Working a ticket

Open a ticket from the inbox and it fills the right of the screen. Along the top are its number, how it arrived, the star that adds it to your Favourites, Follow, Timer, Copy link, More actions and Close the ticket. Below the subject sit the pickers for status, priority, assignee, queue, category and type, the SLA badge, and chips for anything special about the ticket, such as Escalated, Follows on from #1234, Possible duplicate of #1234, From chat C-1003 or Closes automatically on a date. A ticket on hold shows a line with why and until when (see On-hold reasons and paused SLAs), and a ticket whose request needs an identity check shows a banner with Verify identity (see Verifying who a caller is).

The conversation#

The middle column is the conversation, oldest first:

• Replies from your team show who they went To, with a coloured edge.
• Messages from the customer show their name and email address.
• Internal notes have a dashed border and an Internal note badge. Customers never see them.
• Forwarded messages and Third party answers are your conversation with a supplier. They are internal too (see Replies, forwarding and scheduled send).
• Activity (status changes, assignments and so on) shows as small lines between messages. Turn Show activity off to hide it and read only the messages.

Pictures and files open in the file viewer without leaving the ticket. When the ticket came from Record a problem, the screen recording sits at the top with its steps beside it: click a step to jump the video to it (see Record a problem).

Each message has a menu with Forward this message, Split into a new ticket and, on notes, Edit note, Delete note, Pin to the top and Copy into a reply.

Reply to the customer#

1. Press Reply below the conversation (or press r). The line beside it shows who will get it; press To, Cc, Bcc to change that for this reply.
2. Write your reply. The editor takes bold, lists, links and pasted screenshots, which go in line. Press the paperclip to attach files, or drop them in.
3. Press Send (or Cmd+Enter).

The reply is emailed to the requester from your support mailbox, with your signature and the ticket number in the subject so their answer threads back onto the ticket. For a few seconds after you send it, a toast offers Undo. Each reply shows whether it was emailed, and a failed one can be sent again.

Send names the status the reply will set before you press it, for example Send, Waiting on customer: the queue's status rules decide it (see What a queue does to a ticket's status). When the status stays as it is, the button just says Send. Press the arrow next to it to keep the status as it is this time, to send and set another status the queue uses (Send and resolve among them), or to Send later. Cmd+Shift+Enter sends and resolves. Scheduling, forwarding, signatures and logging time with a reply are covered in Replies, forwarding and scheduled send.

Note: Your first public reply is what meets the response SLA. An internal note does not count, unless the SLA policy counts any reply. On a ticket raised from a chat, your first chat reply counts.

Replying by email#

You can answer a ticket notification email from your own mailbox. Start the first line with commands to say what it is and what happens to the status: #note or #reply, plus one of #waiting (the first status that waits on the customer), #hold (On hold), #resolve or #status followed by a status name, for example #note #status in progress. The command line is taken off the message. A name that is not a status, or a status the ticket cannot take yet, leaves the status alone and the mail log says why; the message still goes on the ticket. With no command, the reply follows the queue's rule, as Send does.

Add an internal note#

1. Press Internal note (or press n). The box says "Only your team sees notes. They are never emailed".
2. Write the note. You can attach files here too.
3. Press Add note (or Cmd+Enter). The arrow next to it can also change the status as you add the note.

Use notes for what you found and what you tried, so whoever picks the ticket up next does not start from scratch. Type @ and a name to mention a colleague or a team; they are told.

Edit, delete and pin notes#

• Edit note: the author can change a note for 24 hours (set under Replies and notes on the Rules tab of Settings > Ticket setup), and administrators and service desk leads at any time. The note shows Edited, and earlier versions are kept.
• Delete note: a line in the activity says who deleted it.
• Pin to the top: the note stays in a strip above the conversation, for things everyone should see first, such as "Always call her mobile, not the office". Unpin takes it down.
• Copy into a reply: puts the note's text into the reply box to send on.

Macros#

Press the lightning button in the reply box (or Cmd+/) to insert a canned response, or type its keyword, such as ;;toner. Start typing to search; they are grouped by folder. A macro can also change the ticket as it is used: set the status, priority, queue or assignee, add tags and followers, log time or switch to an internal note. The picker says what each one will also do.

Placeholders such as {{contact_first_name}} and {{agent_first_name}} are filled in from the ticket when the response is inserted. Manage them in Settings > Canned responses.

Draft in the reply box drafts a reply with AI when AI is set up.

Drafts#

Anything you type is kept as a draft for that ticket. Press Esc or open another ticket and it is still there when you come back, and the inbox row shows Draft: so you do not forget it.

Status, priority, assignee, queue and type#

Click the picker under the subject, or use the keyboard: s status, p priority, a assign, i assign to me, q queue, y type and Shift+y category. Each picker has a search box, and a link at the bottom to manage the list in settings.

• Status is grouped into open, waiting and done. In the default set, the waiting statuses pause the SLA clock. Waiting for approval is set by itself while an approval is waiting and pauses the SLA too.
• Priority shows the response target next to each one. The priority sets the ticket's SLA targets.
• Assignee lists the queue's members first, each with how many open tickets they have and Away until when they are on leave or out of office. Show everyone lists the rest.

