Duplicate tickets being created via email - suggestions?

Hey everyone.

I've got something here that is hopefully easy to solve. It probably involves utilizing triggers, but my mind cannot seem to crack this one.

Our current setup is quite simple. We have one service, Help Desk, with one email, helpdesk@xxx.com that customers can email directly. When customers email helpdesk@, a ticket is created, and our group is then notified. That's working fine.

The issue arises when a customer emails the project manager directly. The PM is not a user in our ticketing system (licensing stuff), but they then reply to the customer and CC helpdesk@. The PM does not get a kickback email with the newly created ticket #, so both the customer and the PM continue the conversation via the original, "non-ticketed" email thread, each time CC'ing helpdesk@, therefore creating more tickets. Back and forth it goes, creating more tickets, until one of them possibly latches on to the subject like "B#xxxx" but only once a technician gets involved. We consistently have to clean up the mess every time this happens.

To clarify, here's the scenario played out --

> Customer sends email directly to project manager (PM) (sometimes also including helpdesk@)

> PM replies to customer, CC'ing helpdesk@xxx.com IF the customer hasn't already

> A ticket is rightfully created, and the licensed technicians are notified

> If a technician is unable to respond right away, the PM and the customer may exchange additional emails back and forth, using the original email and not the ticket thread, but still keeping helpdesk@ CC'd

> Duplicate tickets keep getting created until a technician can respond

Hopefully that makes sense. I am hoping someone can give me suggestions.

Here are some things we've implemented:

1. When a ticket is created via helpdesk@, a trigger occurs that adds a comment to the ticket.

2. A confirmation email is sent to the customer letting them know we received the ticket.

Here is something we've tried so far:

1. Create an additional trigger that notifies CC/watchlisted users when a ticket has been created, however, when testing this, it did not send them the actual ticket with the ticket # in the subject line, it was just some notification, and also it sent the same notification to the customer's email.

Perhaps this all boils down to creating these project managers as users in service desk, and licensing them. But this means showing them how to use the portal, which they may not do, and that would create another problem of having tickets assigned to a user who potentially never logs on to resolve and close them.

Bottom line:

We simply need a way to ensure project managers get a copy of the ticket # sent to their inbox when a customer emails them directly. Keeping in mind that sometimes the customer DOES send to helpdesk@, but they also CC the PM, who then responds to the email, causing duplicate tickets all the same.

The PM would then wait to respond until they have the new ticket # email in their inbox, and begin responding to that thread, thus keeping the conversation in the same comment section of the same ticket.

Thank you for any help or suggestions!