JDNEER Conversation Relations

Link FreeScout conversations to each other: related to, duplicates, blocked by, follows and copied from. A blocked conversation can't be closed while its blocker is still open, and closing an original closes its duplicates. If one FreeScout serves several customers, you decide which mailboxes may link, and agents only ever see the details of conversations they are allowed to open.

Guides

Guide	For	What's in it
Guide for agents	Everyone who answers conversations	The kinds of link, adding and removing links, hidden conversations 🔒, closing blocked conversations, duplicates, automatic links, list badges and search
Guide for admins	Admins	Every setting and what agents notice, setting up several customers with link groups, the grid, hidden conversations, blocked-conversation choices, removing the module
How it works	Whoever maintains FreeScout or this module	What is stored where, every check, how it hooks into FreeScout, timeline entries, tests

In short

Kind	Seen from the other conversation	What it does
related to	related to	Nothing extra.
duplicates	duplicated by	Closing the original closes its open duplicates.
blocked by	blocks	Can't be closed while the blocker is open.
follows	precedes	Shows "waiting" while the earlier one is open. No dates.
copied from	copied to	Set automatically by Clone Conversation and New Conversation from a message.

Out of the box, only conversations in the same mailbox can be linked. Change that under Manage → Settings → Relations (see the guide for admins).

Requirements

FreeScout 1.8.245 or later. No other module is needed.

Install

1. Download JdneerRelations-<version>.zip and SHA256SUMS from the repository's Releases page, and check the download: sha256sum -c --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS.

2. Unpack it into the Modules directory of your FreeScout installation (the directory that contains artisan). The zip holds a single JdneerRelations/ folder:

   cd /path/to/freescout
   unzip /path/to/JdneerRelations-<version>.zip -d Modules/
   

3. Give the folder to the user your web server runs as (often www-data, nginx or apache):

   chown -R www-data:www-data Modules/JdneerRelations
   

4. In FreeScout, open Manage → Modules and click Activate on JDNEER Conversation Relations. Activation creates the module's three tables.

5. Review Manage → Settings → Relations. Out of the box only conversations in the same mailbox can be linked.

Update

Unpack the new zip next to the old folder and swap them, then let FreeScout pick up the new version:

cd /path/to/freescout
rm -rf /tmp/jdneerrelations-new /tmp/jdneerrelations-old
unzip /path/to/JdneerRelations-<new version>.zip -d /tmp/jdneerrelations-new
mv Modules/JdneerRelations /tmp/jdneerrelations-old && mv /tmp/jdneerrelations-new/JdneerRelations Modules/
chown -R www-data:www-data Modules/JdneerRelations
sudo -u www-data php artisan freescout:module-install jdneerrelations   # migrations, public link, cache

Uninstall

Deactivate keeps all links, groups and settings; activating again brings them back. While the module is inactive, its timeline entries show as empty lines, because FreeScout has no text for them.

To remove everything, use Manage → Settings → Relations → Remove all module data first (type REMOVE to confirm). It deletes the module's tables, settings, mailbox overrides and timeline entries, then deactivates the module. Delete on the module card then removes the files.

Development

• build.sh runs the plain checks (the computer's PHP, or a podman PHP 8.4 container); the repository's scripts/check.sh runs it too.
• tests/in-app/, tests/e2e/smoke.py and the test data in tests/seed/ are described under How it works → Testing.
• img/ holds the screenshots used in the guides.
• Work for later is listed in TODO.md.
• Releases follow doc/RELEASE-PROCESS.md.