Cases

Case Fields

The Cases module contains a number of stock fields that come out-of-the-box with Sugar. For information on using and editing various field types, refer to the User Interface documentation. The definitions below are suggested meanings for the fields, but the fields can be leveraged differently to best meet your organization's needs. Administrators or users with developer-level role access have the ability to alter, add, or remove fields via Admin > Studio. For more information on configuring fields, please refer to the Studio documentation in the Administration Guide.

¹ To better understand how all of the case SLA and resolution fields work together, refer to the Understanding SLA and Case Resolution Calculations article.
² This field's value is only visible to Sugar Serve or Sell users; when this field appears on layouts, users without a supported license type will see a placeholder containing the text "License Required" instead of the field's value. See the User Management page for more details on license types.
³ This Action Button or Action Menu option can be edited in Studio to fully customize it to your company's needs. Please see the Action Buttons documentation for further information.

Business Centers and Cases

Business centers represent your company's centers of operation and specify a time zone, operating hours, and holidays so that a concept called "Business Hours" can be leveraged in SugarBPM and in-field calculations. Each case's selected business center can be used for SugarBPM business hour calculations; it is also used by Sugar to calculate values for the Business Hours to First Response and Business Hours to Resolution fields. If a case does not have an assigned business center, any field calculations performed in business hours are instead performed in calendar hours.

There are several ways a case can have its business center set. As a best practice, each account in your Sugar instance should have its Business Center Name field set. Then, during case creation, the user sets the case's Account Name field and, on save, the account's business center is copied over to the new case. A case's Business Center Name field can also be set manually while creating or editing the case. Once the field is populated with a value, it will not be automatically overwritten by a related account.

Note: Cases that were created before migrating or updating your instance to a version that includes Business Centers will have blank Business Center Name fields until each is edited and resaved. On save, the related account's business center, if specified, will be copied over the case's blank value.

Case Attachments

You can attach one or more files to a case using the Attachments field. Click "Browse" to choose a file to upload from your computer or hold the Ctrl or Shift key on your keyboard to select multiple files to upload. Once you have uploaded a file, be sure to wait for the file name to appear in the Attachments field before saving the record to ensure that the file has been fully uploaded. You can open files by clicking them or use the Download or Download All button to save them to your computer in a zip file.

When copying case records, file attachments are not carried over. To keep the file attachments in the copied case, save them to your computer and then upload them to the newly created case.

Emails and Cases

Emails offer important functionality for working with cases in Sugar. Inbound emails can automatically generate new cases. Once the case exists, Sugar can automatically relate emails to a relevant case when the case macro is used. Emails can also be manually related to cases using the email's Related To field. These relationships allow the case's record view to display all relevant email correspondence in the Emails subpanel and History dashlet.

Creating Cases via Inbound Email

Creating cases via emails provides users with added convenience in the case creation process and helps expedite the amount of time before the support team can begin working on the issue. Cases can be automatically created when emails are sent to a group mailbox account which is monitored by Sugar.

Administrators can create group mail accounts via Admin > Inbound Email. Group mail accounts periodically poll an email account for new emails and import the emails into Sugar. The group mail account can be configured to automatically create a new case for each incoming email as well as to send an automatic reply email including the generated case's number. For more information, please refer to the Email documentation in the Administration Guide. 

Email Case Macro

Sugar has the ability to automatically relate emails to their relevant cases using a case macro. The case macro is placed in the subject line of the email and contains the case number. Administrators have the ability to alter the macro's format via Admin > Inbound Email, but the default format is "[CASE:{number}]". The formatting of the macro in email subjects is imperative for Sugar to properly create the relationship. For example, a valid email subject line using the default macro would be "Re: [CASE:123] System not responding". For more information on configuring the case macro, please refer to the Email documentation in the Administration Guide.

