Support  ·  Forms and approvals

Ticket options

Who can open tickets for someone else, who can find people who aren't in the helpdesk yet, whether people in one organization see each other's requests, and following up on tickets waiting on the requester.

Ticket options holds a few choices about opening tickets and following up on them. They apply to every form and to Quick ticket.

Opening tickets for someone else

With Anyone can open a ticket for someone else ticked, every form shows an Open this for someone else box. That way a coworker can open a ticket for someone whose computer won’t start. Untick it and only techs see the box.

Either way, the person the ticket is for gets an email saying who opened it, and whoever opened it is copied so they can follow along.

People who aren’t in the helpdesk yet

The Who is it for? box always finds people already in the helpdesk. It can also search Active Directory or Microsoft 365 for people who haven’t signed in yet. Picking someone from there adds them to People with the default role, so the ticket can be theirs. When they sign in for the first time, they land on that same account.

Pick who gets those directory results:

• Techs can search the directory: techs who can work tickets. This is the default.
• Everyone who can open tickets for someone else can search it: anyone who sees the Open this for someone else box.
• Nobody: only people already in the helpdesk.

If only techs can open tickets for someone else, only techs get directory results, whichever you pick here.

Directory status

Under the choices, each directory shows whether it’s connected:

• Active Directory is connected under Settings, System, Active Directory.
• Microsoft 365 is searched when the helpdesk mailbox is Microsoft 365 and the mail app has the User.Read.All permission. See Find people who aren’t in the helpdesk yet.

If the last search of a connected directory ran into a problem, like it couldn’t be reached or took too long, the problem shows here. It clears the next time a search works. A Super Admin can sort out connection problems under Settings, System.

Organizations

For a helpdesk that serves several organizations, like a support desk or an IT shop with clients, give each person an organization on their page under People. Then tick People in the same organization can see each other’s requests, and everyone sees their coworkers’ tickets as well as their own, under a view named after their organization. They can reply to those tickets too. They never see internal notes, and nobody sees another organization’s tickets.

With it unticked, which is the default, everyone sees only their own requests and the ones they’re copied on.

Replies to resolved tickets

A resolved ticket opens back up when the requester replies, so they can say “it’s still broken.” With A thank-you doesn’t reopen a resolved ticket ticked (the default), a short reply like “Thanks, that fixed it!” leaves it resolved instead. The reply still goes on the ticket, the history says it stayed resolved because it looked like a thank-you, and the tech hears about it as usual.

It errs toward reopening. The reply has to be made almost entirely of thanks and closing words (“Thanks so much, that fixed it. Have a great day!”), with at most a name and a signature. Anything else reopens the ticket as before: a problem or a new request, a question, a file or picture, another language, or a word it doesn’t recognize. The tech’s email and phone alert say when a ticket stayed resolved, so they can reopen it by hand if it shouldn’t have.

Follow-ups

Tick Follow up on tickets waiting on the requester, and tickets that sit on Waiting on requester don’t sit forever:

1. After the days you pick (3 to start with), the requester gets a Still need help? email with the last thing a tech asked them.
2. If nobody answers for the days you pick after that (4 to start with), the ticket is resolved, and the requester gets an email saying replying opens it back up. The history says it was resolved for no answer.

A tech replying again while the ticket waits, or anyone answering, starts the wait over. Internal notes don’t count. Tickets already waiting when you turn this on (or back on) get their full wait starting that day, so nothing old gets rushed. Reminders only go to people with an email address the helpdesk can reach, so nobody is resolved for not answering a question they never got. Main tickets with tickets linked to them are left alone, since they’re about an outage, not one person’s answer.

Close resolved tickets after a number of days is separate, and off unless you tick it. A resolved ticket opens back up when the requester replies; once it’s closed, a reply starts a new ticket instead. Only tickets resolved after you turn it on close, so older tickets and imported history stay as they are. Nobody gets an email when a ticket closes this way, and its records-retention clock counts from when it was due to close.

Days are calendar days, weekends included. Change the wording of the two emails under Emails: they’re Still need help? and Resolved with no answer.

Approval follow-ups

Tick Follow up on approvals nobody has answered, and requests don’t sit on Waiting on approval forever:

1. After the days you pick (3 to start with), the approvers who haven’t answered get an Approval still needed reminder. On a board where everyone has to approve, the people who already said yes aren’t nagged.
2. If there’s still no answer for the days you pick after that (4 to start with), a request from a form is closed. The requester gets a Closed with no approval email saying they can ask again, and the history says why.
3. An approval a tech asked for by hand is never closed, since that ticket is usually being worked. The tech who asked gets one Approval still unanswered email instead, and decides what’s next: call it off and ask someone else, or follow up themselves.

Approvals already waiting when you turn this on (or back on) get their full wait starting that day. Change the wording of the three emails under Emails.

Changes to ticket options go in the audit log.