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Advanced Ticketing Features

Mitchell Ivany Updated by Mitchell Ivany

Read Time: 8 mins

In the Ticketing: Overview article, we looked at the basic features of the Ticketing page. This article goes a step further by highlighting more advanced tools—where to find them, how they appear to admins and users, and how to use them to streamline your work in the ticketing interface.

Mass Editing Tickets

While the Overview article covered how to edit a single ticket, you can also edit multiple tickets at once. Mass editing lets you apply the same changes to a group of tickets. To begin, simply check the box next to each ticket you want to include in the update.

As you check each box, the ticket name is added to a banner at the bottom of the page.

Once you’ve selected all the tickets you want to edit, click the edit button at the end of the banner.

If you’ve seen the Inventory List View: Overview article, the Edit modal that appears will look familiar.

This Edit Tickets modal has several fields:

  1. The Entity selector allows you to modify the Account or Network Site the ticket is assigned to.
  2. The Status selector allows you to modify the status of all the tickets you've selected for mass modification. You can choose between:
    1. Closed
      If Ticket Resolution Reasons are enabled in your system, you’ll see a field where you can select the resolution reason.

    2. Open
    3. Pending (External)
    4. Pending (Internal)
  3. The Priority selector allows you to modify the priority of all selected tickets. You can select from:
    1. Critical
    2. High
    3. Low
    4. Medium
  4. The Due Date selector allows you to set a specific date that all selected tickets are due by.
  5. This section will list all tickets that will be edited by these changes. Once the “Edit Tickets” modal is open, you can no longer remove or add tickets.
The changes made in this modal will apply to all tickets, you can't selectively change tickets within those selected.

Unlike Using Parent Tickets, mass editing tickets doesn't allow you to add comments or details concerning why changes are being made. The changes are simply made, and will only appear in the logs of each ticket.

Prevent Tickets from Reopening after X days (Inbound Emails only)

By default, if a customer replies to an email ticket that you’ve already closed, Sonar will reopen the same ticket and add the new message to its history—no matter how long it’s been, as long as the subject line stays the same.

This setting applies to inbound email tickets only and lets you define how many days a ticket must remain closed before an email reply will stop reopening it (portal ticket workflows are not affected).

How to Configure this Setting

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Expand Ticketing.
  3. Click on General.
  4. Set “Prevent tickets from reopening after X days” to the number of days you want.
  5. Click Save.

What this Changes

  1. If a customer replies to a closed email ticket within X days: the ticket reopens and the reply is added to the same ticket.
  2. If a customer replies after X days: Sonar creates a new ticket instead of reopening the old one.
This feature applies only to inbound emails that would otherwise reopen an existing email ticket.

Tickets created through the Customer Portal are not affected. Portal tickets will continue to be reopened and updated each time the customer makes contact through the portal workflow.

When This is Useful

This helps keep conversations clean and on-topic—especially for customers who reply to an old ticket email weeks or months later for a completely different issue. After X days, their reply becomes a new ticket, so you’re not sorting through outdated history to resolve something unrelated.

Currently Viewing

In best practice, the user assigned to a ticket is the party who will be responsible for seeing that ticket through to completion, or the next point of escalation. However, circumstances may arise that would prompt another user to interact with the same ticket. In these scenarios, another user may be in the process of detailing vital information via a new comment at the same moment that the assigned user is typing a reply to the customer with now inaccurate information.

The Currently Viewing feature allows you to see if another user is viewing the same ticket as you, by displaying the user's avatar in the top-right corner of your instance – hovering over the avatar will display the user's full name. If the user is actively typing a comment or reply, another icon will also be visible and is used to indicate that a response is being written by another user. With indicators like these, you can help to eliminate duplicate efforts and contacting customers with outdated information.

Merging Tickets

Merging combines two tickets that cover the same issue into a single host ticket. The ticket you merge is kept and set to a Merged status, becomes read only, and links back to the host ticket. The host ticket lists every ticket merged into it.