When Sugar automatically relates an email to a case because of a case macro match, the case will be set in the email's Related To field. When viewing the case in record view, the email will appear in both the History dashlet and Emails subpanel.

Sugar will recognize the case macro and automatically relate the email to the relevant case for any email entering Sugar in the following ways:

• Group mail account: A group mail account is a monitored inbound mailbox that is created via Admin > Inbound Email. This is a mailbox on your company's mail server that Sugar is granted the ability to read. For example, creating "support@mycompany.com" as a group mail account means that any email with "support@mycompany.com" in the To or CC list will be checked for a case macro and automatically related to the case in Sugar. Support representatives can CC the address when corresponding with customers to have the emails automatically archived and related to the case in Sugar. Please note that if the account is configured to not automatically import emails, the relationship to the case will not be formed until a user imports it from the group inbox in the Emails module. For more information on configuring a group mail account, please refer to the Email documentation in the Administration Guide.
• Sugar Email Archiving: Sugar Email Archiving must be configured and enabled by administrators in Sugar via Admin > System Email Settings. Once configured, an email address will be generated that is specific to your instance of Sugar. When this email address receives an email, it scans the email for any email addresses. The email is then imported into Sugar, where the email is associated with any contact, lead, etc. containing an email address on the email. When a case macro is included in the email's subject, Sugar will also relate the email to the referenced case. For more information on setting up Email Archiving, please refer to the Email documentation in the Administration Guide.
• Sent from within Sugar: Composing and sending an email from anywhere within Sugar, including via the Emails module, clicking an email address on any record, from the History dashlet, etc., will cause Sugar to automatically search the subject for a case macro and relate the email to the relevant case. For more information on composing emails within Sugar, please refer to the Emails documentation.

Emails Subpanel

The Emails subpanel in the Cases module displays emails that are associated with the case record in a variety of ways:

• Related to the case: If the case is selected in the email's Related To field, the email and case are related, and the email will appear in the case's Emails subpanel and History dashlet. Instructions for using this flex relate field are available in the Emails documentation.
• Related to the case's related contacts: If the email is related, either explicitly or implicitly, to a contact record that is related to the case, the email will appear in the case's Emails subpanel and History dashlet.

Note: Administrators can enable or disable a case from displaying related contact emails via Admin > Related Contacts Emails. For more information, please refer to the Email documentation in the Administration Guide.

Sugar Portal and Cases

The Sugar Portal allows customers to view their organization's cases as well as submit cases directly to Sugar. Please note that customers have to be registered users of the portal in order to be able to submit cases to Sugar. For more information on enabling and configuring the portal, please refer to the Sugar Portal documentation. For information on using the portal, please refer to the Portal Deployment User Guide and Portal User Guide documentation.

Note: When cases are created via the portal, the Source field in the case's record view will automatically be set to "Portal" to indicate that the case originated from the portal.

In addition to being used by your customers to view and submit cases, the Sugar Portal can also be used as a method of communicating about cases between customers and your organization. Utilizing the portal this way ensures that all case-related communications between your users and contacts are stored in Sugar. This communication is conducted via related note records which can be created by both Sugar users and portal-enabled contacts. Sugar users can create and add notes to the case via the Notes subpanel on the case's record view in Sugar. Please note that cases created in Sugar will automatically appear in the portal as the Show in Portal checkbox is enabled by default in the case's record view. But administrators can have this field disabled by default via Admin > Studio. Customers can easily add notes to the case as well by clicking the Add a Note button on the case's record view in the portal. When a customer adds a note via the portal, the note record will appear in the Notes subpanel of the case's record view in Sugar. Likewise, when a Sugar user adds a note to a case in Sugar, the note record will appear in the Notes panel of the case's record view in the portal. Please keep in mind that notes attached to cases will automatically appear in the portal as the Show in Portal checkbox is enabled by default in the note's record view. But administrators can have this field disabled by default via Admin > Studio. These notes will only be visible to other portal users within the customer's organization.