I have an issue where the friendly from line “User name via RT” is being parsed by Outlook and used for auto-completing email addresses.
if an RT user starts typing a users name outlook will auto complete to the “User name via RT” and use the RT queue email address erroneously mailing a ticket queue instead of the user directly, alternately if a user enters the RT queue address outlook will auto populate the to address with a recently cached “User name via RT” but for an unrelated user causing confusion.
I’ve tested setting the UseFriendlyFromLine to 0 but then we lose the helpful user info.
anybody found a workaround that retains the username in the from field but prevents outlook from gobbling it up in the autocomplete?
I’ve also searched for outlook based solutions but found no luck there.
We started using RT on November and users complain about this but now it’s normalized so I buried my head in the sand until your post but something has happened to my brain connections in the pre-coffe time this morning thanks to you…
Maybe, it’s possible to configure $FriendlyFromLineFormat with the first character that makes Outlook this “user” to be sorted at the end of the lists, maybe some non-printable character, underscore, etc. or maybe the user can be altered in some other way (like “P e t e r” with non printable characters instead of “Peter”).
Outlook is very ugly and behaviour depens on version and outlook web access or desktop-version.
First all versions collect addresses to do autocompletition per user and some desktop-versions do it in the local pst-file.
Second some versions overwrite the display name with the text it finds in local contacts or global addressbook.
Third the display-name and the autocompletition are two different things.
On this base it is quite difficult to see and to get the right things if interacting with RT (and other software that is doing correct mail handling).
So if you put RT’s mailaddresses into outlooks global addressbook most clients display the name from the global addressbook instead of the FriendlyFromName given in the mail. In this case one cannot see who wrote the Correspondence.
From this point outlook collects the mailadresses with the name from global addressbook instead of the FriendlyName.
But anything you do: The existing collected entries are userbased. If you change anything in RT or global addressbook it has no effect on the user’s existing suggestion list. The user has to delete entries himself or use the correct addresses manuelly and wait Outlook learns them.
Whatever you do, you are struggeling with the exisiting autocomplete list.
My advise:
Use FriendlyFromLine for people with real clients for mail.
If the RT sender’s name doesn’t matter to your users put RT’s address into global addressbook.
(If the sender’s name matter and you need RT’s address in global addressbook you have to use an alias or forwarded mailaddress for RT)
And in any case: Sit and wait!
It will solve anyway on a per user base. Per user is what microsoft supposed it to work, that leads to very “nice” effects.
Anyway: To work with FriendlyFromLineFormat is a nice idea. Have to think about.
Thank you, @rubberduck, for this. This may also explain why emails sent only to internal recipients do not include the friendly “From” line via RT, while those sent to at least one external recipient do.
@jcsrt If you want to troubleshoot this faster there is an option in Outlook to empty the Auto-Complete List. Go to File → Options → Mail scroll down to the “Send messages” section and click the “Empty Auto-Complete List”.
Note that this will delete all the autocomplete entries, as far as I know there is no way to selectively delete entries.
but something has happened to my brain connections in the pre-coffe time this morning thanks to you…