About
When customers require assistance, they’ll need to be able to reach out to a product expert. Insightly Service offers the Ticket object to assist Customer Support Agents in communicating with customers and providing applicable support.
In this Article
How do Tickets Work?
When customers need assistance, Customer Support Agents need to be prepared with the best possible tools to quickly solve the customer’s issue. Tickets capture all details from the initial request to each subsequent conversation.
Customers are added to Insightly Service as contacts and Customer Support Agents can review past interactions between the customer and the support team. When a ticket is submitted by a customer, a conversation between the customer and the Customer Support Agent begins; Customer Support Agents additionally have the option to create tickets manually on behalf of a customer when applicable.
When a new ticket is submitted, by default it will be assigned to the New Tickets queue. Queues allow for the distribution of tickets amongst agents in a visible and understandable way. When viewing a ticket list view, users can click the Show Sidebar button (to the left of the New Ticket button) to display the number of tickets in each list view. The sidebar will display the queues and views in the same order as they are shown in the list view dropdown for the Tickets object. Clicking a queue or view within the sidebar will change the view of the Tickets object to that specific queue or view.
When viewing a list view of tickets via the Ticket object within Insightly Service, users are able to see when a ticket is being viewed by other users via the eye icon located on the far left of a ticket's row in the list view. This icon can be hovered over to display what users are viewing the ticket.
Additionally, within the ticket record itself, users can review a list of other users who are also viewing the ticket via the Ticket tab on the left of the ticket record.
System Administrators can navigate to System Settings > Objects > Ticket Layout to design the layout of tickets. This design ability applies to the the Ticket, Contact, and Organization tabs of a ticket record.
System Administrators can define support schedules based off the companies regular business hours, time zone(s), and holidays. Insightly Service will apply these support schedules to tickets that utilize triggers. Schedules can be set up via System Settings > User Interface > Schedules.
- When setting up automation within Insightly Service, automation time triggers implement based off calendar hours rather than schedule hours.
SLA Functionality
A ticket's SLA policy is recorded in a ticket record's Details tab.; users can also see how much SLA time is remaining before the next action is due. Once a ticket has the status of Closed or Solved, it will no longer display an assigned SLA policy. SLA functionality can differ based on the status of a ticket:
| Status | SLA Functionality |
|---|---|
| New | SLA countdown will be active. If the ticket is placed On Hold, the countdown will pause immediately and will resume once the status is updated to New, Pending or Open. |
| Open | SLA countdown will be active. If the ticket is placed On Hold, the countdown will pause immediately and will resume once the status is updated to New, Pending or Open. |
| On Hold | If the ticket is placed On Hold, the countdown will pause immediately and will resume once the status is updated to New, Pending or Open. |
| Pending | SLA countdown will be active. If the ticket is placed On Hold, the countdown will pause immediately and will resume once the status is updated to New, Pending or Open. |
| Solved | No SLA will be applied to the ticket. |
| Closed | No SLA will be applied to the ticket. |
Once an SLA policy is assigned to a ticket, the SLA Time Remaining field functionality is based off different stages of the ticket and will always display the time remaining as calendar hours.
- When SLAs are configured, the field Operational Hours can be set to business hours (rather than calendar hours) to allow SLAs to work in conjunction with the business hours set up by System Administrators via System Settings > User Interface > Schedules. This configuration will account for weekends and when Customer Service Agents are not actively working tickets to allow for SLAs to provide the most accurate time for when actions are due.
| Ticket stage | Field Functionality |
|---|---|
| Ticket is Opened | The SLA Time Remaining countdown will begin based on the assigned SLA policy and display the time remaining to assign an agent. |
| Ticket is Assigned | The SLA Time Remaining countdown will recalibrate based on the assigned SLA policy and display the countdown for the first reply time. |
| First Reply | Once the first reply has been submitted, the SLA Time Remaining countdown will display the countdown for the total time remaining to solve the ticket. |
For information regarding the setup of SLAs (performed by System Administrators), the Creating and Managing SLAs article can be reviewed.
Email Allowlists and Blocklists
System Administrators can control access to Insightly Service Portals, as well as who can send tickets to the support team; this is done by adding email domains to the email blocklists via System Settings > Feature Settings > Email Blocklists.
Tasks and Opportunities
Agents with both CRM and Service subscriptions can create tasks and opportunities from the ticket record through the Actions dropdown. The task or opportunity will then be linked to the contact, organization, and ticket upon creation.
The option to create opportunities from the ticket’s action menu will be disabled once an opportunity has been linked to the ticket, as only one opportunity per ticket is allowed.
Ticket Layout
Insightly Service provides a default page layout for tickets that can be customized by System Administrators via System Settings > Objects and Fields > Ticket > Page Layouts > Ticket Layout.
The default ticket layout displays the following information for each ticket:
| Section | Information |
|---|---|
| 1 | Basic ticket information and ticket actions:
|
| 2 | Important ticket details regarding queue, priority, SLA, etc. Ticket status can also been viewed:
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| 3 | Ticket: Displays ticket details and assists with identifying the type of issue that needs to be resolved. Contact: Displays information regarding the contact that the ticket pertains to. Organization: Displays information regarding the organization that the ticket pertains to. |
| 4 | Public Replies and Internal Notes. When a public reply or an internal note is being created, Insightly Service will auto save every five seconds to prevent loss of progress. Customer Support Agents can utilize @ mentions to notify other agents; all additional agents that are @ mentioned will be added to the CC list of the ticket. When adding attachments to ticket public replies and internal notes, there is a file size limit of 20 MB.
