Support Tickets

The Support Ticket system is a fully featured ticket desk that allows you to handle all communication with your clients. It features threaded discussions, private notes, ticket flagging, varying priority levels, predefined replies, and automatic inactive ticket closure. You can assign Admins to specific departments, so that they only have access to their designated areas.

You can access this feature at Support > Support Tickets.

The Ticket List

The support ticket list

When a client submits a support ticket the appropriate members of staff assigned to that department will receive a New Support Ticket Opened email and the ticket will display in the list of tickets.

• The list displays all of the tickets in the Awaiting Reply status by default.
• You can change the ticket order by clicking the table headings.
• To view only those tickets with a certain status or department or to search click the Search/Filter tab.
• You can access the most-commonly-used status lists directly in the Support menu in the navigation bar.

Auto Refresh

The Auto Refresh feature reloads the ticket list automatically at frequencies ranging from every minute to every 15 minutes. You can configure this frequency in the Auto Refresh tab.

Tools

There are several bulk tools on this page.

• Click Close to close tickets.
• Click Delete to delete tickets.
• Click Merge to merge two tickets, with the older ticket merging into the newer ticket.
• Click Block Sender & Delete to delete tickets and add the sender's email to the Banned Emails list.

Ticket Status

A ticket starts in the Open status. This indicates that the client has not yet received a reply from a member of staff. After a reply, the status automatically changes to Answered.

The status can also be changed manually from the view ticket screen, using the dropdown menu next to the ticket subject. A change in selection here is saved immediately using AJAX, without needing to reload the page. Custom statuses can also be created to help with management of tickets.

For more information, see Support Ticket Statuses.

Merging Tickets

When using Merge:

• A ticket will always merge into the earliest-opened ticket. This is the one with the lowest ID in the database. This is the same whether you merge from inside of a ticket or from the ticket list.
• Unless it already appears in the subject, the subject of the ticket will have [MERGED] appended in the client's language.
• The ticket status will take the status from the ticket that has received the latest reply.
• A ticket that has been merged into another ticket will not appear in the ticket list, but accessing an old ticket URL will redirect to the appropriate ticket.
• Replying to an old ticket via email will also redirect the reply to the appropriate ticket after the merge.
• If you are merging tickets from multiple clients together, the client that had the oldest ticket would see the merged ticket in their client area.

Replying to a Ticket

The support ticket reply page

To open, view, and reply to a ticket, click the subject in the ticket list. In the ticket, you can view user messages and staff replies as well as any private admin notes. You can change the order in which ticket messages display in the Support tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings.

When you reply to a ticket, if a Support Ticket Signature is in your admin profile, it will appear in the reply box. When replying, you can also use predefined replies and insert links to knowledgebase articles automatically.

Merge Fields

Support ticket replies support three automatic data merge fields:

• [FIRSTNAME]
• [NAME]
• [EMAIL]

You can use these in predefined replies or in the custom messages you write.

Ticket Markdown

WHMCS supports markdown formatting in ticket replies and notes.

Quoting a Reply

To include a copy of a previous reply in your message, click the icon for the desired reply.

File Attachments

Sending attachments automatically attaches them to the notification email that the client receives as well as making them accessible through the Client Area.

To attach a file, click Browse and select the file. This uploads the file to the attachments directory.

Billing a Client

It's also possible to create a billable item for a client when you reply to a ticket. You can generate invoices or log time spent on a ticket.

To do this, enter the description, amount, and invoice action in the Add Billing Entry section while replying to the ticket.

Post Reply Action

From Post Reply, you can select an action to perform when you click Add Response. For example, you can change the ticket status and remain in the ticket view or you can return to the main ticket list.

Editing/Deleting a Reply

To edit client and staff ticket replies, click Edit.

To delete a message from a ticket, click the red delete icon in the top-right of the message. Deleting the first message will delete the entire ticket.

Predefined Ticket Replies

Use predefined ticket replies for frequent responses:

Adding a Predefined Reply

To set up a predefined reply, go to Support > Predefined Replies. Configure categories and predefined replies in the same way as knowledgebase articles.

