Tickets

Properties Widget

The Properties widget is used to create the request for the customer user. This widget consists of five sections: Classification, Customer, Assignment, Service Level Management and Communication.

Classification

In this section, the ticket type can be selected.

Type *

Select a type for the ticket.

Customer

In this section, the customer user for whom the new ticket is being created can be selected. The customer user can be selected by typing the name into the field or by using the customer address book next to the field. Using the wildcard character * is possible to search for the customer user.

Note

The access to the address book could be restricted to certain user groups. In this case the icon is not visible. Please contact your administrator to get access.

Customer User *

The person for whom the ticket is created.

Customer ID

This field will be auto-populated by selecting a customer user.

Assignment

In this section, the queue to which the ticket should be assigned, as well as the owner and the responsible of the ticket, are selected. The queue selection is mandatory.

Queue *

The queue into which the new ticket will be placed.

After selecting a service, there is a lookup for configured queues for this service. If there are configured queues for the selected service, only those will be available in the queue selection. If there are no queues configured for the selected service, all queues will be displayed.

It is possible to add a filter button next to the queue selection. After clicking this button all available queues get restored to the queue selection field and can be selected. This feature can be enabled in the system configuration.

Configured ACLs affect the displayed queues as usual.

Owner

The owner is the agent who will actually work with the new ticket.

Responsible

The responsible agent will be responsible for the ticket. This agent has the same permissions as the owner.

Note

This feature is not enabled by default. It needs to first be activated by an administrator in order to use it.

Service Level Management

In this section, the service, SLA, priority and the next ticket state can be selected.

Service

Select a service for the ticket. When a customer user is selected, only the services related to the customer of that customer user will be available.

SLA

Select an SLA for the ticket.

Impact

Select the impact level from 1 very low to 5 very high.

Priority *

New tickets have a 3 normal priority by default. Select another priority if you want to change it.

The priority of the ticket is automatically calculated from the selected service and impact based on the criticality ↔ impact ↔ priority matrix. However, the priority can be overridden and changed manually.

Due Date

Select a date as due date for the ticket.

State *

New tickets are in an open state by default. Select another state if you want to change it.

Note

Customer Users ↔ Services filter is applied before the one for Types ↔ Services.

Communication

In this section, a message much like you would find in an email client can be entered. This section is different for phone tickets and email tickets.

In the widget configuration of this widget, it is possible to set whether the next screen after creation of a ticket is the create screen again or the detail view of the created ticket.

From *

This field is available only for phone tickets, and it is mandatory. This is because a phone ticket is treated as if it was created by the customer user.

To *

For an email ticket, this will be the person for whom the ticket was created. This will be used in the To field of the email that is generated.

Note

Usage of wildcards (*) is also possible. Enter two asterisks (**) to list all customer users.

For phone tickets, the To field is read-only and will be auto-populated with the queue selected in the previous section.

Cc

Select other customer users as carbon copy of the email, if needed. This field is displayed only for email tickets.

Bcc

Select other customer users as blind carbon copy of the email, if needed. This field is displayed only for email tickets.

Text Template

It is possible to select a text template for the new ticket. The content of the template will overwrite existing texts.

Subject *

The subject of the ticket is like the subject of an email.

Body *

The body text of the first article of the ticket.

Signature

This field is only applied to email tickets and appends a pre-configured signature text to the body text.

Relevant Knowledge

This field is not visible by default, but it displays related Knowledge Base Articles based on the keywords entered in the Subject and/or the Body fields. Clicking on a knowledge base article opens the knowledge base article detail view.

The related knowledge base articles are displayed as the agent types, so the list of suggested knowledge base articles is updated after any word typed into the Subject and/or the Body fields. The suggested knowledge base articles are sorted based on the number of matched keywords.

Attachments

It is possible to add attachments to the ticket. Click on the field to add an attachment, or just drop some files here.

Time Units

Enter any amount of time that is to be used in time accounting.

Dynamic Fields

The dynamic field of type attachment is displayed in the ticket detail view, if it is added to the screens and at least one file has been uploaded.

To upload files to dynamic field of type attachment:

1. Make sure that the dynamic field of type attachment is added to the desired screen.

2. Click on the uploading area or just dropping the files there. The file gets uploaded immediately to the server and a new upload field will be displayed as long as the configured maximum amount of attachments has not been reached.

3. Click on the Send button. If a file has exceeded the maximum attachment size, a message will appear warning the agent that the file exceeds the maximum attachment size. In this case the file will not be uploaded and the ticket will be created without problem.

