Ticket Management

Scope

This document covers new concepts and features regarding Ticket Management introduced with the release of CommitCRM version 5.3. The main features are new features include new Ticket navigation, new Ticket Inbox view and enhanced email correspondence management.

Other Ticket references: Ticket Workflow

Introduction

Tickets in CommitCRM provide a comprehensive ticketing system to help you record all the information for a call including status, priority, and nature of the issue, and track time-to-resolution.

Each ticket can support multiple activities for ongoing projects and complex service tickets, as well as access contract/billing information to determine required charging information.

Tickets are the communication point with your customers. This means customers can access Ticket information via Commit Web Interface, or communicate about a specific Ticket using email. All email communication can be logged in the Ticket level. See more details under Email Correspondence.

Ticket Information

Each Ticket in CommitCRM holds information which is relevant for the service call. It keeps information such as the Ticket description, status, due date and more. This information is displayed in the Ticket's General tab and Details tab.
In addition to the general Ticket data, each Ticket can store related information to provide quick access to all data linked to this Ticket.
The Ticket data linked to the Ticket includes:

• Account – The Account which is linked to this Ticket.
• Asset – The Asset which is linked to this Ticket.
• Contract – The Service Contract under which the Ticket was created, and for which the Charges will be billed to.
• Tasks – Pending Tasks for this Ticket (under the Pending tab).
• Appointments – Pending Appointments for this Ticket (under the Pending tab).
• Charges – Charges logged for this Ticket for work, expenses and parts.
• Messages – Internal CommitCRM messages between employees, linked to this Ticket.
• Email Correspondence – All email communication performed for this Ticket (see more details in Email Correspondence).
• Documents – Files linked to this Ticket.
• History – All of the activity performed for the Ticket – updates audit, done appointments and tasks, history notes, emails, documents, etc.

Each Tab shows relevant linked information, and most data can be accessed directly from the Ticket by right-clicking the relevant object or simply double-clicking it.

Ticket Window

The main Ticket window displays tickets by Status. To view all Tickets with a specific Status, simply click the relevant Status in the left pane. There are also other views available, such as Inbox or Dispatcher (see more details under Inbox and Dispatcher). Using these views will show the relevant Tickets, regardless of their Status.

SCREENSHOT

Ticket Navigation Pane

Tickets are displayed in the Ticket Navigation Pane view, allowing easy filtering by status and by employee.

The Ticket Navigation Pane provides the following views:

• Inbox - The Inbox view shows all tickets which are in your Inbox, meaning they have been updated by a customer. Customer updates can happen via the Customer Web Interface or when a new email arrives for this Ticket from a Customer or from an external application (via CommitCRM API). Tickets can also be added to the Inbox manually, using the Move To Inbox option when right-clicking a Ticket. See more details under Inbox.

• Dispatcher - The Dispatcher view shows all Tickets waiting to be dispatched to technicians. The same list is displayed when viewing the main Dispatcher window. See more details in Dispatching Tickets.

• All - This view shows all tickets, with all statuses, open and closed.

• Open (by status) - The main Open view shows all open tickets, i.e. tickets which have a Status which is considered to be "open" (such as New, Scheduled, etc.). Clicking any of the statuses below it will show only tickets with this status.

• Closed (by status)- The main Closed view shows all closed tickets (i.e. Canceled or Completed). Clicking any of the statuses below it will show only tickets with this status.

Ticket Manager Filter

Users who are privileged to view other users' tickets have the option to filter tickets by the Employee managing these Tickets. The Employee managing a Ticket can be seen in the Ticket's Manager field in the General tab.

The Employee filter appears at the bottom of the tree. This filter shows only tickets managed by the selected Employee. The Employee filter works on top of the status filter.

Possible options are:

• Me - show only tickets managed by the current logged-in user.
• All - show all tickets.
• Choose specific employees

Dispatcher

The Dispatcher view within the Ticket window shows the list of Tickets which are pending dispatch. Tickets can be marked for dispatching using the "Waiting for Dispatching" flag in the Ticket details. Tickets can be easily removed from the Dispatch board by clicking the "Dispatch" column on the left.

SCREENSHOT

The Dispatcher view within the main Ticket Tree provides a quick glance at the pending for dispatch Tickets. In order to actually dispatch the Ticket to technicians, use the main Dispatcher window via the applications navigation pane, which lets you appoint the relevant technicians to this Ticket. See more details in Dispatching Tickets.

Inbox

The Inbox view in the Ticket window shows all tickets which are in the Inbox, meaning they have been created or modified by a customer or by a third-party application. Tickets can also be moved to the Inbox manually when needed, to allow better tracking of those specific Tickets.
SCREENSHOT

Ticket updates can be performed by:

• Customers via the [Web Interface|Customer Web Interface]].
• Customers sending emails via [Email Connector|Commit Email Connector]].
• Third-party applications updating or creating Tickets using CommitCRM API. This can be done via Commit Email Connector (API by Email) or directly via the database (using the Programming API). See more details in the CommitCRM API User Guide.

All updates which cause the ticket to appear in the Inbox are documented in the Ticket's History tab.

The Inbox is global, meaning all users see the same Inbox and any changes made by one user will affect all users. For example, if a user removes a Ticket from the Inbox, it will be removed for all users viewing the Inbox.

Ticket Updates

Ticket updates which trigger the Ticket to appear in the Inbox includes:

• New Tickets
  • Web Interface: Customer adds new tickets via the Web Interface.
  • Email-to-Ticket: Customer sends emails which create new tickets by Commit Email Connector.
  • CommitCRM API: Third-party program creates Ticket via the API
• Ticket Updates
  • Web Interface: Customer updates ticket details or adding history notes via Commit Web Interface.
  • CommitCRM API: Third-party program updates Ticket via the API
  • Email-to-Ticket: Customer replies on emails concerning existing tickets.