Ticket Assignment
A ticket can have an assignee — the operator handling the conversation — and a department. While there's no assignee, any operator can reply to the customer. Once there is one, only the assignee can write to the customer, and other operators see a hint to take the ticket over instead of the reply box; the owner and admins can reply in any ticket. Internal notes can be left in any ticket.
How a ticket gets an assignee
- Take — a new ticket (status “New”) has a Take button in its header. After you confirm, the ticket is assigned to you and moves to “In Progress”. The customer gets a message that the ticket has been picked up, if that's enabled in the channel settings.
- First reply — if you reply to the customer in a ticket with no assignee, it's assigned to you automatically, and an internal note about it appears in the conversation. An internal note doesn't assign the ticket.
- Take over — if a colleague has the ticket, its header has a Take over button. After you confirm, the ticket is reassigned to you; your colleague doesn't need to agree. The customer may get a message that the ticket was handed to another operator, depending on the channel settings.
- In bulk — in the Inbox: “Select” → tick the tickets → “Assign” → pick an operator (see Working with Inbox).
- Macro — a macro can assign an operator or move the ticket to a department (see Macros).
- Auto-assignment — if it's turned on in the project (see below).
Auto-assignment
If the owner or an admin has turned it on in Settings → Auto-assignment, every two minutes the system hands out unassigned tickets with the statuses “New”, “Open” and “In Progress” to the project's active operators. The ticket's status doesn't change; a ticket assigned to you is marked “Yours”.
- “Round-robin” — the next ticket goes to whoever has gone longest without a new one.
- “Least busy” — to whoever has the fewest open tickets right now.
- “On-duty operators only” — tickets go only to operators who are on duty right now: by their personal schedule in the profile, or by the project's shift hours (Settings → Work Hours) if they don't have one. See Work hours and the on-duty badge.
Transferring a ticket
The Transfer button in the ticket header opens the transfer dialog: pick a department, an operator or both, and confirm.
- Department only — the ticket goes to that department with no assignee (“In Progress” changes to “Open”); whoever replies first takes it.
- Operator — the ticket is assigned to them. If you've picked a department, the list keeps that department's operators and operators with no department.
An internal note about the transfer stays in the conversation, and the customer gets a message about it if that's enabled in the channel settings. You can transfer your own ticket or an unassigned one (the owner and admins — any ticket), except closed and snoozed tickets.
Who can do what
| Action | Who can |
|---|---|
| Take a new ticket | Any operator, if the ticket is unassigned or already yours |
| Reply to the customer | The assignee; in an unassigned ticket — anyone (the ticket is assigned to them); the owner and admins — in any ticket |
| Internal note | Anyone, in any ticket |
| Take over | Anyone, if a colleague has the ticket |
| Close, reopen | Anyone, in any ticket (a snoozed ticket has to be resumed first). A reopened ticket gets the “Open” status |
| “Snooze”, “Resume”, transfer, move to a section | The assignee, or anyone while the ticket is unassigned; the owner and admins — in any ticket |
| Priority | The assignee, or anyone while the ticket is unassigned; the owner and admins — in any ticket |
| “Assign” and “To Department” in bulk in the Inbox | The assignee, or anyone while the ticket is unassigned; the owner and admins — in any ticket. Colleagues' tickets are skipped, the rest go through |
| Moving a card on the board | Into “Resolved” or “Closed”, and from there to “Open” — anyone. Between “New”, “Open” and “In Progress”, into “Snoozed” and from it to those columns, and from a closed ticket straight to “New” or “In Progress” — the assignee, or anyone while the ticket is unassigned; the owner and admins — in any ticket |
| Macro | A note, closing and tags — anyone. A reply to the customer, assignment, a department transfer and other status changes — by the rules in the rows above. If any action of the macro isn't allowed for you, none of them runs |
| Delete permanently (the ⋯ menu) | Only the owner and admins |