigned. There are no parameters for this filter action other than the expression. If you want all interactions to be available for the External Answer page, use the expression .*, which means any matching character.  

Using the Forward To External filter

This filter action will resolve the interaction if the filter expression is matched. This should only be used in cases where you know the interaction does not require a response and does not need to be reviewed by an agent.

There are no parameters to set, other than the expression.

Using a filter to resolve an interaction

iService can automatically assign incoming questions to agents using a Round Robin method. Sometimes referred to as a pinwheel, this method locates the available agent that has waited the longest for a question to be assigned to them. There are two parts to a Round Robin filter: a department and an agent property.

Create a Department

To configure round Robin assignment you must first create a department that will be used to determine the agents eligible for assignment. Agents that are assigned to this department will be included within the rotation of message assignment. The filter does not consider the skills required for assignment, and will assign the question to anyone in the department. Assign agents to the department from the Agent settings page.

Create an Agent Property to Track Availability

Create an agent setting that will be used to determine when an agent is available for assignment. This contact property must be configured as an agent property with a Boolean property, as shown below.

Create a property for agents to set themselves as available for round robin assignment

The round Robin filter action will use this property to determine if the agent is available for assignment. When the agent sets this value to false, they will be excluded from message assignment until they set it back to true.

Agents can set their availbility from their profile page

Create the Filter

The completed filter will be as follows. In the example below, the filter will assign every question it encounters since the expression of .* means any character. If you only want certain questions assigned this way, you can limit the action based on the expression.

A completed round robin filter

The Select Agents and Send Auto Response options must be used together. The first action, Select Agents, will pick the agents that should be notified of the incoming interaction. The second action, Send Auto Response, specifies the notification template to send to the selected agents. NOTE- this filter will not assign the message, but simply notify those agents selected that it has arrived.

Like all filters, create an expression that matches the conditions in which you want the notifications sent. Then choose the agents and the notification template to send them.

Notifying an agent when a certain type of cusotmer submits a question

Notifications are sent based on the topic associated with a new question or a default value for the segment. You can override the notifications that would normally be sent using the Select Notifications filter action. There are three types of notifications that you can override: Message acknowledgments, Agent Notifications, and Contact Creation notices. Learn more about these in the Notifications chapter.

Your filter can be set to not send a notification, use the default setting, or send a specific notification template chosen in the filter.

There are three types of notifications you can override

The example below suppresses the message acknowledgment for contacts that have requested to not receive notifications.

Suppress notifications for certain contacts

This action will set a specified value for interactions when the expression match occurs. There are two primary ways to set this value: use a constant value, or set the value from content located in the incoming message.

NOTE - when setting values in an interaction property that uses a drop down list, you must ensure the value you set matches a value in the list.

Using a constant value

An incoming message may contain various subject lines such as System Outage Report, Problem Notice, etc. When this match occurs, an interaction property named “Request Type” could set a fixed value such as “Outage”.  Interaction properties can be used for skills-based routing, reporting or display to agents.

Setting an interaction property with a preset value

Extracting a value and setting it in a property

Incoming messages might contain information such as account number that you would like to capture from the message. Using a special regular expression format, you can specify the portion of the message to be saved as the interaction property value. An example of this setup is shown below.

Using an expression to save a property value

If the interaction already has a value set, the filter will replace that value. If the property supports multiple values, the filter will create a second value unless you choose the option to overwrite the existing value.

NOTE: The checkbox will only appear when you select an interaction property that is configured to support multiple values.

A webhook is a mechanism that allows iService to send real-time notifications or data to another application or service. It is a way to communicate with other systems (or even within iService) by delivering information automatically whenever a specific event or trigger occurs.

The iService action specifies the URL or endpoint where the receiver application should receive the data from iService. When the webhook runs in iService, it sends an HTTP POST request to the specified webhook URL, containing the relevant data as the payload. This feature is in beta mode and does not log failures or retry rejections.

The receiver application, upon receiving the webhook request, can then process the data, perform actions based on the received information, or update its state accordingly. Webhooks are commonly used in various scenarios, such as real-time notifications, data synchronization, integrating third-party services, and triggering actions based on external events.

To setup your webhook, you will need the URL for the endpoint that will receive the data from iService. Use the full URL including HTTPS, as shown below.

The Webhook payload includes the data that will be sent to the endpoint you specified. iService sends the data with JSON content type and an example of the format is included by default. You can modify any values from the payload to match what your endpoint requires.

A Webhook Filter

Since mailboxes and topics can only have one filter assigned, groups can be used to combine multiple filters. To create a filter group, click New Filter Group and enter a name for the filter group. Then drag and drop the filters to be included within the group from the Available Filters box.

The order of the filters will determine the order for matching. For example, if a term within the first filter in the list is identified and the Always Run All Filters box is not checked, the filter action will run and the group will bypass the remaining filters.

Generally, the following filter groups are used.

_Master - This can be assigned to mailboxes and include all desired filters and filter groups.

_TopicChanges - It is suggested to put all filters that change a messages topic into a single filter group, and set the group to NOT Always Run All Filters.

_SetProperties - Since you might want to set multiple properties it's suggested that filters which set properties be combined into a group with the Always Run All Filters box checked.

Although filters are completely customized for each tenant, there are a few filters that are commonly used for scenarios such as bounced messages.

Undeliverable Messages

Undeliverable messages can be identified by their subject line and in most cases the sender. Typically, the following two filters are created to match bounced messages and are placed at the top of the topic change filter group.

Check Subject Line

Expression: Subject Matches - Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender|failure notice|Returned mail|Undeliverable Mail|Delivery Status Notification|Mail could not be delivered|Mail delivery failed|Delayed Mail

Action: Change topic to _Undeliverable

Check From Address

Expression: From Matches - postmaster|mailer-daemon

Action: Change topic to _Undeliverable

Out of Office Messages

Out of Office messages can be identified by their subject line

Check Subject Line

Expression: Subject Matches - Automatic reply|Out of Office|Automatische Antwort|Niet aanwezig|Automatisch antwoord|Abwesenheit|Ya no escribir a este correo|Abwesend|Abwesenheitsnotiz|out of the office|kann ihre Mail nicht empfangen!

Action: Change topic to _Undeliverable or _Out of Office