Responding to a Ticket

There are two ways that an admin user can add a response to a ticket.  The first and most commonly used is post a followup to the ticket.  The links to do this are at the top and bottom of the view ticket page.  There is also a link to respond and quote a particular message at the bottom of each response in the ticket's history.  The 'post followup' links will display the ticket response form and will allow the user to send an email to the author of the original ticket.  The 'Reply and Quote this Message' link will load the same page but the body of the quoted message will appear in the email body text field and the response will be sent directly to the author of the quoted message.  This can be useful if more than one person has been responding to the staff about the support issue.

The staff followup form is similar to any web based email form.  At the top of the form, the recipient's address is displayed.  If it is necessary to change who the response will be emailed out to, clicking the 'edit' link next to the address will display a form field and allow the user to update the recipient's address.  To the right is a CC and BCC form field.  These will allow the user to specify additional addresses that the response should be carbon copied and/or blind carbon copied to.  Below the recipient's address is a pull down menu that allows the user to specify what email address the response should appear to come from.  Options will include the departments default address, the support manager's default address or the user's personal address.  Between these form fields and the message body text field is a pull down menu that allows the user to select a template.  Selecting a template from this menu will replace the text in the body text field with the content of the template.  This can be particularly useful for frequently asked questions that the admins do not want to type out again and again.  Templates can be added, edited or deleted using the Manage Templates page in the Setup & Admin section.  Be aware that selecting a template will completely replace any text in the body text field.  Anything previously typed will be lost.  Next is the most important field in the ticket response form, the body of the message.  This will be the body of the email that the recipient will receive.  At the bottom of the form are two pull down menus that allow the user to specify what should happen to the ticket.  The first allows the user to specify what state the ticket should be changed to after the response is sent.  This can save a step if the user is going to close or delete the ticket immediately after responding.  The other pull down allows the user to assign the ticket to a particular user.  The response will be sent and then the ticket will be reassigned.  If the ticket is not assigned to anyone when the response is set and no other user is specified, the ticket will be assigned to the user sending the response.  The final field in the response form is the attachment field.  With this the user can specify a file to be attached to the outgoing email.  Attachments will be stored along with the response in the database.  When the form has been filled out, clicking 'Send Followup' will store the response and email a copy to the recipient's address.  The browser will redirected to the view ticket page where the new followup will be displayed at the bottom.

The second type of response that the admin can add to a ticket is a comment.  A ticket comment will not be emailed to anyone.  It is merely stored in the database as part of the ticket's history.  This can be useful so that other admin users can make suggestion or leave notes to the owner of the ticket that the client may or may not be able to read.  The comment itself can be set as public or private.  A private comment will only be readable by the admin users.  A public comment will be readable by the client.  However, since comments are not emailed to anyone, the client would need to be logged into the client interface to view any public comments.

The link to add a comment to a ticket is at the top and bottom of the view ticket page.  The form to submit a new comment is very similar to the post followup form.  However, it does not have the email specific fields at the top of the page.  The only different form field is the check box at the bottom of the form that allows the user to specify if the comment is public or not.  Checking the box will make it a public comment that will be readable by the client through the client interface.