Tickets

Support Operations documentation page for Zendesk tickets

How do we maintain them?

We currently maintain all groups via Zendesk itself.

Zendesk Global ticket settings

  • Comments

    • Formatting options for agents: Markdown
    • Enable emoji text replacement
    • Agent comments via web are public by default
    • Agent comments via email are public by default

  • Attachments

    • Customers can attach files
    • Require authentication to download

  • Tags

    • Enable tags on tickets

  • CCs

    • Enable CCs on tickets
    • Enable CCs for end users on Help Center
    • CC blacklist: noreply@google.com
    • CC email subject: [{{ticket.account}}] Update: {{ticket.title}}
    • CC email text:

      You are registered as a CC on this support request ({{ticket.link}}). Reply to this email to add a comment to the request.

      {{ticket.comments_formatted}}

  • Assignment

    • Auto-assign tickets upon solve
    • Allow re-assignment back to the general group

  • Suspended Ticket Notifications

    • How often you want to receive email about new suspended tickets. Never

  • Ticket IDs: 161869

  • Side conversations

    • Enable Slack

Zendesk Us Federal ticket settings

  • Comments

    • Formatting options for agents: Markdown
    • Enable emoji text replacement
    • Agent comments via web are public by default
    • Agent comments via email are public by default

  • Attachments

    • Customers can attach files
    • Require authentication to download

  • Tags

    • Enable tags on tickets

  • CCs

    • Enable followers
    • Follower email subject: {{ticket.title}}
    • Follower email template

      You are a follower on this request ({{ticket.id}}). {{ticket.follower_reply_type_message}}

      {{ticket.comments_formatted}}

  • Requester

    • Agents can change requester

  • Assignment

    • Auto-assign tickets upon solve
    • Allow re-assignment back to the general group

  • Suspended Ticket Notifications

    • How often you want to receive email about new suspended tickets. Never

Ticket statuses

As per Zendesk the various status are defined as:

  • New
    • This indicates that no action has been taken on the ticket. Once a New ticket’s status has been changed, it can never be set back to New.
  • Open
    • This indicates that the ticket is waiting for action by the agent.
  • Pending
    • This indicates that the agent is waiting for more information from the requester. When the requester responds and a new comment is added, the ticket status is automatically reset to Open.
  • On-hold
    • This indicates that the agent is waiting for information or action from someone other than the requester. It is similar to the Pending status in that you as an agent can’t proceed with resolving the ticket until you receive more information from someone else. However, the On-hold is an internal status that the ticket requester never sees. While a ticket is set to On-hold, the requester sees the status as Open.
  • Solved
    • This indicates that the agent has submitted a solution or the end-user has marked it as such. A solved ticket can still be edited or re-opened.
  • Closed
    • This indicates that the ticket is in a state where it can no longer receive updates. Replying to a closed ticket opens a follow-up ticket, which contains all previous tags and links to the previous ticket.

At GitLab, we define them a bit differently:

  • New
    • This is a new ticket. This means it has not yet been worked by GitLab.
  • Open
    • This means the ticket is awaiting our reply.
  • Pending
    • This means we are waiting on the end-user to reply. We should only use this specifically when the user will reply back to the ticket (or it will auto-solve). If you need to keep a ticket in a “pending” like state for lengthy periods of time, use On-hold.
  • On-hold
    • This means the end-user is waiting on us, but we are waiting on something that is blocking us from replying. We should only be using this in situations where we are waiting on something such as a different department, time to pass (namesquatting requests as an example), or some other criteria that fits along the same concept.
  • Solved
    • This means the ticket has been resolved, but the end-user might come back to us.
  • Closed
    • We use them exactly as Zendesk defines them.

Basic status state flowchart

flowchart LR
  ASSIGNED-->OPEN
  CUSTOMER_REPLY-->OPEN
  DEV_PULSE-->ONHOLD_SPECIAL
  HOLDING_REPLY-->ONHOLD
  ISSUE_MR_UPDATED-->OPEN
  NEW-->ASSIGNED
  NEW-->DEV_PULSE
  NEW-->HOLDING_REPLY
  NEW-->STANDARD_REPLY
  NEW-->TASK_REPLY
  ONHOLD-->CUSTOMER_REPLY
  ONHOLD-->DEV_PULSE
  ONHOLD_SPECIAL-->ISSUE_MR_UPDATED
  ONHOLD-->TIME_PASSES_4
  ONHOLD-->TIME_PASSES_DUE_DATE
  ONHOLD-->TIME_PASSES_NAMESQUATTING_7
  OPEN-->DEV_PULSE
  OPEN-->HOLDING_REPLY
  OPEN-->STANDARD_REPLY
  OPEN-->TASK_REPLY
  PENDING-->CUSTOMER_REPLY
  PENDING-->DEV_PULSE
  PENDING-->TIME_PASSES_14
  SOLVED-->CUSTOMER_REPLY
  SOLVED-->DEV_PULSE
  STANDARD_REPLY-->PENDING
  SOLVED-->TIME_PASSED_7
  TASK_REPLY-->ONHOLD
  TIME_PASSED_7-->CLOSED
  TIME_PASSES_14-->SOLVED
  TIME_PASSES_4-->OPEN
  TIME_PASSES_DUE_DATE-->OPEN
  TIME_PASSES_NAMESQUATTING_7-->OPEN