When the customer replies to a ticket that is waiting, resolved or closed, it moves to the status its queue chooses (open, unless the queue says otherwise) and shows in Customer replied. A queue can also leave a supplier wait where it is. A reply after the reopen window opens a follow-on ticket instead (see Snooze, reminders, merge and split).

The details panel#

The right-hand panel holds everything else about the ticket. Two cards come first when the ticket has them: a visit booked on the ticket, with when, who, its state, Reschedule and Cancel, and the alert the ticket was raised from, live (see Tickets that link back to their alert or chat).

Needed by#

Some tickets have a real deadline that is not an SLA: a new starter on Monday, a board meeting on Thursday. Set it with Set a needed by date in the header or More actions, or in the Needed by section. The row shows "Needed Mon" and turns amber as the day comes and red once it has passed, the ticket shows in Needed this week and SLA at risk, and the assignee is told once as it gets close. It is a warning only and never counts as an SLA breach. Customers can be asked for a needed by date when they raise a ticket in the portal.

More actions#

The More actions menu (the three dots at the top) has, among others:

• Book a visit, Create a quote, Duplicate, Attach to project, Convert to project task, Send to a backlog and Raise a change,
• Request information, which sends the requester's company a set of questions to answer in the portal (see Information requests),
• Investigate with AI, Ask AI... and Summarise the thread (when AI is set up),
• Edit the subject (e) and Log time (Shift+t),
• Add child tickets, Make it a child of..., Link to a problem and Declare a major incident,
• Add a checklist, Restore for this ticket and Page on-call,
• Snooze..., Escalate..., Link a related ticket, Split into a new ticket, Remind me and Mark as unread (see Snooze, reminders, merge and split),
• Set a needed by date and Create article from ticket,
• Copy link, Open in a new tab and Print or download PDF,
• History, Mute notifications, Mark as spam and Delete ticket.

Mark as spam deletes the ticket into the recycle bin and blocks the sender (or their whole domain) on the mailbox it came through (see Email to ticket and alert rules).

Merge a duplicate#

When the same problem has been raised twice, merge one into the other:

1. Open the ticket you want to get rid of.
2. Press Merge into another ticket at the top (or m).
3. Search the customer's tickets by number or subject and pick the one to keep.
4. Press Merge.

When the ticket you merge has another requester, the dialog asks Who sees what: whether to add them to Cc on the kept ticket (ticked, so they get its replies), and whether to show the merged ticket's conversation to the kept ticket's requester (off, so personal messages stay with the person they were for).

The messages, attachments, time, devices and alert links move into the ticket you kept, and the merged ticket gets the status your settings choose for merged tickets (closed, unless you changed it), with a pointer to the one it went into. Tickets of different customers cannot be merged. Merged the wrong one? Undo merge on the merged ticket puts it all back, for as long as the Workflow tab of Settings > Ticket setup allows (30 days unless you change it).

A new ticket that looks like one of the requester's open tickets shows Possible duplicate of #1234 with Merge and Not a duplicate, and the New ticket dialog lists similar open tickets as you type, with Add to this instead.

Move a ticket to another customer#

Ticket raised under the wrong customer? Change it with the pencil next to the customer in the details panel. When the move would clear something, Tenvara asks first and says what: the requester (when they are not a contact of the new customer), the site, a contract chosen by hand and linked devices of the old customer. Pick the new requester in the same dialog. With nothing to clear, it moves at once. Either way the message "Placed with" the new customer offers Undo, and the move keeps its Undo on its activity line until the ticket moves again.

Resolving#

Set the status to Resolved when the work is done, or use Send and resolve. The resolution SLA is met when the ticket reaches a resolved or closed status. The customer gets one resolution email, with your summary under "What we did" when you chose to send it, and, if feedback is on, the rating question (see The customer portal and feedback).

Resolution details#

When Ask for resolution details is on (the Workflow tab of Settings > Ticket setup), resolving asks How was #1234 resolved? first, before the status changes, whether you resolve from the status picker, a bulk change or Send and resolve:

• a Resolution code, such as Fixed, Workaround, User error or No fault found,
• a Root cause, such as Hardware fault or Configuration,
• a Summary of what fixed it, internal unless you tick Also send the summary to the customer.

Optional offers Resolve without details; Required refuses to resolve without a code. Cancel leaves the status as it was. Each queue and ticket type can choose for itself. The details show in the Resolution section, are searchable and feed the reports.

If a ticket type or your settings need time logged before resolving, a ticket with no time cannot be resolved until some is logged. Time logged with the resolving reply counts.

Turn the fix into an article#

Create article from ticket in More actions writes a knowledge base article from the ticket while the fix is fresh. Ticket types can offer it after resolving with Worth an article?.

1. Check the Title.
2. Check the Problem (the first message, with the customer's names, email addresses and phone numbers taken out) and the Solution (the resolution summary, else your last reply). With AI set up, Draft with AI writes it from the whole thread, without the personal details.
3. Tick the Screenshots to copy in.
4. Choose Where it goes: the Internal knowledge base, the customer's documentation, or their portal.
5. Press Create and review.

The article is linked to the ticket and opens for you to review before you publish it. See Knowledge base articles.