A ticket can be created in the following ways:

1. A user submits a ticket through the web portal.

2. A user sends an email to a support address that is linked to Deskpro.

3. An agent creates a ticket on behalf of a user, either

   • by using the agent interface or

   • by forwarding a user email message to the support address.

A ticket is always associated with a user. You can change a ticket’s user, but it’s not possible to have a ticket without a user at all. (As a result, deleting a user will also delete all their tickets).

In most helpdesks, users will normally create their own tickets by sending an email or using the ticket submission form in the Contact Us section of your web portal.

However, you may need to create a ticket on behalf of a user - for example, if they are telling you about the issue in person.

You can create a new ticket from the + Add button at the top left of the content pane.

As the new ticket must be associated with a user, so you must either choose a user or create one.

Begin typing either a name or an email address in the Choose a person to create this ticket for text area. DeskPRO will show you matching records as you type.

Alternatively, click Create a new person to make a new user record. You will need to provide the user’s email address and name, and phone number will be optional.

Autosave new ticket drafts

If you are creating a new ticket and close the ticket tab or browser window before you submit the first message or note, a draft version is automatically saved.

Currently, only one draft is saved at a time. If you have several partially-completed new tickets open, only the one that you edited most recently will be saved as a draft if you close the browser.

When you select + Add > New Ticket, any draft ticket you have will be loaded.

If you want to get rid of your draft ticket and start from scratch, click Delete Draft to the right of the Send Reply button.

Compulsory fields

Depending on your helpdesk configuration, it may be compulsory to select or enter values for some of the ticket fields.

Custom fields may have validation rules to check that the data you enter is correct (e.g. that an account number is in the correct format).

When you have selected the required fields, you can assign the ticket to an agent or team.

First message or note

When you create a ticket, you must either write a ticket message (visible to the user) or a ticket note (for agents only).

Use the TICKET MESSAGE and TICKET NOTE tabs to switch between starting the ticket with a message or a note.

Starting with a note is the best option if you don’t need any more information from the user: for example, if the user has explained a problem on the phone, and you want to write it down for other agents.

If you start with a note, the user will not be emailed to tell them that you have created a ticket (unless your admins have set that up specially).

Starting with a message is the best option if you need more information from the user: for example, if you’re following up on a phone call or other communication outside the helpdesk, but you need to ask a question to resolve the problem.

You may also decide to start with a message to confirm to the user that you have created a ticket for them, providing reassurance that you are tracking their problem and you won’t forget about it.

To complete the process of creating the ticket, you can send your message/note.

Just as you when you  Replying to a ticket, you can choose to set the status of the new ticket as either:

• awaiting user (default for a ticket message)

• awaiting agent (default for a ticket note)

• resolved

By default, a ticket message is sent to the user by email. This is usually what you will want to happen. You can uncheck the Email User checkbox if you don’t want the user to be emailed.

Don’t write anything in a ticket message that you wouldn’t want the user to see!

Select whether or not to open the new ticket in a tab in the content pane straight away with the Open Tab checkbox.

Be careful about changing the default values. If you start a ticket with a note and set it to awaiting user, the user will have no way to find out about the ticket.

Creating a ticket for a user by email

You can create a ticket on behalf of a user by email instead of from the agent interface.

To do this, email a helpdesk ticket account (e.g. support@yourcompany.com) from the email address linked to your agent account.

At the very top of the email, use these action codes:

#user user@example.com
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where user@example.com is the user’s email address.

The user will be notified just as if you had created a ticket for them from the agent interface. agent interface.

If you want the email content to become an agent note instead of a message to the user, use these codes instead:

#user user@example.com
#note
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If you do this, the user will not be notified that you have created a ticket for them (or be able to see it on the portal) until you add a reply.

Forwarding an email to create a ticket

There’s another way you can create a ticket on behalf of a user: you can forward a user email to an email address configured to automatically create tickets. This feature is convenient if a user has emailed a support request to the wrong place.

Note that your admins may have disabled this feature.

Deskpro will make a ticket from the user’s original message and associate it with that user, even though it came from your address.

By default, any text you add above the original email message will be added to the ticket as a note, but your admins may have set it so that text is sent as a reply to the user instead.

You can make sure that any text you add becomes a note by putting #note at the very top of your email. You can make sure it becomes a reply by putting #reply at the very top.

The ticket is created as unassigned, but you will be added to the ticket as a follower. If the original message had addresses in the email cc: field, they will be added to the CC (see Replying to a ticket) field for the new ticket.

You can use Email Action Codes (see Replying to tickets by email when creating a ticket in this way.

If you forward the same email to the helpdesk twice, Deskpro will not create a duplicate ticket.

Some email programs forward messages in a way that stops Deskpro detecting the original email address of the user.

Deskpro tries to work out the original user from the text headers of the email you send. For example, if the headers are:

-----Original Message-----
From: Victoria Johnson [mailto:victoriajohnson@example.co.uk]
Sent: 05 November 2013 14:38
To: agent_email@example.com
Subject: Support Request
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Deskpro can detect victoriajohnson@example.co.uk in the From: line and determine that she is the original user.

Some clients send a From: header that is missing the email address when a message is forwarded, e.g.

From: Victoria Johnson
 copy

This often happens in organizations that use Microsoft Exchange/Outloook for email.

If you run into this problem, you should forward the original email to Deskpro as an attachment. This will give Deskpro the information it needs to work out the original user. Your admins may also be able to change settings in Deskpro or your mail server to fix this problem.

Processing email cc: field

When a ticket or ticket reply is created from an incoming email, Deskpro will process any email addresses that are cc’d in to the email.

Any non-agent email addresses cc’d in to an email will be CC’d to the ticket within Deskpro.

With the default Deskpro settings, any agents who are cc’d in to an email will not be added to the ticket as followers. Note that if you reply to an email where you’ve been cc’d, it may create a new ticket - you should make sure to reply to the ticket notification from Deskpro, not the email direct from the user.

Your admins can set your helpdesk so that agents cc’d in to an incoming user email are added as followers.