Using a Predefined Reply

To use a predefined ticket reply, click Insert Predefined Ticket Reply and select the desired reply. You can also search for replies by title.

When you select the predefined reply, it will appear in the reply box and you can edit and send it normally.

Blocked Replies

We added this functionality in WHMCS 8.3.

You may see a Blocked Replies message above the ticket subject. This indicates that WHMCS received, but did not import, one or more email replies. You can view and import these replies by clicking on the ticket subject in the message or by accessing them in the Support Ticket Mail Import Log at Configuration () > System Logs or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Utilities > Logs.

For more information, see Blocked Support Email Replies.

Splitting Replies

Split Selected Ticket Replies

Sometimes it may be necessary to move specific replies out from one support ticket and into a new one. If the message contains an attachment, this will be carried across into the new ticket too.

To do this:

1. Check the checkboxes in the top-right corner of the messages you wish to split into a new ticket.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Split Selected Replies.
3. In the prompt that appears, select a department, priority, and subject for the new ticket, and whether to send a new ticket notification.
4. Click Submit.

To quickly return to the original ticket, click Other Tickets.

Admin Notes

The Add Note tab allows private staff-only messages to be recorded against a ticket. Clicking the tab provides a new text area to enter the note. When you submit it, will add the note and display it to all other admins viewing the ticket along with the staff member's name and date and time. Customers do not get any notification of notes being added and cannot see them.

Staff Mentions

Staff mentions allow you to "tag" other administrative users and trigger an email notification to them as a quick and easy way to alert them to the note you have just added. To use a staff tag in a ticket note, just type the @ followed by the staff member's name.

For more information, see Staff Mentions.

Changing Associated Service

We added this feature in WHMCS 7.10.

A client opening a ticket can select a related service, which will be highlighted when viewing the ticket via the admin area. Click Change Associated Service to change the service that a ticket is associated with. This is useful when a client doesn't choose a service when opening the ticket, or if a client chooses the wrong service. A change of associated service will be logged to the ticket log so all changes can be seen.

When clicking Change Associated Service, an AJAX call will fetch, if appropriate, the remaining services for a client if they aren't all displayed. If an admin user is already viewing all the services of a client on a ticket, an AJAX call will not take place.

View Security Question

We added View Security Question in WHMCS 8.0.

To access a user's security question information, click View Security Question in the top-right corner of their reply to the ticket. This allows you to view, but not change, the user's Security Question and Security Answer.

If the user has not configured a question and answer at Hello, Name! > Security Settings in the Client Area, View Security Question will not display in their replies. Users cannot configure security questions until you add one or more questions at Configuration () > System Settings > Security Questions.

Custom Fields

You can set up custom fields for support departments on a per department basis. Use this to suit a given department's specific needs. These fields display on the Custom Fields tab within the ticket.

Options

The Options tab allows the attributes of the ticket to be modified. The department, subject, status, and priority can all be changed.

Sometimes it may be useful for additional people to receive copies of the email messages in this ticket. To do this, enter their email addresses in the CC Recepients field. Multiple recipients can be entered in a comma separated list (for example, jeff@example.com,bob@example.com).

To change the client a ticket is assigned to, adjust the Client ID. If the client's name, company, or email address is known, start typing this into the field. An AJAX list of the search results will appear. Click the appropriate client from the list to automatically fill in their Client ID.

When two tickets are merged, the messages from both tickets will be arranged chronologically. In Merge Ticket, enter the Ticket ID of the ticket to be combined. The newer ticket is merged into the older ticket.

Flagging a ticket to another admin is useful if you want to bring the ticket to the attention of another staff member. Flagged tickets appear in a separate section at the top of the support ticket page to ensure they stand out from the main queue. The Support Ticket Flagged email will also be sent to the user. Flagging a ticket to oneself will not send the email.

Notifications

Support ticket actions trigger email notifications as shown below:

Action	Ticket Watchers	Department Members*	Flagged Admin	Owner	Users	Contacts	CC Recipients
Ticket Opened
Client Reply
Admin Reply
Change of Ticket Options
Change of Ticket Department
Ticket Assigned
Ticket Unassigned

  You will not receive an email notification for any changes you initiate yourself. Notifications may also depend on permissions and the origin of the ticket.