  ASSIGNED[Ticket is<br />assigned]
  CLOSED[Status:<br />Closed]
  CUSTOMER_REPLY[Customer replies]
  DEV_PULSE[Agent activates<br />Dev Pulse]
  HOLDING_REPLY[Agent sends<br />standard<br />holding reply]
  ISSUE_MR_UPDATED[Linked issue/MR<br />reaches needed<br />state]
  NEW{Status:<br />New}
  ONHOLD_SPECIAL{"Status:<br />On-hold<br />(Dev Pulse)"}
  ONHOLD{Status:<br />On-hold}
  OPEN{Status:<br />Open}
  PENDING{Status:<br />Pending}
  SOLVED{Status:<br />Solved}
  STANDARD_REPLY[Agent sends<br />standard reply]
  TASK_REPLY[Agent sends task<br />holding reply]
  TIME_PASSED_7[7 days pass]
  TIME_PASSES_14[14 days pass]
  TIME_PASSES_4[4 days pass for<br />non-namesquatting<br />ticket]
  TIME_PASSES_DUE_DATE[Time passes until<br />1 hour before<br />due date]
  TIME_PASSES_NAMESQUATTING_7[7 days pass<br />for namesquatting<br />ticket]

Manually creating tickets

The process to manually create a ticket depends largely on the type of ticket it is.

Creating tickets on behalf of customers

When creating a ticket on behalf of a customer, you have to use the Zendesk Super App to do so (namely the Create new ticket plugin). You can find more information on this via the following documentation pages:

Note This should never be used for outbound requests. See below for more info for those.

Creating tickets for outbound requests

Warning This often requires the ability to create users in Zendesk, which is only available on specific roles i.e. CMOCs. That access is very risky and should only be used as documented in this section.

Note This only applies to Zendesk Global at this time.

When you need to send an outbound request, it must be done in a very specific manner to ensure it routes properly and the end-user we wish to contact receives the correct notification.

To do this, start by hover over the + Add at the top-left of Zendesk and then click Ticket.

Manually creating a ticket 1

The first thing you need to do is select the requester. To do this, click in the text box below Requester at the top-left of the page and put the email you are looking to reach out to.

The action taken next depend on whether the user in question exists or not:

  • If the user exists, it will show said user in a drop-down (clicking said entry in the drop-down will select the user). Manually creating a ticket 2
  • If the user does not exist, no results will be found and you will need to click the + Add user link in the drop-down. Doing so will bring up a modal where you will enter the name and email of the user to create. If you are unsure of the name, it is always safest to use the email itself for both the name and email field. Click the blue Add button to create the user. Manually creating a ticket 3
    • Warning Never create a user in any other fashion. This is the one and only way a user should ever be manually created within our support system by any team other than Support Readiness. Never utilize this method when CC’ing a user.

After doing this, you should add the subject of the ticket. This should always be done via the top-center part of the page.

After filling out the subject, you now need to apply the macro General::Outbound Contact Request. This step is vital and should never be skipped. This macro will ensure the ticket is setup properly for an outbound request. Skipping this step can result in the new ticket not routing properly and encountering an untold number of problems.

Manually creating a ticket 4

After this has been done, you will then enter the description for the ticket. This is the core of the message you are wanting to send to the end-user.

Once this has been completed, the last step is to then finish creating the ticket by submitting it as pending. This is done by clicking the downward arrow at the bottom-right of the page and clicking Submit as Pending.

Manually creating a ticket 5

Change management

As the ticket settings changes are unique in deployment, please see Zendesk settings change management for more information.

Labels to use

For all issues and MRs involving Zendesk settings, the label Support-Ops-Category::Zendesk Settings should be used.

Change criticality

Due to wildly varying nature and impact adding/editing/deleting Zendesk settings can impose, all issues/MRs related to Zendesk organizations need to have the their criticality manually determined

Last modified September 4, 2024: Adding status flowchart (07beda5b)
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