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My Customer received an Assistance Request Denied message from my site, but did not contact us for help. What caused this message to occur?

Environment:

Outreach, Service, Email

Resolution:

Customers can be contacted proactively via an Outreach mailing, for example. If a mailing is sent to a customer, and the customer has an auto-response set up in their email client, such as an Out-of-Office message, then their response could be processed by the system and ultimately may not be accepted. This could include an attempt to create a new incident.

First, understand there is a correlation between a contact and it's relative "state" or association within specific product areas. Contacts.state is used to define if the contact is for Service, Outreach, or Opportunities, or some combination of the three. Read further about this from Answer ID 1998: State field with contact and organization records.

Depending on how this contacts.state value is set, this will have impacts downstream for the ability of contacts to create incidents in different channels. There are two configuration settings to review:

• EGW_AUTO_CONT_CREATE - This configuration setting allows / disallows emails from contacts not already in the system, if the email is sent to a Service mailbox. With this setting, the contacts.state is also considered.

Configuration Setting Value with Results

Config Value	Contact Exists	Contact State	Result
1=Enabled	No	n/a	Contact and incident created with Service State
1=Enabled	Yes	No Service State	Incident is created; contact is updated to include Service State
0=Disabled	No	n/a	Contact/Incident are not created; Assistance Request Denied message is sent.
0=Disabled	Yes	No Service State	Contact/Incident are not created; Assistance Request Denied message is sent.

• EGW_AUTO_CONT_CREATE_MA - This configuration setting allows / disallows emails from contacts not already in the system, if the email is sent to an Outreach mailbox. With this setting, the contacts.state is also considered.

Configuration Setting for Outreach with Results

Config Value	Contact Exists	Contact State	Result
1=Enabled	No	n/a	Contact and Incident created with Outreach State
1=Enabled	Yes	No Outreach State	Incident is created; contact is updated to include Outreach State
0=Disabled	No	n/a	Contact/Incident are not created; Assistance Request Denied message is sent
0=Disabled	Yes	No Outreach State	Contact/Incident are not created; Assistance Request Denied message is sent

If a Service only contact was sent an Outreach mailing, to which their OOO reply processed via techmail, and the configuration setting EGW_AUTO_CONT_CREATE_MA was disabled, then the customer will receive the Assistance Request Denied message.

Path to setting(s): Select Configuration from the navigation area > Site Configuration > Configuration Settings > and search by Key.

For more information on accessing the Configuration Editor and editing settings, refer to Answer ID 1960: Editing Configuration Settings.

Another option for why a contact could receive an Access Request Denied email relates to how your site is configured in relation to SLAs.  Please see Answer ID 9455: Assistance Request Denied - It is necessary to have a contract to request personal assistance for more information.