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Your control panel comes with an integrated support center that allows you to
communicate your problems and questions to support staff using a web browser.
This document explains how to answer and manage trouble tickets
(further referred to as TTs) created by your customers or generated by the system,
according to the trouble ticket system's enhanced functionality implemented
in H-Sphere since version 2.4. The older version is described
here.
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New Features in Version 2.4
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New Features In Version 2.4
New trouble ticket system implemented in v.2.4 enhances the older system with the following
functionality:
- Ticket Administration Panel opens in a new window, separately from Control Panel.
- Ticket Administration Panel is equipped with the toolbar at the top of the page, and the TT statistics
table in the top left corner.
- Queues associated with separate email addresses to
distinguish tickets sent for particular purposes (e.g., billing, sysadmin, admin, migration, etc).
Queues may serve as one of search criteria for tickets;
- Ticket characteristics are added/enhanced, with possibility to search/sort tickets by these attributes:
- Status - ticket status (new, assigned, on hold, fixed, reopened, closed, etc.)
- Type - type of the ticket, in relation to the way it has been tranferred to TT system
(sent from outside, sent from the user CP, created by the admin, etc).
- Ticket priority is diversified, from 1 to 99; tickets with higher priority are moved to the top of the list.
- Sticky option allows to keep ticket assigned to the same tech support admin in case of customer' reply.
- Ticket escallation is the new feature where unanswered tickets' priority grows in the course of time.
- On the Ticket Info page (the page that appears when you open a ticket), the list of
the latest tickets from this customer or from this email address appears on top of the ticket body.
- Maximum number of tickets to be shown in the list of the
latest tickets may be set in the Settings/Tech Support menu in CP.
- Ticket IDs are now shown also on the Ticket Info page.
- In the Ticket Info page, the additional
form is provided for advanced modification of
ticket parameters, like changing the ticket's title or the sender's email address.
- On the Ticket Info page, you may change ticket properties:
1) the Login icon to proceed directly to the user's control panel;
2) the Edit icon to proceed to the user settings in the Admin panel;
3) the Change icon to choose an account to be considered in the ticket,
different from the account from where the ticket has been sent.
- UTF-8 encoding support in trouble tickets enables writing messages in different languages.
- Customers are now able to include secure PGP encrypted information
to their trouble tickets; this information would not be seen anywhere except in the admin TT panel.
Creating Accounts For Technical Support Service
Customer support is provided from two different types of accounts - Tech Support
and Tech Support Admin. You need to create one of these accounts in order to
enable your technical support system. Please consider the following:
- Tech Support - allows to answer incoming trouble tickets.
The system can have several Tech Support accounts.
Tech Support does not see the incoming trouble tickets,
unless these trouble tickets have been assigned to him by
a Tech Support Admin. Tech Support cannot reassign
trouble tickets to other support accounts.
- Tech Support Admin - allows not only to answer
incoming trouble tickets, but also to assign them to other Tech Support
accounts. The system can have several Tech Support Admins.
IMPORTANT: There must be at least one Tech Support Admin in the system!
To create a Tech Support Admin plan:
- Select Plan Creation Wizards in the INFO menu.
- Select Admin plan wizard.
- On the first step of the wizard that appears, enter the name of the
plan, Tech Support Admin. Check all the capabilities you would
like to grant to the tech support admin. Make sure to check the boxes
TroubleTicket Admin and Allow assignment of trouble tickets:
To create a Tech Support plan:
- Select Plan Creation Wizards in the INFO menu.
- Select Admin plan wizard.
- On the first step of the wizard that appears, enter the name of the
plan, Tech Support. Check all the capabilities you would like to grant
to the tech support admin. Make sure to check TroubleTicket Admin:
To create an account:
- Click Add Account in the Admin user menu:
- On the page that appears, click Select next to the Tech Support plan.
- Follow the instructions of the Signup procedure.
Ticket Administration Panel
Once you created an account, you can manage trouble tickets
through your Trouble Ticket Administration Panel (TTAP).
To enter the Trouble Ticket Administration Panel,
select Ticket Administration in the Tickets Center menu.
