The Ticket Actions bar in the ticket details view provides several key actions you can take on a ticket. Use these buttons to work on tickets.
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![Ticket action bar as described in the surrounding text.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk.com/data/helpdesk/attachments/production/50012603506/original/OuBOYLxzzm7o7735aXr2--YOrWWhDFq_hg.png?1722319448)
From left to right, the action bar contains:
- Watch icon: Receive email notifications when a ticket is updated.
- Reply: Add a response to the ticket.
- Add note: Add a public or private note to the ticket.
- Forward: Send the ticket to a third party.
- Close: Change the ticket status to Closed.
- Merge: Merge two or more tickets into one.
- Delete: Delete an obsolete ticket.
- More actions (Overflow menu): Contains more ticket actions.
Each action is explained in detail below.
Watch a ticket
You may need to track important tickets, even if they’re not assigned to you. Becoming a watcher means you’ll receive email notifications every time a ticket is updated.
Click the Watch button to view the list of agents watching the ticket. Within the popup, click Add me to add yourself to the list. You can also use the Search bar to add other agents to the watch list.
Tip: The “Tickets I’m Watching” view on the Tickets tab shows you a list of all the tickets you’re watching.
To remove yourself from a watch list, click the Minus symbol next to your name in the list. You cannot remove other agents from the list.
Reply to a ticket
Use the Reply button to respond to your customer queries. When you click on it, it initiates a text editor similar to an email editor. You can:
- Format your text using common options such as bold, italics, underline, text color, and lists
- Add tables, links, images, and code blocks
- Insert solution articles, canned responses, and canned forms
- Attach files and more
Archiving old tickets still ensures attachments remain accessible, as emails and attachments don't expire.
The options in your editor change with the source of your tickets. For example, channels like Facebook do not allow formatted replies.
Note: Admins can enable an option called ‘Font preference for agents’, which allows agents to choose font family and size in their replies. To enable this, navigate to Admin > Account > Helpdesk Settings and toggle on the option.
Draft responses are automatically saved (every ~30 seconds) as you type them, but are deleted after 24 hours if unused.
Creating and using canned responses
Canned responses are response templates that you can quickly insert into a ticket. Admins can create global canned responses for the entire organization while agents can create personal responses accessible only to them.
To create canned responses:
- Go to Admin | Agent Productivity | Canned Responses.
- Click New Canned Response.
- Enter a suitable title in “Response title” and the exact content in “Message”.
- You can use placeholders in the message to insert dynamic content, e.g. Name of the customer, public URL of the ticket, etc.
- You can attach files to the canned response.
- Click Save.
To insert a canned response in a ticket:
- Click Reply or Add note to start a response to the ticket.
- Click on the Canned response button.
- Choose a response from the panel. Your personal responses are in the Personal folder.
- Click the Insert canned response button to add it to your existing email body, or click the Replace canned response button to erase the message body before adding it.
Quick actions in replies
- Type /c into the reply body to insert a canned response without replacement. Use the search popup to find the right canned response.
- Type /s into the reply body to insert a solution article. Use the search popup to find the right article.
Undo send
This feature is available from the Growth plan onwards.
After sending an email, you can cancel the action within 10 seconds. To enable this:
- As an agent, click your profile in the top right corner and select Profile settings.
- Enable the Undo send toggle and click Save.
You will start seeing the Undo option after you send a reply.
Add notes to a ticket
Use the Add note button to insert a note that allows you to discuss a ticket with other agents, share progress, or log updates for future reference. Similar to a reply, you can use rich text formatting and attach files to the note.
Each note is marked as either Public or Private.
- Public notes are accessible to the requester within their support portal but do not trigger an email notification.
Private notes are only accessible to agents within your organization, as long as they have proper access.
Tip: In private notes, you can tag agents to send them an email notification. Use the Notify to field or type @ within the note to select an agent. Note that restricted agents, even if tagged, cannot view the ticket.
Forward a ticket to a third-party
Use the Forward button to send a ticket to third-party vendors or external users. While forwarding the ticket, you can attach files and add the ticket URL to the email body if necessary.
Any subsequent replies from the recipient will be added as a private note in the ticket. You can further respond to these replies and continue the conversation in the ticket thread.
Warning: The Forward option will only forward the last 4 interactions in the ticket. You can also forward an individual reply from the ticket. However, you cannot forward private notes added to the ticket.
Merge two or more tickets
A customer might contact you through multiple channels or via multiple members of their team. Such tickets should be merged into one.
Warning: The merge action is irreversible.
When you merge tickets, the following things happen:
- You choose one ticket to become the primary ticket. The others become secondary.
- You choose whether to retain all requesters and CC emails from the secondary tickets.
- All conversations from secondary tickets are moved into the primary and sorted chronologically.
- A note is added to all secondary tickets linking to the primary. If the note is public, the requesters might receive an email notification about the merge.
- All secondary tickets are closed.
Any of the default roles can merge tickets. Custom roles will need the “Merge/split a ticket” permission. To merge tickets:
- From the action bar, click Merge.
- In the dialog that pops up, add more tickets to the merge using the Search bar and dropdown, or remove tickets by clicking the Minus icon.
- Review which ticket is marked as primary.
- Optionally, check the checkbox to “Add secondary ticket recipients to CC” and click Continue.
- From the next screen, review the hierarchy of the tickets and the notes added to each by clicking “Edit note” or the Pencil button. You can also mark notes as public.
- Click Merge. This is irreversible.
Secondary tickets will disappear from the ticket list view. When you open the primary ticket, you’ll see private notes indicating the merge and containing all conversations from the secondary tickets.
Tips:
- You can also merge tickets from the Tickets tab. Select the tickets to merge using the checkboxes to the left and follow the procedure as described above.
- You can also merge tickets with association types like Parent, Child, or Related.
Automation scenarios on ticket merge
Warning: If you have an automation rule to notify requesters when a ticket is closed, a ticket merge will trigger that notification. To avoid this:
- Go to Admin | Workflows | Automations and click the Ticket Updates tab.
- Click New Rule and set the following rules.
- Involves any of these events: "Status is changed" from "Any status" to "Closed"
- On tickets with these properties: "In Tickets", if "Ticket is merged?" is "false"
- Perform these actions: "Send email to requester"
- Fill out any remaining fields and save your automation.
More actions
Other common actions are contained in the overflow (triple dot) menu. These actions include:
- Edit ticket details
- Print the ticket
- Mark the ticket as spam
The Edit ticket details option lets you modify a ticket's Contact, Subject, and Description.
This menu might have more features based on your plan and apps.