Table of Contents

Ticketing: Overview

Jennifer Trower Updated by Jennifer Trower

Read Time: 15 mins

Tickets are used to document the description and details of an issue or event, and can be made public (where replies are sent to a third party), or just used internally (where all communication is contained to just your company). All tickets within the system are available through the ticketing interface, which is one of the main screens where you can view, create, and interact with the tickets.

Public vs. Internal Tickets

When creating a ticket, you will have an option to create either an internal ticket or a public ticket. A public ticket is a ticket that has an email address and an inbound email account associated with it and is represented with the eye icon. Internal tickets are used primarily for communication within the company and are represented by the icon of the eye with a strike through it. All replies posted on a public ticket will be emailed to all recipients listed on the ticket, using the 'from' address configured on the inbound email account. If files are uploaded on the reply, they will also be attached to the email, so it is important to be mindful of the file size when uploading files on replies. All comments posted on a public ticket are kept internal and will not be emailed to any associated email addresses.

If you need to send an email from your instance to the customer, you would use a Public ticket to make that communication. These public tickets can be created from the customer's account, or from the Ticketing Interface, and will be attached to the customer account.

Ticketing Interface Overview

The ticketing interface is the main screen where you can view all tickets within the system and is accessible by clicking the Ticketing tab from the left-hand menu. An overview of the ticketing features and actions you can take from this screen are outlined below.

You can also view tickets by the entity they are associated with. To do so, navigate into the Tickets tab of the associated account or network site.
  1. This top panel contains various filters that can be applied, as well as a text-based search bar, to drill down and limit the data to only what you are interested in viewing. Through the Simple/Advanced toggle, you can perform a simple or advanced search. And through Saved Views, you can select from prepopulated filter configurations to be automatically enabled; along with prepopulated views, this section also holds any private saved views you've created, and any public saved views in your instance. For more information on using filters, take a look at our Filtering: Simple vs Advanced article.
  2. The priority of the ticket is displayed here and can be a value of: Critical, High, Medium, or Low. Clicking on the priority allows you to edit it.
  3. This is where the status of the ticket is visible – clicking on it allows you to edit the status, which can be a value of: Open, Closed, Pending Internal, and Pending External. Once a reply has been sent to the customer, the status will automatically change to Pending External (awaiting customer reply); if the last reply was from the customer, the status will automatically update to Pending Internal (awaiting action/reply from the company).
  4. If a ticket is assigned to a ticket group, it will be displayed here; if it is not assigned to a group, it will display “No Group”.
    When creating a ticket, it must be assigned to either a responsible user or a ticket group. For more information on ticket groups, refer to the Ticket Groups To Consider documentation.
  5. If the ticket has a due date attached to it, that date will be visible here.
  6. The icon here represents the visibility of the ticket, which can be either internal or public – hovering over this icon will also display whether the ticket is public or internal.
  7. This is where the ticket subject will be displayed. Clicking on it will navigate to the Ticket View for that ticket. 
  8. The date and time that the ticket was created will be visible here.
  9. If the ticket is attached to an account or network site, it will be displayed here. Clicking on the account or network site name will display the side panel menu that contains further details about that specific entity. If the ticket has been assigned to a responsible user, the user will also be displayed underneath the associated account or network site, and clicking on the user will also open a sidebar window with further details. Hovering over either the gray entity or user icons will also display their labels.
  10. If the ticket has any tasks associated with it, the number next to the clipboard icon will reflect this.
  11. Next to the folder icon, the number will display the total amount of any files that have been sent to the customer, received from the customer, or attached to the ticket via an internal comment.
  12. If there are any jobs attached to the ticket, they will be reflected in the number next to the toolbox icon.
  13. The number next to the cube icon indicates the total number of inventory items this ticket is attached to; if any.
  14. If the ticket is a parent ticket, the number next to the arrows icon will display how many child tickets this ticket is the parent of.
  15. Clicking “Edit” will open up the Edit Ticket window where you can modify the details of the ticket. Clicking on the adjacent downwards arrow will open a dropdown menu with further actions you can take on the ticket:
    1. Assign: assign an existing user to the ticket
    2. Merge Ticket: merge the ticket with another ticket
      When merging a ticket with another, please note that the description of the ticket that's merged will be overwritten with the other ticket's description.
    3. Edit Status: edit the ticket's status
    4. Edit Recipients: edit the recipients for the ticket – this includes the ability to prefill the recipients with existing contacts for the associated entity, add new recipients, and delete the current recipients
    5. Create Job: create a job based on the ticket – this will prefill the Assignee and Ticket fields automatically
    6. Subscribe to / Unsubscribe from Ticket: follow
    7. Delete: delete the ticket
  16. Clicking on the arrow at the end of the row will display a side panel menu that contains further details about the ticket, including any recent activity so that you can see more information about the ticket without having to navigate into it fully. The side panel will also provide the “Manage” button at the bottom – clicking this will navigate you to the Ticket View for that particular ticket.
  17. Allows a new ticket to be created from within this screen – clicking this button will open the Create Ticket window.

