Continuity when linking tickets

[Mothra]

Agent users have frequently asked me if there's an easier way to create a new ticket that is linked to the one they're currently working on. This happens if working on a support request where they have to contact a 3rd party and discuss information the customer should not see (such as detailed network/firewall discussions).

In this case, a separate email ticket is raised, which the customer cannot see, as it has a different "customer" (and in this case, whoever deals with network/firewall requests). For the convenience of the Agent, the tickets are linked together, but the customer can only see their own original ticket.

Right now, they have to:

1. copy the ticket number and data from the original ticket into a text editor
2. open a new email ticket
3. Paste in the relevant data
4. Submit the ticket
5. Click on the link to the new ticket
6. Click the link button
7. Search for the original ticket number (by copying back out of the text editor)
8. Link as "parent", "child" or whatever

This is quite a convoluted process - has anyone managed to come up with a quicker way of doing this?

[crythias]

Did you try clicking "split" on the ticket?

[Mothra]

Did you try clicking "split" on the ticket?

Yes, but seems only to create a duplicate inbound ticket, whereas what I am trying to do is create an outbound ticket off the back of the original inbound... if that makes sense?

[crythias]

OK, but for simplicity, clicking split and changing the customer of the split ticket should be enough so party #2 knows everything that he needs to know with regard to the ticket. Note Internal still is agent-only.

[Mothra]

It's party #3 that needs to receive an email though, what I've got is:

#1 Agent
#2 Customer with access to customer.pl UI
#3 External resource whose only contact is via email.

So... #2 raises new ticket, #1 views ticket and decides he needs the help of #3. Discussion between #1 and #3 needs to be out of sight to the customer, but easily traceable for #1.

[crythias]

#3 is the customer for the split ticket, or am I missing something more obvious?

[Mothra]

#3 is the customer for the split ticket, or am I missing something more obvious?

Well, that's one way of looking at it, but the problem is that because the split ticket is really just another inbound Phone Ticket; therefore it can only be seen by people who log into OTRS (one way or another).

What would be nice would be the ability to split a ticket to an Email Ticket. I may suggest it as an enhancement request, although I expect they may be getting pretty sick of me by now, I've been logging loads of bugs and enhancement requests recently.

[crythias]

I must indeed be missing something. When you split the ticket, your next step after assigning customer is creating a default response to the new customer... "See below for the history of the ticket... we need to decide blah blah blah. What would you charge us? " which doesn't require login to respond from #3. Or are you saying create response isn't an option?

[Mothra]

I must indeed be missing something. When you split the ticket, your next step after assigning customer is creating a default response to the new customer... "See below for the history of the ticket... we need to decide blah blah blah. What would you charge us? " which doesn't require login to respond from #3. Or are you saying create response isn't an option?

Hmm... maybe I've missed something then. I'll give it another go, but it still feels very much like a workaround, as Phone Tickets and Email Tickets are pretty much opposites, and it is the latter type that would normally be appropriate for the scenario I'm describing above.

Thanks for your help though

[crythias]

I didn't consider Phone and Email tickets to be opposites. They'd be the same thing, just different ways to arrive. The difference would be that for email tickets you'd send an email telling the person you created a ticket for them, and for a phone ticket, they wouldn't get an email. Aside from CC/BCC stuff, they're the same thing, as far as I am able to discern. Both Email and Phone come *from* a customer *to* a Queue.

In some ways, it's probably not even worth having two separate forms..

[Mothra]

I didn't consider Phone and Email tickets to be opposites. They'd be the same thing, just different ways to arrive. The difference would be that for email tickets you'd send an email telling the person you created a ticket for them, and for a phone ticket, they wouldn't get an email. Aside from CC/BCC stuff, they're the same thing, as far as I am able to discern. Both Email and Phone come *from* a customer *to* a Queue.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you there. Maybe your OTRS installation differs from mine (vanilla install of 3.03), but you should take another look at the Email Ticket form - the *from* is a drop-down list from which I can only choose queues and the *to* is a blank text field where I can enter any email address I want... in other words, the complete reverse of a Phone Ticket. Also, there are no CC or BCC fields in a Phone Ticket form.

[EDIT: Yeah, now I'm getting confused!]

I do however agree that I could create a Phone Ticket and then immediately go into that ticket and do a reply (and perhaps edit out the "RE:" part to avoid confusion for the recipient.

Additionally, check the description of Phone and Email tickets in SysConfig Ticket->Frontend::Agent::ModuleRegistration - it describes the former as "inbound" and the latter as "outbound".