Departments

Departments can be used to divide your operators, along with the tickets that each group of operators handles, into a distinct folder.

For example, there can be a Billing Department, which handles billing related tickets; a Sales Department, which handles tickets related to sales made to new and existing customers; a Technical Support Department, which handles tickets related to support for your company's products; etc.

Contents

Ordering Departments

You may wish to change the order that the departments are shown to users when opening a new ticket via the web. This can be achieved by dragging and dropping rows on the grid to the order you prefer.

Note that it is not currently possible to change the order of sub-departments.

Creating or Updating a Department

To create a new department, or update an existing one, please follow the following steps.

  1. Visit Settings -> Tickets -> Departments. If you're creating a new department click "Add Department", or if you're updating an existing department, click the edit (pencil) icon on the right side of the table row.
  2. Complete the input fields, more details on each input field described below.

Basic Settings

  1. Name
    A unique identifier for the department that will be shown to operators and users.
  2. Description
    A brief description of the types of queries you want to be created in the department, which will be shown to users opening tickets via the web.
  3. Parent Department
    If you would like the new department to be a sub-department of another department, select the parent department on the drop down list. This is useful in particular for ticket escalation.
    For example, a Technical Support Department may have a Technical Support Level 1 Department, a Technical Support Level 2 Department, etc.
    Note that sub-departments will not be available to users submitting tickets, and are used for internal ticket management only.
  4. Public
    Whether the department should be visible to users opening tickets via the web. Departments that are not visible are still accessible via email piping, and can be used internally for operators.
  5. Registered Users Only
    Only accept tickets from users who have confirmed their account in the help desk. A bounce back email is automatically sent to unregistered users, to disable this toggle the 'Registered Users Only' e-mail template under E-mail Templates below.

Optional Basic Settings

The following settings are optional, and typically used by more advanced users:

  1. Department Priorities
    Priorities that are available for users to select when opening a ticket, by default all priorities will be available. All priorities are available to operators regardless of this setting.
  2. Ticket Number Format
    If you wish to use a different ticket number format compared to the system default for this department only.

Assigned Operators

Select which operators should be able to access tickets in this department:

  1. Operator Groups
    All operators in the group will have access to tickets in the department. This is a great way to manage large teams - (if you add / remove a user from the group you won't need to update the department).
  2. Individual Operators
    Operators can be individually assigned, in addition to the above groups.
  3. Default Operator(s)
    Optionally set one or more operators who will be automatically assigned to new tickets created in the department.

Email Accounts

Set up email accounts for the department. The email addresses may be used to convert incoming email to tickets, and also sets the address on emails sent by the system for tickets in this department. Check below for the various options available:

  1. Email Piping works by handling email forwarded to the help desk by a specific URL, requires the help desk to be on the same server as the mail server. Please refer to the Email Piping documentation for instructions and configuration.
  2. Email Download checks a specified email account at specified intervals and opens new tickets for each email received to that account. Please refer to the Email Download documentation for instructions and configuration.
  3. Remote Email Piping is similar to email piping, but is used for email accounts hosted on a different server than the one running the help desk. Please refer to the Remote Email Piping documentation for instructions and configuration.

Click "Add another email address" if you would like to attach multiple email addresses to the department.

Email Options

  1. Email Users on Tickets Opened at Frontend
    Select whether users should be notified by email when they open a ticket themselves on the frontend.
  2. Email Users on Tickets Opened by Email
    Select whether users should be notified by email when an email they send results in a new ticket being opened.
  3. Notify Operators
    When operators primarily handle tickets via e-mail, its important that everyone is notified when ticket replies are made. This option will notify appropriate operators when another operator makes a reply.
  4. Disable User Email Replies
    Enable to block email replies from users, and also remove the reply clipping line from outbound ticket emails. By default, the email will be silently ignored, but you can set an email to be sent to the user by changing the selected email template for the 'Email Replies Disabled' option below.
  5. Email Display Name
    Optional, override the display name used on outgoing emails from this department e.g. From: SupportPal <[email protected]> (text in italics is the display name). By default, the display name will be configured based on the 'Include Operator Name' and 'Include Department Name' options in the General Settings.

Email Templates

You may change the e-mail templates that are sent when department-specific actions occur for both users and operators. For example, you may wish to create a unique "New Ticket Opened" e-mail for the Support department, while all other departments use the software default.

If you would like to edit a department template, we recommend to create a new Email Templates rather than editing our default templates and then select it from the dropdown for the relevant department action. Selecting "Disable" will completely stop the e-mail from being sent from the department.

Deleting a Department

Deleting a department is an irreversible action. Any tickets in the department will be deleted, we recommend to move tickets to a different department first if you wish to retain them.

To delete a department, follow the below steps:

  1. Visit Settings -> Tickets -> Departments.
  2. Search for the department you wish to delete.
  3. Click the delete (cross) icon located on the right of the table.
  4. Check all checkboxes shown, ensuring you understand that all this related data will be removed along with the department.
  5. Click on the button, "Yes, Delete Department", that pops up confirming you would like to delete this department and it will then be deleted.