Ticket View

Navigating into a particular ticket allows you to view the individual ticket interface, which has a variety of features available – an overview of these features is provided below.

  1. At the top of the screen, the subject of the ticket will be displayed, as well as the associated entity. Clicking on the entity will open up the side panel menu with further details.
  2. This area provides some high-level ticket information – in the top row we have from left to right: the ticket priority, the status of the ticket, and the group that the ticket belongs to.
  3. Continued from above, additional key pieces of ticket information are provided here – in the bottom row we have from left to right: the ticket ID, the responsible user (if present), and the due date (if there was a due date assigned to the ticket), as well as the date and time that the ticket was created.
  4. The Ticket Information section contains further details about the ticket, including the ticket description (from when the ticket was created), the responsible user, the group the ticket belongs to, and the ticket recipients. If the ticket has a parent or child ticket(s) associated with it, they will also be displayed here. Some pieces of information listed within this section will also open a side panel menu containing further details when clicked.
    For more information on parent and child tickets, take a look at the Using Parent Tickets article.
  5. The Subscribed users section will show any users who have subscribed to the ticket. These users will receive notifications for ticket activity, even though they aren't assigned to it.
    For more information on ticket subscriptions, take a look at the Advanced Ticketing Features article
  6. If the ticket is linked to any items, such as a job or piece of inventory, they will be displayed here. You can also link an item to the ticket through the “Link Item” button.
  7. Any tasks that are associated with the ticket will be listed under Tasks. The toggle on the left of the Tasks section allows you to switch between displaying completed tasks or showing tasks that still need to be taken care of. If you need to add a task to the ticket, you can add an individual task through the “Create Task” button, or click the downwards arrow to create tasks from a template.
  8. Any views on this ticket by any users in your instance will be recorded in this section for tracking purposes.
  9. Conversation History is where all ticket correspondence can be found, and the toggle to the top right allows you to sort the history by either oldest or newest messages.
  10. The ticket sort selector is where the user can select to view the Oldest or Newest comment first when opening a ticket. The option chosen will persist with all tickets.
  11. Within each comment or email entry, you have the option to Edit the text or use the dropdown arrow to Delete the comment.
    With applicable messages, a caret is provided to allow the ability to view details of the specific message, such as headers, signature, raw body, etc.
  12. Private comments can be added to the ticket here, and you also have the option to close the ticket upon comment creation.
    To learn more about the tools available within the text editor, review the article on Sonar's Rich Text Editor here.
  13. A reply can be posted to the ticket from here, either through the use of importing a canned reply or crafting a message from scratch in the text editor. The option to preview the message before sending is available – from this message preview, you can edit the recipients to the reply and choose to have the status changed upon sending. An internal ticket can only have comments posted, and will not have the option to post a reply.
    For more information on setting up canned replies, refer to the Canned Reply Categories and Canned Replies Examples & Templates documentation.
  14. Clicking “Edit” will open up the Edit Ticket window, where you can edit the details of the ticket. Clicking on the adjacent downwards arrow will open a dropdown menu with further actions you can take, including merging the ticket with another, creating a job from the ticket, and assigning a user to it.

Creating a Ticket

Creating a ticket is possible from a few different areas within Sonar:

  1. Through the main ticketing interface, by clicking the “Create Ticket” button
  2. From within the Call Log window, by ensuring the “Create ticket on creation” box is checked off before creating the log
  3. Within the Ticket tab of an account or network site, by clicking the "Create" button

Create Ticket Window: Part 1

The first step when a ticket is created is to select whether the ticket is Internal or Public. Internal tickets are typically used for communication between departments, or maintenance notices for company hardware. Public tickets, meanwhile, are used for communication that may need to go to customers. Tickets can be switched between Public and Private after their creation by either adding an Inbound Mailbox (Internal → Public) or removing the Inbound Mailbox (Public → Internal).

