PHP / MySQL Ticket Response - Store E-mail repsonse in database?

Question

I am building a basic support request system where the customer can log in and ask a question and an admin can go in and reply and it will set the status to "Responded" and e-mail the customer to let them know someone has responded.

My question is.. I have a "comments" section which is a log of the interaction between the admin and the customer. If I e-mail the customer the initial response from the admin, then I have a feeling they will just hit "Reply" from their email and start communicating through there, and the logs won't be stored.

I could either e-mail the customer and say "Log in to view the response", or maybe if the customer does hit reply I can somehow track it and insert that in the comments table like they did it from the website. If that is even possible?

Just wondering if there is a standard way to do this and any suggestions you may have.

Thanks!

Answer 1

When sending the email to the user you can have it sent from an email address created for that specific ticket. Something that can identify it with your email system to help you route it back to the php ticketing system.

support(ticketnumber)@domain

[email protected]

Then it depends on your email server how to go from there. There are several useful tips at this question that may help or get your started.

How to get email and their attachments from PHP