The dynamic field of type attachment is displayed in the ticket detail view or in the header of the article, if it is added to the screens and at least one file has been uploaded.

To download a file from a ticket dynamic field of type attachment:

1. Find the dynamic field in the Properties widget of the ticket detail view.

2. Click on the download icon next to the filename to download the file.

The widget can be expanded to look similar to the Attachments widget.

If an image file is uploaded, it is possible to see a preview of the image.

Dynamic field of type attachment supports searching for the file names. To search for a file name of a dynamic field of type attachment, add the dynamic field to the search engine.

There is an option in the widget configuration where the screen after ticket creation can be selected for each type of ticket create screen separately. An agent can decide if the next screen should be the ticket create screen again or the detail view of the created ticket.

Customer Information Widget

This widget displays detailed information about the selected customer user and about its customer.

Customer User History Widget

This widget shows the tickets for the customer user selected above.

Customer History Widget

This widget shows the tickets for the customer selected above.

Ticket List Actions

The ticket list supports some actions that can be performed on many tickets at the same time. To enable the bulk actions, the agent has to select at least one ticket in the list and click on the pen icon.

The eye icon allows agents to watch or unwatch tickets. With this function, an agent can subscribe or unsubscribe to information about the ticket’s changes. An agent who is watching a ticket will be notified in the same way as the owner or the responsible of the ticket.

If the selected tickets are not locked to the agent, they will be automatically locked while performing the bulk action. This needs to be confirmed by clicking on the Lock and Continue button.

The following actions are available:

Change Properties

This action allows agents to change the properties of the selected tickets.

The following properties can be changed:

• State

• Queue

• Owner

• Priority

Link Tickets

This action allows to link the selected tickets together or with a parent ticket. The linked tickets will be displayed in the Linked Tickets widget of the ticket detail view.

Do not link

Select this option if the selected tickets should not be linked. This is selected by default.

Link together

Select this option to link the selected tickets together.

Search field

The search field allows the agent to search for another ticket. Using a wildcard * is supported. The selected tickets from the ticket list will be linked to the original ticket by the search field.

Merge Tickets

This action allows agents to merge the selected tickets to the oldest one or to any other ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Warning

The merge action cannot be undone.

Do not merge

Select this option if the selected tickets should not be merged. This is selected by default.

Merge to oldest

Select this option to merge the selected tickets to the oldest one.

Search field

The search field allows the agent to search for another ticket. Using a wildcard * is supported. The selected tickets from the ticket list will be merged to the original ticket by the search field.

Write Email

This action allows agents to write an email message to customer users found in the selected tickets. The body of the email will be added to the selected tickets as an article.

Recipients

This field is read-only and contains all recipients from the selected tickets.

Subject

This text will be the subject for the emails to be sent and the subject of the article to be added to the selected tickets.

Body

This text will be the body for the emails to be sent and the body of the article to be added to the selected tickets.

Time Units

Enter any amount of time that is to be used in time accounting.

Write Note

This action allows agents to write a note for the selected tickets. The body of the note will be added to the selected tickets as an article.

Subject

This text will be the subject for the emails to be sent and the subject of the article to be added to the selected tickets.

Body

This text will be the body for the emails to be sent and the body of the article to be added to the selected tickets.

Visible to customer

If this checkbox is checked, the note will be visible to customer users in the external interface.

Time Units

Enter any amount of time that is to be used in time accounting.

Click on the Execute Bulk Action button to perform the selected action. After executing the bulk action, the selected tickets are automatically unlocked. To prevent this, unselect the checkbox Unlock after bulk execute. In this case, the affected tickets remain locked.

Ticket Detail View Widgets

Like other business object detail views, the ticket detail view is also highly customizable. Some of the following widgets are displayed with the default installation, but others have to be added in the screen configuration.

Drafts Widget

This widget shows the new articles that have been saved for later work. This widget is displayed only when at least one draft has been saved.

Clicking on an item in the list opens the draft to continue editing it.

Communication Compact Widget

This widget shows all articles of the ticket in a table view. There is an Expand All or Collapse All button in the header to expand or collapse the content of the widget.

The column with the arrows informs about the direction of the article. Articles can be incoming or outgoing messages, as well as internal messages.

Articles in the communication of a ticket can come from different channels. The column Channel informs about the channel of the according article.

The column with the information icon shows additional article information, for example if the article is marked as important.

The last column indicates whether the article has attachments or not.

