Ticket Statuses

Ticket Statuses


Much of the information regarding customer needs and issues is communicated between team members via tickets. For this reason, it's critically important that ticket statuses and notes are always kept up to date. Every resource on a given ticket is responsible for making sure any new information of which they become aware is added to the ticket. This information may require a ticket note, or a ticket status change, or both. This article discussed ticket statuses. 


Alert
It is the responsibility of the team member who is the primary resource on the ticket to keep the ticket up to date; however, any team member who has new information or performs tasks on a ticket is responsible for updating the ticket to reflect that. 



  • When a ticket is first created, its default status is "NEW". Depending on the nature of the ticket, either the office admin will get it scheduled, or a technician should take it over directly.


The following are ticket types that default to status NEW that should be addressed directly by a tech urgently by calling the ticket in the Slack #all_ggit channel:

    • Tickets that come into the Slack #idle-and-escalated-help-desk-tickets channel
    • Tickets that come into the Slack #todyl-high-alerts channel


The following are ticket types that should be addressed directly by a tech promptly as soon as time permits

    • Tickets that go to the General Technician queue such as disk space alerts, disk corruption alerts, etc. 


  • Admin needs to take action – use status “FOLLOW UP NEEDED: ADMIN.” Add a note indicating what needs to be done and who is to do it. You should generally alert the admin via a note that includes an email notification. (Tip: Use the Ticket Template 008 "Tech Handoff to Office Admin.")

  • Primary resource on the ticket needs to take action – use status “Follow Up Needed: Resource.” Add a note indicating what needs to be done . You should generally alert the team member via a note that includes an email notification. If this status is set, it is the responsibility of the primary resource on the ticket (whether office admin or technician) to take the next steps on this ticket, whether administrative or technical.


  • We are waiting to hear back from the customer - use status WAITING CUSTOMER. (This status triggers an Autotask workflow rule after five days which sends a reminder to the customer that we are waiting to hear from them). Do not use this status after sending a TimeZest scheduling link. Use SCHEDULING LINK SENT. 

  • We are waiting until an item arrives that the customer ordered before further action can be taken – use status “WAITING CUSTOMER.” Don't use Waiting Vendor because we do not have a direct relationship with the vendor. We are waiting for the customer. 

  • We have sent a scheduling link to a customer so they can schedule work. Use status SCHEDULING LINK SENT. Note: If TimeZest sends the scheduling link, this status will be set by TimeZest. If, instead, you include the scheduling link in a ticket note to the customer, you must set the status to SCHEDULING LINK SENT manually. TZ will not do it because you are bypassing the TZ integration. 

  • When the ticket has been completed and all checklist items (if any) have been checked off - use status "COMPLETE." Please note that if the User-defined field "Time Entries Done" is set to Time Entries Not Completed, then the ticket will re-open automatically. 

  • When the ticket needs to be addressed at a later date - use status "DEFERRED" and set the due date for the date it needs to be addressed. If the due date isn't updated, the ticket can get lost indefinitely. (Unfortunately there is no way to set a workflow rule in AT to account for this.) Shortly before the due date, a workflow rule will fire so that the primary resource will receive a reminder and the status will update to Follow-Up Needed - Resource

Warning
YOU MUST UPDATE THE DUE DATE WHEN DEFERRING A TICKET. If you don't update the due date, the ticket can get lost indefinitely. 


  • When a ticket is in the initial stages of being evaluated (triaged), but we want to indicate that we are paying attention to it so someone else doesn't take it, use status "IN PROGRESS." This status should be used only for short periods of time while you are actively working the ticket. Do not "leave" a ticket in this status. 

  • We're waiting for payment before we can further action the ticket. Use "PENDING PAYMENT."



Idea
Helpful Tip: The Waiting Customer and Complete statuses can be conveniently set by sending an email note. See instructions.
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  • We are working on it – no specific appointment. This is for work assigned to a tech does not require any interaction with the customer and does not need to be scheduled because it can be done as soon as time permits (e.g., backup checks, minor background projects). The ticket contact will NOT be notified – use status “No Appt Needed - To Do” and move to assigned tech's TODO queue. Note that there are ticket templates available to set all the fields correctly when adding a ticket to a tech's TODO queue. It's safest to use them. 

  • We've scheduled the work but it's done behind the scenes so we don't need to schedule at all with the customer, use Scheduled. (This will be set automatically if you use TimeZest to schedule the work.) 

  • The customer doesn't need to be there but does need to stay off the machine. They don't need to call in. Use Scheduled(This will be set automatically if you use TimeZest to have the customer schedule the work.) 

  • Ticket has been completed. Use COMPLETE. (Generally, the ticket contact will receive an email via a workflow rule notifying them that the ticket is complete.)
  • We are waiting until an item that we ordered arrives before further action can be taken. Use status “WAITING VENDOR. Vendor in this context refers to a seller of goods such as hardware or software to us, not directly to customer. This status is for when we're waiting for our vendor, not the customer's vendor. In the latter case we use the "waiting customer" status.

  • User missed an appointment. Tech should use status NO-SHOW: remote customer and cancel the service call. To learn how to cancel, see: Service Call (Appointment) Scheduling Procedure

    (When this status is set, a workflow rule will fire which sends an email to the ticket contact informing them they missed the appointment.)

Info
More tips on handling late call-ins are here

Don't Use These Statuses

There are several statuses that we should never manually set. They should be set only by workflow rules or APIs. They include: 
  1. Note Emailed In
  2. Incomplete - Re-opened (triggered when ticket status is set to complete but a checklist item is not complete)
  3. Customer or tech says close (triggered by the words "is resolved" in the subject of a note mailed into the ticket)
  4. New (used by AT when ticket is first created)
  5. Received Form Response (Set when new user form is submitted and emailed from GGIT web site to the ticket.) 
  6. Sent from MC (Set by Mission Control when they escalate a ticket to us.) 
  7. Out of Scope (Set by Mission Control when they escalate a ticket to us.) 
  8. MC No Contact (Set by Mission Control when they escalate a ticket to us because the user has not responded to their contact attempts. Our Workflow Rule will auto-set this to waiting customer.) 
Generally you should not see the categories above in the status drop-down list. 

Notes
The choice of which statuses you have access is in a given ticket is based on the the ticket category. If you are unable to see a status that you feel you need to use, you probably need to change the ticket category. If that is not the case, please notify Roberta so she can correct the status visibility issue.