Managing Tickets

This section contains all you need to do to manage tickets from the backend (i.e. by acting as an Agent). There you will find the following topics addressed:

Working with Tickets Grid

The main part of the Help Desk MX extension is the Ticket Grid. It is located at Customers > Help Desk MX and contains a list of all tickets submitted by customers. It is also divided into three separate folders (by default all tickets are shown):

Inbox - contains all active tickets (e.g. those which have not been sent to the archive).
Archive - contains all archived tickets.
SPAM - contains all tickets, marked as SPAM.

Normally, tickets are sent to a proper folder automatically by two checks:

If a ticket's properties match one of Spam Patterns, then the ticket is sent to the SPAM folder;
If a ticket's status is one that is defined in Help Desk MX -> Settings -> General Settings -> Move Ticket to Archive if it has one of the following statuses, it will be sent to Archive.

The same action can also be done manually or by using a **Workflow Rule.

Note

To force Ticket Grid display tickets from only one folder, make a field Folder visible in the Columns section of the grid, and then filter tickets by the Folder using the Filters section.

Near the drop-down account menu (see screenshot below), the ticket counter is shown.

Ticket Counter

It consists of two values:

Quantity of New tickets, located in the Inbox folder, but not linked to the assignee yet.
Quantity of tickets, located in the Inbox, and assigned to a current staff agent.

Note

Both values displayed in the ticket counter do not rely on active filters. e.g. if the customer filters the tickets' grid, the value will still be calculated from the entire folder.

The Ticket Grid also provides you with some practical actions.

Standard Magento Grid actions such as filtering (using Filter section), altering columns display (using Columns section) and sorting tickets by columns;
Search box allows you to search for tickets by its properties (mainly, Ticket ID, Subject, Messages or Tags);
Mass actions that can be performed on selected tickets:
- Change Status. Statuses which are assigned here can be defined in the Statuses section.
- Change Assignee. Modify the current assignee of the ticket. Select a new owner from the dropdown list available after clicking the "Change Assignee" action.
- Mark as Spam. Moves tickets to the Spam Folder;
- Mark as Archive. Moves tickets to the Archive Folder;
- Mark as Inbox. Moves tickets to the Inbox Folder (e. g. restores ticket);
- Delete. Remove tickets.

Note

Administrators can restrict access to tickets and restrict some actions using permissions.

How to Create New Tickets

To create a new ticket from backend, go to the Customers > Help Desk MX. Press the button Create New Ticket. The ticket creation page contains three sections: General, Additional, Follow Up. Their fields will be covered below;
For ticket creation purpose, you are required to fill in only the fields below - all others are non-mandatory:
- To - contains the email of the customer for whom the ticket is created. If that customer is registered, you can type his or her name in this field - and the email will be automatically selected;
- Subject - the subject of this ticket;
- Status - the initial status of this ticket. Statuses listed in this drop-down select can be defined in the Statuses section.
- Priority - initial priority, which this ticket should have. Priorities listed in this drop-down select can be defined in the Priorities section.
- Assignee - staff member that is in charge of this ticket. Members are defined in the System -> Permissions -> All Users section, but in order to appear, they should also be assigned to proper departments in the Departments sections.
Initial reply at the stage of ticket creation is not required. However, you can still use the Reply Area to leave such a message. Refer to How to Reply to a Ticket for additional details.
If some tags are marked on this ticket, jump to the Additional tab, and enter them in a comma-separated format in the Tags field.
You can also set up a periodic reminder for this ticket by using the Follow Up tab. Refer to How to Set Reminder for Ticket subsection for more info.
Save the ticket.

Note

If you have chosen not to leave the initial reply, only two events will be fired upon the ticket's creation - New ticket created and Ticket was changed.

If you have chosen to leave the initial reply, then three events will be fired into the ticket's creation - New ticket created, Ticket was changed and New reply from staff.

Use these events wisely to properly create your Workflow Rules and automate workflow.

How to Reply to a Ticket

You can reply to a ticket by either using the Help Desk backend interface or by email, using a special notification which is sent to staff on each customer's reply.

Using Backend Interface.

When you open a particular ticket, you will see that the General tab is divided into two areas - the left-sided panel with To and Ticket Summary section, and the Reply Area, which contains the Public Reply section, which allows you to reply to the ticket.

There are four main options in replying:

Public Reply - this is a standard reply of a staff member, visible both at the backend and frontend. Its content will be sent to the customer as an email notification.
Internal Note - private notes will be visible only at the backend by the Help Desk agents. This option is used as an in-company communication.
Message to Third Party - when this option is selected, an additional field appears - for a third-party email. It is useful in adding other actors such as the customer's developers to the tickets. The invited party will receive an email notification with some message contents. This reply will be visible at the frontend.
Internal Message to Third Party - when this option is selected, an additional field for email appears, but this time, a reply will only be visible at the backend. This option is used for in-company communication.