* Department Members only receive Client Reply and Change of Ticket Department notifications when there is no flagged admin user.

Definitions

• Ticket Watchers — Any admin user who is watching a ticket via the Admin Area.
• Department Members — Any admin user who chose to receive ticket notifications for a given Support Ticket department and has the Support Emails Admin role.
• Assigned User — Any admin user to is assigned to or unassigned from a ticket.
• Owner — The related client's account owner.
• User — A user with access to the related client.
• Contact — The related client's contacts.
• CC Recipients — A recipient who has been added to the ticket to receive a carbon copy (CC) of ticket-related emails.

Ticket Tags/Tag Cloud

The Ticket Tags section only displays in the sidebar when viewing a support ticket in the Admin Area. It links tickets that have a common item (for example, tickets that all report the same issue). You could use this to save a case ID from an external system (for example, if you wish to follow up with those tickets once it is marked as resolved). To use, enter the desired tag text and press Return to save.

Tags associated with tickets in the support ticket list are displayed in the Tag Cloud section of the sidebar of the Support > Support Tickets list. To find all the tickets linked to the tag, use the same name for the tag and then search by tag from Search/Filter on the support ticket list page. The will display the list of tickets linked to the tag.

Log

The ticket log displays an audit trail of all the actions applied to this ticket. This includes department changes, tickets flaggings, adding of notes, changes of ownership, and status changes.

Opening a New Ticket

The open support ticket page

Staff can open support tickets from within the administration area by navigating to Support > Open New Ticket. There, enter the details of the recipient.

• If they are not a client, fill their name in the To field and the Email Address field.
• If they are a client, use the Client Search field to search by name, company, and email addresses. Clicking the client's name will automatically fill in the recipient's details.

If the client has contacts or sub-accounts configured, a Contacts menu will appear. If you wish the ticket message to be emailed to the contact, select their name from the menu. Select None to deliver it to the master account.

Automated Knowledgebase Article Suggestions

Suggesting Knowledgebase Articles

As a user enters a message for submission as a support ticket, WHMCS can lookup and display relevant articles that match keywords in the submission text. This can provide an answer to a user without them needing to ever submit the ticket. This is designed to help reduce common support questions. To enable or disable this, use Knowledgebase Suggestions in the Support tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings.

You will need at least five articles with 30 words in each before the suggestions start working. This uses MySQL full text searching for matches.

Ticket Reply Ratings

Ticket reply ratings allow your customers to rate responses they receive on tickets in the ticket system. They also allow you to monitor customers' reactions to the support they receive from your staff. To enable the ticket rating feature, go to the Support tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings. Then, check Support Ticket Ratings.

When enabled, each reply in the client area will show a row of stars for the user to choose from in rating the response. They range from 1 being poor to 5 being excellent. Rating a reply is optional, so not every reply will get a rating. Ratings display when viewing the ticket in the admin area and there is also a report in the Reporting section that allows you to monitor these ratings:

Ticket Ratings Reviewer allows you to filter based on specific star ratings and within a given date range.

Feedback Request

We moved this feature to a new location in WHMCS 7.0.

In WHMCS 7.0 and later, you can enable emails requesting a user to provide feedback for their support ticket experience on a per-department basis. On upgrading to WHMCS 7.0, if you have enabled Ticket Feedback, it will be enabled by default for all existing departments. If you do not have it enabled, it will not be enabled for any departments automatically.

Feedback Request determines whether an email request will be sent for a user to provide feedback for their support ticket experience. The results of the feedback emails can be reviewed via the Ticket Feedback Scores and Ticket Feedback Comments reports at Reports > Reports.

Auto Closing

This feature allows you to have support tickets automatically closed after a certain time of inactivity has passed. By default this closes tickets set to Answered or Customer Reply.

The ticket statuses that auto close can be adjusted via Configuration () > System Settings > Ticket Statuses or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Support > Ticket Statuses.

To set the length of time of inactivity before closure, go to Support Ticket Settings at Configuration () > System Settings > Automation Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Automation Settings. Then, enter the time in hours (for example, 48 indicates two days) in Close Inactive Tickets.