Clicking on an article will display the detail view of Articles. Unread articles are displayed with bold text. Clicking on the Expand all button at the top of the widget expands all articles and marks all articles as read.

The symbols that are displayed within the message box show information that belong to this message. The symbols outside only show information about the sending status of the message.

Warning

The maximum number of 500 articles per ticket should not be exceeded. Exceeding this limit may affect the system performance.

Communication Stream Widget

This widget shows the articles of a ticket in a different format than in the widget Communication Compact. The articles are displayed as symbolic speech bubbles next to the authors’ avatar images with the title and first few lines of the article.

The article direction is represented by the avatars of each side. Avatars on the left side represent the incoming articles, and avatars on the right side represent the outgoing articles. The icons near the avatars represent the channel through which the article was sent.

Clicking on an article will display the detail view of Articles. Unread articles are displayed with bold text. Clicking on the Expand all button at the top of the widget expands all articles and marks all articles as read.

The symbols that are displayed within the message box show information that belong to this message. The symbols outside only show information about the sending status of the message.

Warning

The maximum number of 500 articles per ticket should not be exceeded. Exceeding this limit may affect the system performance.

Properties Widget

This widget shows the properties of the ticket. The properties are presented as small cards within the widget.

Most of the cards have a pen icon in the top right corner. Clicking on this icon allows agents to directly edit the property.

People Widget

This widget can be used to display user cards of the people who created the ticket or who are set as owner or responsible for it.

Customer Information Widget

This widget shows information about the customer and the customer user of the ticket.

The cards show the number of open and closed tickets. If the customer user is online, the icon is active in the Chat section. Using this icon, the agent can start a chat with the customer user. Clicking on the icons in the Create section opens the create ticket screen. From the Action section, it is possible to edit the customer user or the customer. The Map section contains a link to view the customer’s address on a configured map. The URL in the Web section points to the customer’s website. The Social section contains links to some social media pages or search engines that are related to the customer user or the customer.

For unknown customers, only a Show All Tickets button is displayed in this widget.

Linked Tickets Widget

This widget shows the linked tickets, but the widget is only displayed when at least one ticket is linked to this business object. New links can be added with the Link Objects action. Existing links can also be managed there.

Linked Knowledge Base Articles Widget

This widget shows the linked knowledge base articles, but the widget is only displayed when at least one knowledge base article is linked to this business object. New links can be added with the Link Objects action. Existing links can also be managed there.

Linked Appointments Widget

This widget shows the linked appointments, but the widget is only displayed when at least one appointment is linked to this business object. New links can be added with the Link Objects action. Existing links can also be managed there.

Attachments Widget

This widget can be used to display attachments to the articles. The attachments can be downloaded and, for the images, a preview function is supported.

Ticket Detail View Actions

The following actions are available in the ticket detail view.

Communication

This column groups the following actions together:

Add Note

This action allows agents to create a note for ticket and to add the note as article to the ticket. Notes are only visible to agents by default.

Add Phone Call Outbound

This action allows agents to add a note about an outgoing phone call to the ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Add Phone Call Inbound

This action allows agents to add a note about an incoming phone call to the ticket.

Send Email Outbound

This action allows agents to send an email and to add the email as an article to the ticket.

This action is typically used to involve third parties via email without the customer user of the ticket being able to view this mail communication. For this reason, the article is not visible to the customer user by default. If the addressee (the third party) sends a reply email, this reply is also not visible to the customer user of the ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Send SMS Outbound

This action allows agents to send an SMS message and to add the SMS content as an article to the ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Note

Additional contract is needed to use this action.

Organization

This column groups the following actions together:

Lock Ticket or Unlock Ticket

This action allows agents to lock or unlock the ticket. If an agent locks the ticket, the agent will be the owner of the ticket.

Change Free Fields

This action allows agents to change the free fields of the ticket, for example the title of the ticket.

If a ticket dynamic field of type attachment has been configured to be displayed in a ticket action form, it is possible to delete the uploaded files and add new files.

To delete a file from a ticket dynamic field of type attachment:

1. Make sure that the dynamic field of type attachment is added to the Change Free Fields action.

2. Click on the X icon in the last column of an attachment. The attachment will be deleted without confirmation!

Change Decision

In this window the decision result and the decision date can be set.

Change Additional ITSM Fields

In this window the additional ITSM fields can be set regarding to repair and recovery start time, as well as the due date.

Merge Ticket

This action allows agents to merge one ticket with another ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Warning

The merge action cannot be undone.

