EmailSubmissions

CMFCollectorNG has an optional feature that allows to file new issues through
email without using the web interface and to submit followups through email.

Requirements

  - Unix system, procmail

  - Requirements Python 2.1.3 or 2.2.2 

  - Python email package (either part of Python 2.2.2 or install 
    it from mimelib.sf.net)


Installation

  - copy mail_parser.py and logging.py to a suitable location

  - copy .cmfcollectorngmail.ini to the home directory of the user
    that will process the incoming email

  - install CMFCollectorNG as described in INSTALL.txt
    
  - create a CMFCollectorNG instance inside your CMF or Plone site

  - add a new user XXX to your CMF site and grant XXX the Supporter role (Staff
    configuration screen of your CMFCollectorNG instance)

  - edit .cmfcollectorngmail.ini and change the entries according to your needs
    and site 
 
  - install Procmail and add a section to your .procmailrc::

      0:0
      * Subject.*[TestTracker]
      | /path/to/mail_parser.py

     "TestTracker" is the id of the tracker you created earlier

  - go to the Configuration section of your CMFCollectorNG instance and enable
    email submissions and set a submission token that is required to submit new
    issues through email.

Logging

  The mail_parser.py write a log file "collector.log". You can change the 
  format of the log file by editing logger.ini.


Submitting new issues through email

  New issues must be send to the account that is configured to handle all
  incoming email for the CMFCollectorNG instance. A new issue is identified
  through 

   - the subject:
   
       TrackerID] Issue description goes here

   - a line inside the mail body::

       ##token:<SUBMISSION_TOKEN>

 
Submitting followups through email

  You can submit a follow by just replying the notification emails that are
  send out by the CMFCollectorNG instance. The notification emails contain
  a unique cookie for each collector issue that must remain within the reply
  or followup.


Confirmation emails

  Processed emails will be confirmed with a confirmation email containing the
  status of the processing and the original posting.
 

Plain vs. HTML mail

  The mail plugging of CMFCollectorNG does *not* handle HTML mail. Any
  submission must use text/plain. Any other format is not acceptable. Some mail
  programs seem to send HTML as MIME multipart mail containing the same text both
  as plain text and as HTML text. In this the mail parser tries to get the
  content from the text/plain section. text/plain parts may be encoded using
  base64 or uuencode.


Acknowledgements

  The email interface for CMFCollectorNG has been funded by Jamkit (www.jamkit.com) 
  and is released under the Zope Public License.

 


<hr solid id=comments_below>


ctheune (Feb 23, 2003 9:10 am; Comment #1) *Editor Remark Requested* --
 What happens with incoming mails, while the zope server is down?