Merging occupies a functionally similar role to child tickets. Merge when the conversations belong in one place. Use a parent ticket when each ticket needs its own reply and resolution.

For the merge steps, what carries over, and best practices, see the Merged Tickets: Overview & Best Practices documentation.

Subscribing to Tickets

Subscribing to tickets allows you to keep track of interactions that have occurred on open tickets, even if you're not directly responsible for that ticket. Whether you're using it for escalation tracking or training opportunities, subscribing to tickets lets you keep your eye on, and receive notification for, any ticket in your instance. To subscribe to a ticket:

  1. From the ticketing interface, identify the ticket you'll want to track
  2. From the “Edit” dropdown, select “Subscribe to Ticket”
    1. You can also subscribe to a ticket while it's open. From the ticket details page, open the “Edit” menu and select “Subscribe to Ticket”.

  3. From the modal that appears, click the Subscribe button to confirm the ticket subscription.

How it's Used

The Ticket Subscribe function is used to begin receiving notifications whenever a comment is left on a ticket, a reply is received on the ticket, or a message is sent from the ticket. These notifications follow the same principles as other notifications in Sonar, and can appear in both your email, and as a notification in Sonar.

The notifications sent by Ticket subscriptions use the same framework as ticket notifications for tickets you're assigned. Updates will be sent, based on your notification settings, for:

1. Assignment changes
2. Replies received
3. Comments added

Once subscribed to a ticket, other users who open the ticket will be able to see all users currently watching it. This will appear as a panel within the ticket details page:

Suspended Subscriptions
If you are subscribed to a ticket and your ability to view this ticket is removed (i.e., Ticket Group reassignment), your subscription will be suspended. A suspended subscription will no longer receive notifications, but if the ticket becomes accessible to you again, the notifications will resume.

A suspended subscription is indicated by a empty "Entity" value in your Subscriptions list, found in your User Settings.

Unsubscribing from the ticket will remove your name from the list, and prevent any additional notifications from being sent to you. Unsubscribing can be down in two ways:

  1. From the “Edit” dropdown, select “Unsubscribe from Ticket”, available from the ticket details page and the ticket list view.
  2. In the ticket details page, in the “Subscribed Users” box, click “Unsubscribe”
Subscribing and Unsubscribing from a ticket can also be done from the Ticketing Edit modal. Whenever that modal is open, whether it's Ticket Groups, Assignees, or complete ticket editing, you'll have the option to Subscribe to the ticket.

This checkbox will not change wording, and the subscription status is indicated entirely by whether the box is checked or not. Unchecking the box then saving your ticket changes will unsubscribe you from any additional ticket notifications.

When This is Useful

Whenever you subscribe to a ticket, whether you also select to receive notifications or not, you're choosing to follow the progress of the ticket from creation to resolution. Read on to find some key scenarios where you can use Ticket Subscriptions to maximize your customer management experience in Sonar.

Training Use Cases

Ticket subscriptions can be useful when training new employees that interact with customers. You can either:

  1. Subscribe to this employee's ticket communications, allowing you to monitor their conversation.
    1. This can be used to jump in preemptively when the employee encounters difficulty in determining the answer, or for ensuring communication guidelines are being followed.
  2. Provide example tickets that your new employees should subscribe to, allowing them to effectively shadow a more experienced agent and gain important context for the how and why of communication procedures within your organization.
Escalation Resolutions

In scenarios where your organization handles ticket escalations in-house, allowing your lower-tier support representatives to subscribe and follow along with the resolution that occurs from an escalation can provide them with valuable experience. Keeping these pathways open can facilitate organic upskill and improved ticket handling in the future.

Monitoring High-Value Contacts

As your organization grows, you'll often have a section of your customer base that requires white-glove service. Whether due to special considerations with the customer, or as a method of handling repeat issues, subscribing to tickets that are raised by high-value contacts allows you to ensure your agents with the most expertise are handling each ticket correctly.

Subscribing to tickets for this purpose provides not only accountability, but also demonstrates that the contact is well taken care of at all times.

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