What are the Ticket Associates?

What are the Ticket Associates?

Ticket associates are entities that are relevant to your tickets and most importantly, be linked with the other standard modules in your helpdesk. The associates provide contextual information about a ticket like ticket activity, pending tasks, supportive files, resolutions and the likes. 
Here are the associates that are part of a ticket:
  1. History
  2. Approval
  3. Resolution
  4. Task 
  5. Time Entry
  6. Attachment
Let us look into each of these sub-tabs in more details. 

Ticket History
The history or the audit trail is a chronological sequence of activities that has happened on a ticket. It helps you to track the entire gamut of actions that were performed by an agent or otherwise automated in a from opening a ticket to its closure.

Here is how a ticket's first event is recorded in its history:



All of the following events, but not limited to are recorded into a ticket: 
  • Agent activities like sending a reply, editing ticket properties, changing ownership, applying a macro etc.,
  • Customer activities like responding to their ticket, receiving an email notification, updating ticket properties etc.,
  • Automated actions like a workflow trigger, applying an assignment rule, SLA alerts etc.,
To view ticket's history:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view.
  2. Click History from the top tab to view the ticket's audit trail. 


Submit for Approval
More often than not, your agents will not be the decision making authority over certain customer requests. For example, most businesses would not entertain warranty for wear and tear parts. However a customer would have just purchased a product and had requested to replace a part which is categorized as wear and tear. In this case, the agents cannot make a decision by themselves but will have to get approval from the higher-ups. The approval feature in Zoho Desk allows you handle this case with ease. 

To submit a ticket for approval:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view.
  2. Click Approve from the top tab.
  3. In the Approval page, click Send for Approval or the  icon. 
  4. Enter the To Address (supervisor), Subject and Description for the request. 
  5. Click Submit for Approval.


The status of an approval will continue to be displayed as Pending. Meanwhile, the supervisor will receive an email with a link to the ticket. He or she can Approve or Reject the request from within the ticket. 



Resolution 
After your agents have closed a ticket, they can enter the resolution that has helped to solve the customers request. This will help the other agents who might encounter similar requests in future. While adding a resolution, your agents can choose to post the same as an article in the Help Center. 

To enter a resolution:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view.
  2. Click Resolution from the top tab.
  3. Enter the resolution for the ticket. 
  4. Click Save or Save and Add Solution.
When you click Save and Add Solution, you will be taken to the Add Article page.  After adding a resolution you can click  icon to edit or delete the same. 
A resolution can also be shared to a customer right away. For example, instead of drafting an email reply, your agents can quickly fill the resolution field and enable the Notify Contact check-box. Please note that you cannot add more than one resolution for a ticket. 

Tasks
A task is a specific piece of work required to be done within a given time frame. They are listed in the Zoho Desk's home page as a module and in the ticket's detail page of an agent. You can add tasks for a ticket or a create a stand-alone task. 

To add a task for a ticket:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view. 
  2. Click Task from the top tab.
  3. Click Add a Task link or the  icon. 
  4. In the Add Task page, specify the task details.
  5. Click Submit to create a new task.
Note:
  • By default, the task creator will be set as the task owner. You can use the drop-down or the search bar to assign tasks to agents. 
  • Create reminders for tasks and get a notification at the time you want. Reminders will alert you through email, SMS or a browser pop. The reminder date and time should be less than the due date of the task. Also, you can set the reminder only if you have specified a due date..
  • The agents will be notified through email, when a task is assigned for them.
Closing Tasks

Tasks will be closed, only when the Status of the task is updated as Completed.

To close a task:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view. 
  2. Click Task from the top tab.
  3. From the Task List view, hover your mouse over a task and click the Complete icon(as in the image below). 
The task will be set as completed. 


Time Entry
The time entry module allows your agents to enter the time they spend while working on their tickets. Support Managers can later generate a report to review and analyze the time spent during specific periods. 

The time entry module will come handy for analyzing certain key helpdesk metrics like:
  • Track the time spent for each of the tickets received in your help desk.
  • Track the total billable hours of an agent during specific periods. Say in a week or a month. 
  • Review the total support costs per agent or that of a customer account.
  • Export the report data in .CSV format to generate invoice and bill customer accounts. 
To add a time entry:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view. 
  2. Click Time Entry from the top tab.
  3. Click Add a Time Entry link or the  icon. 
  4. In the Add Time Entry page, specify the time spent along with the costs. 
  5. Click Submit to add a new time entry. 
To edit a time entry:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view. 
  2. Click Time Entry from the top tab.
  3. Hover your mouse pointer over an entry and click  icon. 
  4. Make the necessary changes to the time entry and click Save. 
To delete a time entry:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view. 
  2. Click Time Entry from the top tab.
  3. Hover your mouse pointer over an entry and click  icon. 
  4. Click Ok to delete. 
Attachments
File attachments are documents, such as Customer Support Collateral, Support Quotes/Invoices, SLAs, and others that can be associated to the tickets and can be viewed by your customers from their web portal. 

To upload an attachment:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view. 
  2. Click Attachment from the top tab.
  3. Click Add an Attachment link or the  icon. 
  4. Select the file to be uploaded. 
A file when attached will be set as Public and can be viewed by your end-users. You can click the  icon to set the attachment as Private. 

To delete an attachment:
  1. Open a ticket in its detail view. 
  2. Click Attachment from the top tab.
  3. Click the  icon next to the attachment and then click Delete from the drop menu. 
In each ticket, you can either upload a single file or multiple files but the size of each of your file should not exceed 20MB.