If you have Quick Responses, you can use them in the Reply Area, using the Insert Quick Response drop-down menu.

Note

Quick Responses are store-dependent, so if you do not see some pre-defined Quick Responses in the drop-down menu, jump to the Additional tab and check the Store View field. It is a store view, from which ticket was placed (by default it is Default Store View).

Then go to Help Desk MX -> Quick Responses, and select a record. The field Store View shall contain the same store view (or All Store Views).

Using Email Notification.

This type of reply is available only when you have configured one or more Email Gateways, and registered them in their Departments as a Sender Email. Then, to each customer (or a third party), a reply is added to the particular ticket; an email notification will come to an agent's mailbox.

Just answer that email, and a reply will come to the Gateway and be properly added to the ticket.

Note

If you use a custom Notification Template, make sure, that variable {{var ticket.getHiddenCodeHtml() | raw}} is present on your template. Otherwise, our fetch procedure will turn the reply into a separate ticket (it will think that this is a new ticket request).

Note

You can also reply to tickets using email, but make sure that your sending mailbox is not a Gateway. All emails originated from Gateway mailboxes will be skipped to avoid infinite cycles due to "conversations" between Gateways.

How to Set A Reminder for Ticket

An agent can set an email reminder for him or herself (or other agents) and customers - if a ticket is not answered for a long time, the action will be executed along with the reminder.

To establish such a reminder, pick up a ticket, and proceed to the Follow Up tab. There, you will find the following properties which allow you to set up reminders easily:

Period - Units of time, in which the reminder period is measured. Can be:
- In minutes;
- In hours;
- In days;
- In weeks;
- In months;
- Custom - these options are not used, but are added for customers who wish to modify this feature.
Period Value - Quantity of the units of time, defined above.
Send Reminder - Also sends a reminder email to a specified email. It is useful in enforcing the timetable of the ticket's response.
Set Status To - Status, which will be assigned to the ticket upon triggering a reminder.
Set Priority To - Priority, which will be assigned to the ticket upon triggering a reminder.
Set Owner To - A staff member will be assigned to a ticket upon triggering a reminder.

Three last properties are extremely useful in building an effective policy for managing tickets. For example, using Follow-Up reminders, you can automatically pass long and unfinished tickets on to an expert. The possibility of assigning statuses and priorities allows you to bring the staff's attention to such tickets.

How to Use Additional Info of Ticket

Each ticket also contains useful info that can be used for different kinds of analytics. It is located in the Additional tab, and consists of the following properties:

Subject - Precise subject of the initial message, that started this ticket (or email, if it was converted from it).
Store View - Displays the store's view or views where this ticket was created.
Channel - Assigned automatically during ticket creation. It contains a description of how a ticket has been created. There are four possible ways of creating a ticket:
- Email - from the message, via Gateways.
- Feedback Tab - from Contact Tab, displayed at the left or right side of the frontend page, and governed by the Help Desk MX -> Settings -> Feedback Tab section.
- Contact Form - from our general Contact Us form, which is overridden by our extension, and typically located at http://store.com/contact/.
- Backend - from Tickets Grid, or additional tab at Order Edit Page.
External Link - Contains link, which is sent in email notifications, and can be sent to the third parties to access a ticket message thread.
Tags - Tags of the current ticket. Unlike other properties, they can be set here using a comma-separated format. This feature is extremely useful in ticket reviewing as it controls their workflow.
Ticket History - Displays log of all changes to the ticket and assignees in charge.

How to Set Satisfaction Survey to the Ticket

Help Desk MX includes a satisfaction survey in the tickets, which is extremely useful in measuring a level of support and staff productivity.

This survey appends a special block containing a simple form that allows customers to rate each staff reply to all email notifications. There are three possible remarks:

Awesome;
Just OK;
Not good

When a customer selects one, he or she is transferred via a corresponding link to the form, where he or she can write detailed feedback.

This feedback can later be seen at Customers > Help Desk MX > Satisfaction Survey Results, with the possibility of per-staff and per-customer filtering.

You can enable this feature at Store > Configuration > Help Desk > Customer Satisfaction Survey, and control the display of its results:

Include a satisfaction survey in the reply email from staff members - This adds a satisfaction survey to each customer's email notification.
Show survey results at the backend ticket history - allows agents to see satisfaction rates and replies at the backend Ticket Edit page.
Send survey results to the ticket owner - triggers a notification email to the ticket's owner when a new satisfaction rate is added.
Send survey results to emails - triggers additional notifications on adding satisfaction rate. This option is useful in informing the higher-level staff about maintaining statistics.
Show survey results in the frontend ticket history - in each ticket created by the customer, it shows the satisfaction rating the customer gave for the support replies.