Create Ticket Window: Part 2

Regardless of where you create the ticket from, you will interact with the same Create Ticket window shown below. However, depending on where you created the ticket from, certain fields might be prefilled for you. For example, when creating the ticket from the Ticket tab of a particular account or network site, the Assignee field will already be selected along with the particular network site or account, within the Create Ticket window.

When creating a ticket, these are the fields that will be available:

As with all forms in Sonar, * beside the header indicates that it is a required field.

Assignee: The Assignee can be either an account or network site, or be non-specified. If you create a ticket from within an account or network site, this field will auto populate for that entity.

Subject: If this is a public ticket, this will be the subject of the email. If the ticket is public or internal, this is the field that will display from the ticket overview.

Description: This should be used to clearly describe the problem or the call to action for this ticket.

If this is a public ticket, please note that the description is only for internal use and will not be sent to the customer. After the ticket is created, the message to be sent to the customer would be created next.

Priority: This field will be auto populated for any incoming messages based on the inbound mailbox they are sent to.

Additional details on inbound mailboxes and setting ticket priorities can be found here.

Status: By default, the status will be Open when creating the ticket.

Due Date: If this field is filled out, you can then filter by Due Date within the ticketing interface.

User: This is the responsible user for the ticket.

If the ticket is created from the call log window, the user field will be auto populated with the user that created the call log.

Ticket Group: This is the responsible group for the ticket.

When creating a ticket, you must assign the ticket to either a ticket group or responsible user in order to proceed.

Parent Ticket: If this ticket is associated with a larger issue that already has a ticket created, you can link them here.

Inbound Mailbox: The inbound mailbox will determine which email customers see when a reply is sent.

Ticket Categories: This field allows for further organization of tickets in the system.

Ticket Recipients: This section allows you to add specific recipients to public tickets. The required fields are Name and Email.

If you create a ticket from an account or network site, all contacts with emails present will be available to prefill into the Ticket Recipients section, either through the Edit Recipients button on the "Add Reply" tab or from the Edit menu, as shown below:

Subscribe: This checkbox will determine whether you will be subscribed to the ticket upon creation. If this box is unchecked, you will not be subscribed for notifications.

Any internal tickets will exclude the fields Inbound Mailbox and Ticket Recipients.

Create Ticket Window: Part 3

After you click "Create" from the Create Ticket window seen above, you will be presented with the secondary Create Ticket window, as seen below. This window allows you to perform the same actions that are available from within the ticketing interface (such as importing a canned reply when publicly responding to a ticket, adding an internal comment, creating a job from the ticket, etc.), but with the added bonus of not needing to navigate away from the window you are currently in.

This secondary window will persist as you complete any number of the available actions - when you are finished, simply click "Done" to close out of the Create Ticket window.

Mass Editing Tickets

Editing multiple tickets at one time is possible by clicking the checkbox to the left of each ticket that you want to edit. Clicking the checkbox will create a popup at the bottom of the screen providing you with the number of tickets selected, the option to remove a selected ticket, and the option for mass Delete or Edit.

Selecting the Delete button will open a new modal, where you will confirm your option to delete the selected tickets.

Only roles with the permission to delete a ticket will have this option available.

Selecting the Edit button will open a new modal, which gives you the ability to edit all selected tickets by editing the Entity Type, Status, Priority, or Due Date.

Manually Linking Tickets to Accounts

When a customer emails your organization (or mailbox) from an email address not linked to any accounts, the ticket will not automatically associate with any contact information or account history. In order to establish this link, simply follow the steps below:

  1. Identify the account this email address/ticket should be associated with
    If this email address should be a new contact on an account, they can be created as a contact to avoid this issue in the future.
  2. Click on the "Edit" button located in the top-right corner of the ticket:
    The ticket can also be edited from the main Ticket List view.
  3. From the Edit Ticket modal that appears, select the "Account" assignee:
  4. Select the Account field and choose the appropriate account from the dropdown which appears:
    You can use the search field in the dropdown to help refine the list of available accounts.
  5. With the ticket assigned to an account, you'll be able to view it in the header, as described earlier in the article, or on the account, under the Ticketing tab:

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