Work a ticket from first read to close

A ticket moves through the same few steps whoever works it: read what the customer wrote and what already happened, make sure it has the right owner and labels, answer, then close it or set it aside until something changes. This page goes through each step and every control on the way.

▶Video coming: Using Growth Dept Helpdesk day to day: a full walkthrough. A working session from the first ticket of the day to the last one closed.

Read the conversation#

Messages run from the oldest at the top to the newest at the bottom. Each one shows who wrote it, the channel, who it was addressed to and when. Long email threads hide the earlier quoted text behind a small ⋯ button; click it to show it.

Between the messages, grey lines record what happened to the ticket: who created it, who assigned it, which rule tagged it, when it was snoozed or closed. Hide events, just above the first message, folds them away; Show events brings them back, and the helpdesk remembers your choice. A message a rule wrote carries a Rule label.

A line under one of your team's replies tells you when something went wrong with it:

You can be told by email when a reply cannot be delivered; see Notifications.

Check the ticket before answering#

• Owner. If nobody has it, choose Assign to me in the agent menu under the subject, or press A. Replying to an unassigned ticket assigns it to you anyway. See Assign tickets.

• Tags and fields. Under Ticket details, add a tag with + or T, and fill in the ticket fields your team uses. Fields marked with an asterisk must be filled in before the ticket can close.

• What happened before. The customer's other tickets and orders are in the details panel, and promises your team already made on this ticket are listed above the customer. See See a customer's history.

• Priority. The arrow button under the subject sets Low, Normal, High or Critical. See Priority and urgency.

Choose how to answer#

The button at the left edge of the reply box picks what you are writing.

To answer one particular message, hover over it and use its Reply or Forward button.

Email replies#

To holds the customer. Add more people with Cc and Bcc at the right of that line; type an address and press Enter. The reply goes out from the mailbox the ticket arrived on. For a contact form ticket, it goes from the mailbox the form answers from; if that mailbox is disconnected, a yellow line above the text says which address will be used instead.

Tick Signature in the toolbar to add the mailbox's signature under your text. If the ticket has no customer email address, Reply by email is greyed out.

Chat replies#

A line above the text says where your reply will land:

Forwarding#

Forward needs at least one recipient. Write a short message above the forwarded conversation, then Forward, or Forward and close if that ends your part.

Write the reply#

Most replies start from a macro. Search macros in the line above the text (M) by name, tag or words in the reply, or click one of the Suggested macros. A macro fills in the text and can also tag, assign, set fields or snooze the ticket when you send; the line above the text lists those changes, and the × there removes them. See Create and manage macros.

The toolbar under the text has:

• Bold, Italic, Underline, Link, bulleted and numbered lists and Quote.

• Insert an image, placed in the text.

• Attach files, each up to 25 MB. Attached files are listed under the text; the × on one removes it.

• Emoji.

• Insert a help center article, which adds a link to an article from your help center.

• Write with AI, which opens the drafted reply when drafts are on. See Voice and drafting.

Translating a reply and recording a video message are not available yet; their buttons stay greyed out.

What you type is saved in your browser as you go, separately for each ticket and each kind of message, and Draft saved appears beside the buttons. It is there when you come back on the same browser, but your teammates and your other devices do not see it.

Send#

• Send, or ⌘ Enter (Ctrl Enter on Windows).

• Send and close, or ⌘ Shift Enter, sends the reply, closes the ticket and opens the next one in the view.

For an internal note the button reads Add note.

Close and reopen#

Click Close or press C once the customer has what they need. If a required ticket field is empty, the helpdesk refuses with a message naming the field; fill it in and close again.

A closed ticket shows a Closed label under the subject, and Close becomes Reopen (O). You rarely need it: when the customer writes again, the ticket reopens by itself, comes back as unread and appears in your open views. Your own reply on a closed ticket does not reopen it.

To set a ticket aside until a date instead of closing it, snooze it.

Read and unread#

A ticket is unread when a customer's message has come in that nobody has opened yet: the list shows it in bold with a red dot. Opening it marks it read for the whole team, and so does replying. To flag it again for later, choose Mark as unread in the ⋮ menu.

The ⋮ menu#

Spam and trash#

Mark as spam takes the ticket out of every view except Spam, under More in the views panel, and shows a Spam label on the ticket. Not spam in the same menu puts it back.

Move to trash asks you to confirm, then moves the ticket to Trash and labels it In the trash. The notice that appears has an Undo button. Later, open the ticket from the Trash view and choose Restore ticket. Tickets in the trash stay there until someone restores them; deleting a ticket for good is only possible through the REST API.

If you cannot change anything#

When the reply box shows a grey message instead of a cursor and the buttons do nothing, your role can read tickets but not change them, or you are a member of Growth Dept's staff viewing your helpdesk. Hover over a greyed button to see why. An admin can change your role; see Roles and what each can do.