Note

Filters in Microsoft 365 channels work in the same way as in email channels. This is why the section has been adopted verbatim from here.

Filters

Introduction

With filters in email-based channels (“postmaster filters”), you can adjust Zammad’s behavior, automate actions and extract information when an email is received. The filters are based on conditions and differentiate between actions for the ticket creation and the ticket update. The available options differ from those available in other automation types (triggers and scheduler jobs). So if your use case isn’t covered by filters, consider using triggers or scheduler jobs instead.

Zammad includes some built-in system filters by default which you can’t see or modify. Check the system filters section below for more information.

Usage

To create a new filter, click on the New button. This opens a dialog where you can configure it. To modify an existing filter, just click on its row in the table, which opens the same dialog.

In addition to that, you can clone or delete a filter by clicking on the ⠇ to open the action menu and select the corresponding option. The cloning can be useful if you have a complex configuration and don’t want to start from scratch. Instead of deleting a filter, consider to setting it to inactive so you can easily activate it again later.

In addition to some meta information, the configuration basically consists of two parts: the condition to define which emails are affected (Match all of the following) and the action to define the changes for matching emails (Perform actions).

Name

Name of the filter. This is also shown in the ticket history if the filter has been applied to a ticket.

Match all of the following

Define which emails should be affected by the filter based on conditions. You can use various email attribute checks such as sender, subject, or custom headers. They all have to match for the action to get applied. The conditions work similarly to other places in Zammad. Have a look at the object conditions page, where you can find details about how the operators work.

It is even possible to extract information from incoming emails and to use it in actions. An example for this could be to extract an order number from the subject and write it into a custom object attribute. This is done via regular expressions and their capture groups. To extract a string, use matches regex as operator, add a named capture group in parentheses like (?<name>) and include the part you want to extract. For the order number example, it could look like .*[Oo]rder.*\D(?<order_number>\d+).*.

You can even use multiple capture groups in one part of the condition or use them in multiple condition parts for different attributes. Be aware that all parts of the condition have to match for the action to get applied. Consider using a separate filter in case you want to extract information from different attributes and the information might not always be present. Even though you could use unnamed captures, it is recommended to use named capture groups to prevent them from getting overwritten when using them in more than one condition part in a single filter.

Hint

Another way to extract text is by using a text extractor AI agent.

Perform actions

Define which actions should be performed on the matching emails. You can differentiate between actions for the ticket creation and the ticket update. Additionally, you have some related options available like changing the visibility of the article.

If you extracted information in a condition, you can use it in the actions and write it to any available and fitting attribute which is capable of storing the extracted string (e.g. ticket title or a custom object attribute of a text type).

To write the extracted string, use the variable #{regexp.name}, where name is the name of the capture group you defined in the condition, e.g. #{regexp.order_number}. For unnamed capture groups, use the number of the capture group, e.g. #{regexp.1} for the first capture group. Make sure to always use the regexp namespace.

Note

Add a note about the filter. This note is only for internal use and visible for other admins.

Active

Set the filter to active or inactive. Only active filters are applied to incoming emails.

Examples

Group Assignment Based on Sender Domain

Example

Automatically move emails from @amazon.com to the “Purchasing” group.

Condition

From: matches regex: (\.|@)amazon\.com

Action

Group: Purchasing

Organization-Based Ticket Assignment

Example

Automatically dispatch tickets to responsible staff based on the organization name.

Condition

Organization: starts with one of A B C

Action

Owner: Emily Adams

VIP Customer Handling

Example

Automatically increase the priority of tickets from a VIP customer.

Condition

From: contains ourvipcustomer@example.com

Action

Priority: 3 high

Spam Handling

Example

Automatically tag and close spam tickets that have been marked as spam by an external spam filter (e.g. SpamAssassin).

Condition

X-Spam-Flag: contains YES

Action

Tag: add spam

State: closed

Extract Information from Subject

Example

Automatically extract an invoice number from the email subject (with an unnamed capture group) and write it to the custom object attribute “Invoice number”.

Condition

Subject: matches regex .*[Ii]nvoice.*\D(\d+).*

Action

Invoice number: #{regexp.1}

Extract Information from Email Body

Example

Automatically extract an order number from the email body (with a named capture group) and write it to the custom object attribute “Order number”.

Condition

Body: matches regex .*[Oo]rder.*\D(?<order_number>\d+).*

Action

Order number: #{regexp.order_number}

System Filters

Zammad comes with some built-in system filters by default. You can’t see them in the UI. The intention is to tweak the behavior of Zammad for emails from common systems which have some kind of special formatting. Have a look at our separate subpage about System Filters where you can find more details.