It will open a new window, separate from CP, with the toolbar at the top:
From the toolbar you can:
- search tickets;
- create your own tickets;
- change admin info;
- create and administrate knowledgebase system;
- add, edit or delete ticket queues.
Under the toolbar you will also see:
- Trouble tickets statistics in the left top corner:
Note: statistics show a number of tickets that were received this month,
this week, a day before and current day and also unassigned tickets.
- Quick ticket search allowing to find a ticket by its ID, title or email address.
- Highest Priority Assigned Tickets are tickets recently assigned by the support assistant.
- Newest Unassigned Tickets are the tickets arrived but not yet assigned by anybody.
Creating Trouble Tickets
As an administrator, you may need to generate your own trouble ticket.
For instance, if a trouble ticket contains several different questions
and can be assigned to different Tech Support assistants. In this case you can
create several tickets that will appear in yout trouble ticket system:
- Click Make a Ticket in the main toolbar.
- On the page that appears, compose a ticket by filling in the following TT form:
- Enter the title or the subject of the ticket message;
- Enter this user's e-mail. It is required if you want to receive an e-mail
confirmation that your trouble ticket was received by the addresee.
- Check Disable email confirmation box if you don't want to receive the e-mail confirmation upon receiving tickets.
- Choose the priority level of this ticket;
- Enter the message or the problem described;
- Priority: state how important or urgent it is for you to have this problem taken care of.
You can choose between 3 levels of priority: low, normal or high.
Important: when posting a trouble ticket, do not enter texts
in HTML. Support system will not transform it into the plain text, but
post it as it is. E.g: entering <i>problem</i> will show up
in a trouble ticket only as <i>problem</i> which will make
it difficult for TechSupport staff to read. Use it only when HTML tags are important.
- Optionally, add an attachment;
- Click Submit.
For more information, read
Support Center in the user guide.
Picking Up Trouble Tickets
Trouble tickets can be picked up (assigned) only by Tech Support Admins.
To assign a trouble ticket to a specific TechSupport assistant, do the following:
- In the Newest Unassigned Tickets section, click the Pick Up link against
a necessary ticket.
- The trouble ticket moves to the Highest Priority Assigned Tickets section.
Sorting Unassigned Trouble Tickets
It is now possible to sort unassigned tickets (see the above screenshot) by the
Title, Priority, Created, Last Modified, Type, and
Status ticket's parameters.
Click on the corresponding column headers to sort tickets in ascending/descending order.
Re-assigning Trouble Tickets
To re-assign this trouble ticket to another Tech Support assistant:
- Click the title of a Trouble Ticket.
- Select the Tech Support assistant from the Assign To drop-down box:
- Change the priority and the state of the ticket before re-assigning it, if necessary.
- Select the Sticky option if you want the ticket to remain assigned to the same tech support admin in case of client's reply.
If Sticky is not set, the ticket with customer's reply appears as "not assigned".
- Click Change.
Important: If you click Change to reassign the ticket, having an
answer or a note entered, they will be lost.
Releasing Trouble Tickets
To release a picked up ticket back to a main queue, do the following:
- Click the title of a trouble ticket.
- Click the Release button in the upper right corner of the ticket. (See the image above).
Ticket will return to the Newest Unassigned Tickets section and can be picked up again.
Answering Trouble Tickets
In the list of the tickets assigned to you, unanswered tickets
are set off in bold, answered are in normal font.
You may wish to reply to an unaswered ticket or to
reopen an already answered one.
To view or answer a trouble ticket, do the following:
- Click on the title of the ticket. You will see the ticket info:
Note: To change the
ticket's properties like the title, the customer's email
and the ticket priority, click the Additional link.
The list of the latest tickets from this customer/email address is at the top of
the ticket body:
Note: You may set the number of the latest tickets from this customer
in CP, in the Settings/Tech Support menu.
- Choose the TechSupport admin available in the system.
Note: the Assign To field appears only in the Tech Support Admin plan.
- In the E-mail CC field enter the email address for CC the answer of this trouble ticket, if necessary.
