This article covers how to create a ticket in Support Pal

When a customer calls in requesting to speak with a specific technician or are in need of immediate support, you will need to create a ticket to track the service request. In most cases, the technician is already waiting for the call in which case you can transfer the call immediately. In other cases, the team is already assisting other customers or has a booked schedule. Creating a ticket is the most efficient way to communicate with the team that service is needed and to track calls, messages and service completion.

Simply posting a message in Slack is not the best option. Messages can be missed with all the channels we have for different items to be addressed. A ticket allows the customer to receive messages and updates as the technicians become available.

SupportPal is not a substitute for creating a Work Order for services provided. This is a means of tracking communications regarding services to be or being rendered. Work Orders still need to be created for bill processing and accurate service history.

In the Procedure- Ticket Maintenance you will learn how to navigate the system from login to replying to tickets.

Opening a Ticket

You will need access to SupportPal and Slack. If you currently do not have access to either progra, please contact Admin. to request access to these programs.

Once you have access to SupportPal, sign in to the system. After logging in you will be taken to the landing page, similar to the one shown below. Your landing page may look slightly different based on mode preference and sorting selected.

To open a ticket, you will click on Tickets in the top left corner of the screen. A dropdown menu will appear with options to view your recently viewed tickets and recent departments viewed. The second to last option will be Open New Ticket. Click this option from the dropdown menu.

You will then load into a new page. On this page, you will need to select the correct department for the ticket to be created in, i.e PC Care, BizCare, NetCare, etc. There are multiple options to choose from. Click the Department dropdown menu to view all available options.

In the Ticket Type section you will see two options: User Ticket & Internal Ticket. As the description details, _User Tickets_ are made on behalf of a new or existing customer that will be sent directly to the customer with the email address you enter and _Internal Tickets_ are made for staff members only, stay within the system and are associated with your user and assigned team members.

User Ticket

When creating a User Ticket, you will need to have the customer’s email address and telephone number available. The email address will be used to send correspondence in and out of the system. By default, Existing User* *is selected. As you are entering the email address or customer name into the text field, available options that match your text will appear.

If the user you are looking for does not automatically appear it is safe to assume that this customer has submitted a ticket previously. In this case, create a New User. You will be prompted to enter all relevant information as shown below:

Once you have the customer information set, click Continue at the bottom left of the screen. The next page will look like a broken down email. In essence that is what you are preparing to send, an email.

You will change the following items down the page. Use the image above for reference:

1. Department: will remain the same as it is prefilled based on what you selected on the previous screen. If you need to change it, go back to the landing page of SupportPal and go through the steps again.
2. Status: set to Open
3. Priority: change this based on the department type selected. BizCare customers should be set to _Important_ especially in outage situations. All other customers, who have not approved Urgent Service, should be left as _Standard_.
4. Tags: leave blank
5. Assigned To: by default, this is filled with team members assigned to the department that was selected. If there is a team member not listed in this section that should be made aware of the situation, start typing their name to populate their tag. Click on their name to assign them to the ticket.
6. Subject: as you would with any other email, enter a quick subject line that briefly describes the content to be addressed in the body.
   1. For Example, if a customer calls in about emails not sending or receiving the subject would be _Email Issues_.
   2. Review Policy- Email Etiquette for additional guidance on how to professionally send emails.
7. Message: In this section give a brief summary of the call taken. Begin with addressing the customer and stating, “_This ticket is being opened on your behalf based on our conversation.”_ or similar to this. Sum up the conversation and add their telephone number as cb#NUMBER. This gives the customer the opportunity to correct the number we have should it have changed or was not taken down correctly.
8. Attachments: if there are any documents that need to be referenced please attach them to the ticket if you have them available.
9. Client Contract: some departments will require you to answer if the customer has an existing contract with us.

After following the above steps, give the ticket one final review before clicking Submit in the bottom left corner. If done correctly you will load into the ticket system viewing the ticket you just created.

Internal Ticket

When creating an Internal Ticket, there are a few less steps than creating a User ticket. Firstly, you won’t need to add customer information before moving on to editing the body of the message you are posting.

Where they are similar is after you click Continue at the bottom left of the screen. You will be taken to the next page which looks identical to the User Ticket.

You will change the following items down the page. Use the image above for reference:

10. Department: will remain the same as it is prefilled based on what you selected on the previous screen. If you need to change it, go back to the landing page of SupportPal and go through the steps again.
11. Status: set to Open
12. Priority: change based on the urgency of response needed.
13. Tags: leave blank
14. Assigned To: by default, this is filled with team members assigned to the department that was selected. If there is a team member not listed in this section that should be made aware of the situation, start typing their name to populate their tag. Click on their name to assign them to the ticket.
15. Subject: as you would with any other email, enter a quick subject line that briefly describes the content to be addressed in the body.
    3. For Example, if a customer calls in about emails not sending or receiving the subject would be _Email Issues_.
    4. Review Policy- Email Etiquette for additional guidance on how to professionally send emails.
16. Message: be as detailed as possible in this section. You can use abbreviations and short-hand to convey your message. This is a message that stays within the company so you can add details that you would otherwise not use in a public message, such as “_cx was loud and irate during call” or “cx is hard of hearing, speak loudly if called”_ etc. These items are usually relegated to private notes but can be used here.
17. Attachments: if there are any documents that need to be referenced please attach them to the ticket if you have them available.

After following the above steps, give the ticket one final review before clicking Submit in the bottom left corner. If done correctly you will load into the ticket system viewing the ticket you just created which will look like this:

Notice the red tag. If this is not present, the ticket has been created as a User Ticket.

References

Support Pal

Policy- Email Etiquette