Followers should not be added automatically

[Rodrigo Rodrigues da Silva]

Currently OpenERP (7, at least) adds any partner that replies to or is CC'd on an e-mail related to a document automatically. I couldn't find any configuration related to this.

This functional bug leads to the classic problem of "someone should not have received that e-mail".

Here is a use case:

0. Customer Charlie sends an e-mail to <email address hidden>
1. OpenERP fetches the e-mail and creates a crm_helpdesk (in this case, could be anything else) document
2. Support staff Sally replies (from her e-mail client) to Charlie (at this point, Charlie is automatically and silently added as a follower of the document)
3. Charlie replies to Sally, but also CC'ing manager Mark (at this point, Mark is automatically and silently added as follower of the OERP document)
4. Mark forwards to director Dick, removing Charlie and Sally from the recipients. (at this point, OpenERP fetches the message that Mark sent to Dick - and every other reply on the private conversation - matches it with the document, and sends it to all followers: ouch! Obviously I expected that only Mark and Dick got the messages).

This undesired situation could be avoided in many different ways and is obviously caused by a conjunction of factors. Although, IMHO partners being added automatically and silently as followers is the key point here. Since there is no clear boundary between internal and external communication, not to mention that people replying to a message are not necessarily aware of who is receiving the reply, adding someone as the follower of a document should be something to be done explicitly and only by people with appropriate permission to do that.

Of course this could be avoided by e-mail clients removing appropriate headers, and so, but OpenERP must not rely on weak assumptions like that.

Maybe this is not a bug /per se/, but since there is no longer a forum I think this is the appropriate place to discuss this issue and come to a solution.

This question on help.openerp.com reports a similar case:

http://help.openerp.com/question/25601/how-to-stop-openerp-from-adding-partner-as-followers-automatically/

OpenERP version: 7.0-20131002-231025-1 (from .deb nightly repo)

[Amit Parik (amit-parik)]

Hello Rodrigo,

This feature is not developed on OpenERP still, but its good improvement . We have to provide one configuration on general setting and from there we can set "Automatic followers added on document" or remove and by default it will be true.

This is not exactly the bug, but we can consider this as a good improvement that's why I am setting this as a "Wishlist".

Thank you!

[Info-michaelbos (info-michaelbos)]

IS there any ETA on this?

I am receiving a lot of complaints of my customers and suppliers for unwanted e-mails.

Is there any way I can already shut the automatic adding off? I don't need any automatic added followers on any of my documents.

Please help me out!

Any help is appreciated.

[Rodrigo Rodrigues da Silva (rodrigopitanga)]

Hello, Amit,

creating an option to enable/disable automatically adding followers is a good way to go, but I stand up to considering this issue as a bug, not a feature request. That means, in practice, that by default the automatic adding would be turned off. There are numerous complaints on help.openerp.com (plus 2 cases here) that support my opinion. What do you think?

[Bill Ennals (bennals)]

I agree that this should be considered a bug even though it may be what the original intention of the developer was. It has the potential for creating such serious privacy issues, both within the workplace and on a professional level with clients and third parties, that it should be considered a flawed concept - hence a bug.

Bill.

[Thomas Winteler (Win-Soft) (thomi)]

This Bug also affects Odoo 8rc1 and it does drive us crazy.

The idea from #1 should be integrated into Odoo as soon as possible, cause if you configure Odoo for incoming email it can cause lot of troubles for company and their customers... It can be that important company data will be sent to outside recipients/followers.

Btw. the idea form #1 should set it default to FALSE!!!

We are working on any workaround, that does stop this automatic stuff...

thomi