Underneath the text box are four tabs:
Each tab displays the number of events within each tab. The number of events in the All Notes tab is equal to the sum of the Public and Private tabs. The Audit Log tab within in this section will display system events (identified by a gear icon) as well as user events (identified by a user’s avatar). |
| 5 | The ticket sidebar provides Customer Support Agents tools to assist in serving the customer:
|
Creating Tickets
Customers can submit tickets via the Public Portal Website which is setup by System Administrators via System Settings. Customers do not need to have an account to submit a ticket although with an account, customers have access to all of their previous ticket history, as well as any tickets they currently have open.
- Within the Public Portal Website, customers will need to navigate to the tickets page which can be reach by clicking the Tickets tab (per the default public portal homepage). For customers with an account, filtering and sorting of tickets can be applied:
- Filtering: Customers can filter their view for all tickets, open & pending tickets, and solved & closed tickets.
- Sorting: Customers can sort through their submitted tickets by status, date created, and last activity.
- To submit a ticket, click New Ticket.
- Customers will input an email address and a subject for the ticket. For customers who have an account, their account email address will auto populate in the Email Address field.
- The Details section of the ticket submission form should contain the details of the issue being submitted; customers should provide as much relevant information as they can in order to assist the Customer Support Agents in solving the ticket efficiently.
- Once all issue details have been entered, click Submit to complete the ticket submission process.
- Within Insightly Service, Customer Service Agents can navigate to the Tickets object and click New Ticket in the upper right corner.
- Via the Add New Ticket popup, search for and select the contact the ticket is for and then apply the ticket details and an in depth description of the issue.
- Once the ticket details have been entered, click Save. The new ticket record will open and the agent can create their response to the customer as applicable. Once a response is complete, Submit as Pending can be clicked or a different status can be chosen from the drop-down.
Ticket Creation through a Contact Record
- Within Insightly CRM or Insightly Service, navigate to the Contacts object. Select a contact record.
- Click the Related tab. Click the Add Ticket button located on the right-hand side of the Tickets related grid. This button will only appear for users with create permissions for tickets.
- A new ticket modal will appear. Enter the ticket’s details and an in depth description of the issue.
- Once the ticket details have been entered, click Save. The new ticket will be automatically populated with the contact and primary organization fields pulled from the contact record.
- The ticket record will open and the agent can create their response to the customer as applicable. Once a response is complete, Submit as Pending can be clicked or a different status can be chosen from the drop-down.
Updating Ticket Form Fields
Insightly Service admins can add, remove, and reconfigure the fields that will appear on the ticket submission form. Any ticket custom fields can be added and the Priority standard field can be added to the form. If a custom field is deleted, that field will automatically be removed from all ticket forms it appears in.
The following fields cannot be removed from the field and are required for successful ticket submissions:
- Email Address
- Subject
- Details
If a field is dependent on another field, both fields must be present on the form, with identical validation as the page layout field dependency validation. The portal settings page cannot be saved if the dependent fields are not present.
If validation rules are in place for a field, that rule will also apply within the ticket form and if the rule is violated, an error will appear.
Dynamic layout rules, however, do not apply to the ticket form.
How to Update Ticket Form Fields
- Go to System Settings > Portals. Select a portal.
- Scroll to toward the bottom of the Portal Settings page and locate the New Ticket Form section.
- There are two columns present: Available Ticket Fields and Ticket Fields on Form. To add fields to the form, select a field from the Available Ticket Fields column and click the left arrow (>) to add it to the Ticket Fields on Form column.
- To remove fields from the form, select a field from the Ticket Fields on Form column and click the right arrow (<).
- To change the order of the fields on the form, select a field in the Ticket Fields on Form column and use the up arrow (^) or down arrow (v) to change its position in the list.
- Click Save Portal Settings.
Managing Tickets
Multiple actions are available to assist with the management of tickets. When viewing a ticket record, the Actions button in the upper right can be clicked to display the following actions that can be taken against the specific ticket record being viewed:
| Action | Information |
|---|---|
| Edit This Ticket | This action allows for edits to be made to ticket details and fields. |
| Move Ticket to Spam | This action will move the ticket to the Spam queue. Once a ticket has been marked as spam, it can be removed from the Spam queue by changing the record owner of the ticket. |
| Delete Ticket | This action will delete the ticket after confirmation is received via the Delete Ticket popup. |
| Change Record Owner | This action allows for the selection of a different queue or user to assign the ticket record to. |
| Merge Into Another Ticket | If two tickets regarding the same issue from the same customer are received, they can be merged into one ticket by using this action. When merging tickets, users will need to notate the record number of the ticket they are merging into. Merges are permanent and can't be undone:
Notes About Merging:
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| Add New Task for Ticket | Customer Support Agents with both an Insightly Service and Insightly CRM subscription can utilize this action to create tasks from the ticket record. |
| Add Personal Macro from Ticket | Selecting this action will take users to User Settings > Personal Macros where a personal macro can be added; the Priority, Owner, Tags, and Ticket Type will pre-populate from the ticket field values although these values can be edited and additional fields can be added. If the last comment (public or internal) on the ticket was added by the user/System Administrator creating the macro, the comment will also pre-populate.
|
| Add Shared Macro from Ticket | Selecting this action will take users to System Settings > Shared Macros where a shared macro can be added; the Priority, Owner, Tags, and Ticket Type will pre-populate from the ticket field values although these values can be edited and additional fields can be added. If the last comment (public or internal) on the ticket was added by the System Administrator creating the macro, the comment will also pre-populate .
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| Add New Ticket for Contact | Selecting this action will display the Add New Ticket popup and the Contact field for the new ticket will automatically be pre-populated as the same contact as the original ticket being viewed. |