When closing the ticket, WHMCS sends a Support Ticket Auto Close Notification email to the user. You can customise that email at Configuration () > System Settings > Email Templates or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Email Templates.

Automated Escalations

The status, department, and priority of a ticket can be changed automatically after a set time. For more information, see Support Ticket Escalations.

Allowed File Attachments

Support tickets allow admins and users to upload and send files.

• To configure the list of file types that users can upload, go to the Support tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings.
• Admins can upload all file types.

Ticket Attachments

Thumbnail previews of attachments display beneath the ticket message if you enable them in the Support tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings.

Attachment Forwarding

Ticket attachments will not be forwarded to staff members in notification emails. This is to prevent potentially sensitive attachments being re-transmitted via email and reduce email bandwidth consumption.

Unnamed Files and Missing Extensions

Prior to WHMCS 8.3, the system ignored attachments that did not have a filename or extension. WHMCS 8.3 and later handles these files according to this logic:

• The system converts filenames that contain special characters or are otherwise unsafe to a safe name.
• If there is not a filename, the filename will become attachment_*, incrementing * for each attachment. For example, attachment_1 and attachment_2.
• If there is no extension, the system will attempt to determine a file type.
  • If this fails, the system assigns .unknown as the extension.
  • If the system-determined extension is not in this list of extensions, the system will ignore the file.

Ticket Reply Badges

Every ticket reply includes a badge based on the correspondent's email address, the associated account for the ticket, and the WHMCS system:

• Authorized User indicates a user who is associated with the account but is not the account owner.
• Registered User indicates a user who can log in to the WHMCS Client Area but who is not associated with the account and is not the account owner. (This was External User in WHMCS 8.1 and earlier.)
• Guest indicates an email address that is not associated with any account, user, or contact in WHMCS.
  • If the submitter exists on multiple client accounts, the system cannot automatically determine the correct account and will assign a Guest badge to the ticket. The ticket can then be assigned to a client account from the Admin Area via the Options tab on the ticket.
• Owner indicates the user who is the account owner.
• Operator indicates a WHMCS admin user.
• Sub-account indicates an address in the account's list of contacts.

For more information about users, accounts, and account owners, see Users and Accounts.

Ticket Watchers

Any admin-level user with access to view a support ticket can watch the ticket. Watching a ticket subscribes the admin user to email notifications of any replies, notes, or changes to the ticket options.

To watch a ticket, click Watch Ticket in the admin area ticket sidebar.

An email notification be generated for any of the following actions:

• A client or user posting a reply.
• Another admin user posting a reply.
• Another admin user posting a ticket note.
• A change of ticket options by another admin user.
• A ticket being assigned to your admin user.
• A closure of the ticket by the client or user.

For a full overview of support ticket notifications, including ticket watcher notifications, see Ticket Notifications.

An admin user can unsubscribe from receiving notifications for a ticket at any time by clicking Unwatch Ticket. This is only visible in tickets that the admin user is currently watching.

Ticket Collision Detection

Collision detection prevents you from replying to a ticket or making changes when the status of a ticket has changed since you originally opened it.

Example
You open the ticket at 10:45am. You begin to type a reply but, before you finish, you become distracted. You return to the ticket 15 minutes later. You submit your reply, not realising that, in the lapsed time, another member of staff has already replied to the ticket. The collision detection will alert you to this before sending the reply to the customer, avoiding the confusing extra reply.

You will receive a warning message if any changes have been made to a ticket when performing any of the following actions:

• Change of department.
• Change of assignment or flagged user.
• Change of priority.
• Change of status.
• Submitting a reply.
• Making a change to the ticket options.

The alert you receive will provide details about what has changed and ask you to confirm whether you wish to continue.

The following attributes of a ticket will trigger a collision detection warning:

• Department
• Ticket Subject
• Ticket Priority
• Assigned Client
• Assigned Admin User
• CC Recipients
• Last Reply Time
• Ticket Status

Email Piping and Importing

You can automatically send user emails into the ticket system as tickets and ticket replies. To do this, you will need to either pipe or import the email into WHMCS (email piping and email importing).

• For more information about email piping, see Email Piping.
• For more information about email importing, see Email Importing.