Watch Ticket or Unwatch Ticket

This action allows agents to subscribe or unsubscribe to notifications about the ticket’s changes. An agent who is watching a ticket will be notified in the same way as the owner or the responsible of the ticket.

Note

This feature is not enabled by default. It needs to first be activated by an administrator in order to use it.

Assign Process

This action allows agents to assign this ticket and all articles to a process.

Note

This feature is only available when at least one process is deployed.

New Appointment

This action allows agents to create an appointment related to the ticket. The new appointment will be linked to the ticket and will be visible in the Calendar Overview.

Close Ticket

This action allows agents to close the ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Delete Ticket

This action allows agents to delete the ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Note

This feature is not enabled by default. It needs to first be activated by an administrator in order to use it.

Link Objects

This action allows agents to link other business objects to the ticket.

Move Ticket

This action allows agents to change the queue of the ticket. Queues are used to assign tickets to the responsible group of people. A ticket can belong to only one queue at a time.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Set Pending Time

This action allows agents to set the pending time of the ticket. If the customer user sends another message before the reminder time runs out, the agent can answer and select the pending status again without having to re-enter the reminder time, title and text, as this information is added automatically. If the reminder time expires, the default values are used.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Change Priority

This action allows agents to change the priority of the ticket.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Mark as Junk

This action allows agents to mark the ticket as junk or spam.

For this action the ticket needs to be locked to the agent who is performing the action.

Note

This feature is not enabled by default. It needs to first be activated by an administrator in order to use it.

External Link

This feature provides an easy way to display external links in the ticket action menu.

Note

This feature is not enabled by default. It needs to first be activated by an administrator in order to use it.

People

This column groups the following actions together:

Change Owner

This action allows agents to change the owner of the ticket.

Change Responsible

This action allows agents to set or change the responsible of the ticket.

Note

This feature is not enabled by default. It needs to first be activated by an administrator in order to use it.

Change Customer

This action allows agents to change the customer and the customer user of the ticket.

Views

This column groups the following actions together:

Print Ticket

This action allows agents to print the ticket to a PDF file and to download it.

View History

This action allows agents to view the history of the ticket. The history contains all operations that happened with the ticket in the past, along with timestamp and username of the person who took the action.

Watchlists

Use this menu item to add tickets to a watchlist or to remove tickets from a watchlist. The menu item Watchlists is available in the breadcrumb bar.

The ticket can be assigned to a watchlist via this menu item by using the toggle button. Additionally, the ticket can be removed from a watchlist. The Add New Watchlist button opens the Ticket Watchlist Overview screen and the Create Ticket Watchlist action.

If the ticket is added to the watchlist, the menu item will be changed to the color defined for the watchlist. If the ticket is added to multiple watchlists, all colors will be displayed.

Use the bell icon to set a reminder for the ticket in the watchlist. For this, the agent has to be subscribed to the ticket or it has to be assigned to one of his watchlists.

The Watchlist Reminder action has the following fields by default:

Reminder active

Controls, whether the reminder is active or not. New reminders will be added only if this checkbox is checked. For existing reminders, unchecking the checkbox will remove the reminder.

Reminder Time *

Set the date and time when the reminder should be displayed.

Reminder for *

Select a watchlist from the drop-down list.

Note

Add additional information to the reminder text.

If a reminder is defined for the ticket in a watchlist, the bell icon will be filled.

A watchlist belongs to the agent who created it. The list can be moved to another agent in the Ticket Watchlist Overview screen. When moving a watchlist to another agent, reminders will also be moved.

In this case, where the owner of the watchlist is changed, the notification that is sent is different that the others. It can only be sent by the email notification method and it should not contain any ticket related OTRS smart tag (if so they will be removed before sending) as there is no ticket involved in the process that triggers the event.

The default Watchlist move notification is attached to the event WatchlistMoveNotification. This and any other ticket notification attached to the same event should prevent the use of these ticket related OTRS smart tags.

Reminders will only be sent if the assigned agent at this time still has access to the watchlist containing the ticket and/or still is subscribed to the ticket.

Sidebar

The sidebar gives a quick overview about what agents are involved in the ticket: who is the ticket’s owner, who is the ticket’s responsible, and which agents are watching the ticket.

Involved agents are indicated with a pen icon when hovering the mouse over the sidebar. This means that the agent has performed some actions on the ticket, for example changed the properties or added articles.

The agents who are watching the ticket are indicated with an eye icon when hovering the mouse over the sidebar.

The dark green border around the avatar image means that the agent is the owner of the ticket, while the responsible agent has a light green border around the avatar image.