Automatically create a case from an email in web client

Reduce the need for manually creating cases from incoming emails and increase the efficiency of customer service agents by creating automatic case creation rules in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. The conditions in these rules automatically convert emails to support cases.

Prerequisites

  • Make sure that you have the Customer Service Manager, System Administrator, or System Customizer security role or equivalent permissions.

    When a case creation rule is activated, a corresponding workflow is created automatically. If you create or assign a rule, you must have permissions to perform the same action on workflows. The case creation rule is applied and a case is created in context to the permissions that the owner of the case creation rule has.

  • Check your security role

    • Follow the steps in View your user profile.

    • Don’t have the correct permissions? Contact your system administrator.

Create cases automatically using rules

  1. Go to Settings > Service Management.

    Important

    The Service Management area in Customer Service Hub is deprecated. Use the Customer Service admin center app for admin tasks across Customer Service.

  2. Select Automatic Case Creation Rules.

  3. To create a new case creation rule, select New.

    or

    To edit an existing rule, in the list of rules, select a rule, and then on the command bar, select Edit.

  4. Type or modify information in the fields.

    • Name: Type the name of the queue the rule is defined for.

    • Source Type: Select Email to indicate that cases will be created automatically from email messages.

    • Queue: Select the queue that the rule applies to. For example, if you want to convert email messages and then send them to the Support queue, select that queue here.

      Note

      You can associate only one rule per source type to a specific queue. If you’re creating a rule to convert an email to a case, make sure you specify an email address for this queue. Otherwise, automatic case creation for email won’t work. More information: Create and manage queues

  5. In the Specify Conditions for Case Creation section, select the conditions for creating the case automatically. You can add multiple conditions here and arrange them in the desired order. The conditions are considered in the same order. Only one item that has conditions matching the incoming email is applied.

    Specify conditions for email to case creation

    1. Create cases for email from unknown senders: If you select this checkbox, all email messages from unknown senders (senders whose email addresses aren't present in Dynamics 365) are converted to cases. A contact record is also created for the unknown senders.

      Note

      If this option isn't selected, cases are created only for email messages that have a contact or account as the senders. Email messages from senders that are present as other record types won’t be converted to cases.

      This option, in conjunction with the Automatically create records in Microsoft Dynamics 365 option in the rule owner’s Personal Options, determines whether a case and contact record is created (see Set personal options):

      This table shows if a contact and case record is created based on the values set for the Automatically create records in Microsoft Dynamics 365 field in Personal Options and the Create cases for email from unknown senders checkbox in the automatic case creation rule:

      “Automatically create records in Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement” option is set to: If “Create case from unknown sender” option in this rule is set to: Contact or case created?
      Create Lead Selected Both, contact and case, created
      Create Lead Not selected None
      Create Contact Selected Both, contact and case, created
      Create Contact Not selected Only contact created
      None Selected Both, contact and case, created
      None Not selected None
    2. Create case if a valid entitlement exists for the customer: If you select this checkbox, the application creates a case only if an active entitlement exists for the customer.

      If the sender of the email is a contact with a parent account, the application creates a case if the contact’s parent account has a valid entitlement and the contact is listed in the Contacts section of the entitlement or if the Contacts section is empty (which means the entitlement is applicable to all contacts for the customer).

    3. Create cases for activities associated with a resolved case: If you select this checkbox, the application creates a case if the email is related to a resolved case. If the email is related to an active case, a new case won’t be created.

    4. Create case when the case associated with the activity is resolved since: If you select the Create cases for activities associated with a resolved case checkbox, select the duration here. The application creates a case only if the case is resolved earlier than the duration you specify. If the incoming email is related to a case resolved later than the specified duration, the application only associates the incoming email with the existing resolved case; a new case won’t be created.

    5. Under Specify Autoresponse Settings, select the Send automatic email response to customer on case creation checkbox if you want to automatically send email responses to the sender of the email after a case for the email is created.

    Select email template to respond to customer: If you select the Send automatic email response to customer on case creation checkbox, select an email template (global email template or email template of case entity type). If you don’t select a template, an automatic response won’t be sent.

  6. Select Save.

  7. In the Specify Case Details section, define the conditions for creating a case and specify the case properties.

    By default, the Title field of the new case is set to the subject of the email and the Customer field is set to the sender of the email. If the sender of the email is a contact with a parent account, the Customer field is set to the parent account, and the Contact field is set to the sender of the email.

    Specify case details

    1. In the Specify Case Details section, select +, define the conditions for creating a case and specify the case properties.

    2. In the Conditions section, specify when the case should be created.

      Here’s how:

      Automatic case creation conditions.

    3. In the Case Properties section, set the properties for the case. The following example shows how to set the priority of all the automatically created cases to High:

      Properties settings for a new case.

      Once a case is created, the incoming email is removed from the queue.

Note

If there isn't a routing rule that routes the newly created case to another user or queue, the user who’s the owner of the case creation rule will be set as the owner of the case, too.

Activate or deactivate a case creation rule

Cases are created automatically only when the case creation rule is active. To activate a rule, open it, and then on the command bar, select Activate.

Once the rule is active, you can’t change it. To change a rule, open the rule and on the command bar, select Deactivate. You can then edit the rule.

Manage automatic case creation from a queue form

You can create or manage an automatic case creation rule from a queue form, too. To do this, open the queue record, and then on the command bar, select Email to Case Settings.

See also

Automatically route cases using routing rule sets
Create and manage queues