Introduce an email reply processor

[asmecher]

...to:

• enable users to participate to discussions by answering emails
• enable reviewers to comment by answering emails
• ...possibly more.

[asmecher]

Proposal: Allow journal managers to optionally configure an email account (IMAP and/or POP), that OJS can periodically process. Use PHP's imap functions -- they can actually handle POP as well. Fetch unread messages as a batch job (to run via the normal scheduled tasks mechanisms) and delete the ones that have been successfully processed.

[asmecher]

Unknowns: how to authenticate received emails against the task (perhaps use AccessKey); where to put authentication information (we probably can't use one-time-generated email addresses, as most users won't have access to this); how to mix normal email content in with parseable content; whether there are support libraries/standard mechanisms to do this.

[NateWr]

how to authenticate received emails against the task (perhaps use AccessKey); where to put authentication information (we probably can't use one-time-generated email addresses, as most users won't have access to this);

Just a comment for later: we should be able to use the + syntax that is supported by most mail providers. So if the reply processor address is replies@example.com, the reply-to address could be replies+<access-key>@example.com. Most mail providers will put that into the replies@example.com mailbox. (This is how GitHub does it.)

[asmecher]

A belated update: there is some proof-of-concept work on this available in the following branches...

• https://github.com/asmecher/pkp-lib/tree/mail-client
• https://github.com/asmecher/ojs/tree/mail-client

There is some new config.inc.php configuration required in the [email] section:

• imap_host
• imap_port
• imap_username
• imap_password
• reply_to_address
• message_id_suffix (e.g. @smecher.bc.ca)

To adapt an existing installation for the data model changes:

alter table notes add column message_id varchar(255);
alter table review_assignments add column message_id varchar(255);

This implements two use cases:

• Replies to discussion messages are captured in the workflow
• Reviewer invitations can be confirmed/declined as meeting invites

[asmecher]

Note that there is some parallel work in a Lepidus plugin for review reminders using calendar invitations.

https://github.com/lepidus/reviewReminder