- In the Answer field enter an answer to a ticket or describe the solution of a problem.
Important: when posting an answer to a trouble ticket, do not
enter text in HTML. Support system will not transform it into the plain text,
but post it as it is. E.g: entering <i>problem</i> will show up
in a trouble ticket only as <i>problem</i> which will make it
difficult to read. Use it only when HTML tags are important.
- Enter comments for yourself and other support staff in the Notes field.
This message won't show to the customer neither in the email nor in the control
panel. If you submit a note without answering, the ticket isn't sent to a
client and does not get answered status.
- Add attachment if necessary.
- Once the ticket is completed, click Submit.
- The answered ticket would appear in the list of your assigned tickets in normal font weight
(unassigned tickets are in bold).
PGP Encryption in Trouble Tickets
Starting from v.2.4, it comes possible to include secure PGP encrypted information to trouble
tickets. This information would be seen decrypted only in the TT panel.
To be able to decode customers' encrypted inclusions, set PGP Private Key and PGP Code Phrase
in the Settings/Tech Support menu in the
admin panel, and make PGP public key available to customers to encrypt their messages.
A customer inserts an encrypted text to a trouble ticket:
TT admin would see this message as follows:
To read the encrypted text, click on the
Click here to access encrypted information link. The decrypted text would appear
in a pop-up window:
Please note that the decrypted text won't appear in your reply to the ticket.
The customer would get a reply like this:
This is a reply to the encrypted ticket.
user@example.com wrote:
> The information is | secured information | beyond the invisible
Adding Attachments
You can add it if a trouble ticket was sent to you by email.
Remember that users with web-based TechSupport system won't be able to retrieve it.
- Click Browse at the bottom of the ticket thread.
- Choose the file;
- Click Upload. The filename shows in the Attachments section.
Trouble Tickets Spellcheck
TechSupport system allows checking answers to trouble tickets for spelling. To do spellcheck:
- Click the spellcheck link under the message field. Pop-up window
shows with misspelled words, if any, being underlined:
- Point your mouse to a misspelled word and a number of suggestions shows.
- Choose the correct variant and click Done.
Closing Trouble Tickets
Once you've answered a ticket and don't need it any further, you can close
it. There are two options:
- Open a trouble ticket and once you answer it, click the Close button
in the right upper corner.
- Go to Tickets Center page and in the list of Open or Answered
Tickets, click the Close link on the right.
Closed trouble tickets are regarded as deleted and are not
available for your viewing, but remain in the TT database and remain open in the
user's interface until the user closes it (available in version 2.09 and higher,
for more information see the
Support Center chapter of the User Guide). In case the user decides to post a follow-up message
on the same issue, the TT will show up on the interface in the Open Tickets
list again. You may access closed TTs through the Search option.
Closing Trouble Tickets Automatically
You can have your trouble tickets closed automatically
after they have been answered. You can choose whether you want them to:
- close immediately after they are answered (the default H-Sphere option);
- close after a certain number of days after they are answered:
- In TechSupport Admin CP, select Tech Support in the Settings menu.
- Enter the number of days when your tickets are to be closed.
- remain in open status. If you want all answered tickets to remain open in
the system, enter -1 in the field, as shown on the image below:
Changing Trouble Tickets Properties
You can change main and additional details of a trouble ticket.
By default, main info shows in your trouble ticket.
To change the main ticket info, click the name of the trouble ticket and go to the top of page:
- Assigned to: change Tech Support Assistant the ticket is assigned to.
Note: If a ticket is assigned to "nobody", it means it's not picked up by any of tech support admins.
- The State of resolving the ticket. Setting "Resolved" or "Closed" states will remove the ticket from the list.
- The Priority of resoving this ticket from '0' to 100% by entering new priority level.
- The Change icon allows to change the ticket owner: the account this ticket is tied to.
- Click the Change icon near the account ID.
- In the Search Account window that appears,
enter your search parameters and click Submit.
- On the search result page click the Choose link against the necessary account.
Note: If you click Back from the search result page,
you will be brought back to the Ticket Info page
without changing the account this ticket was tied to.
To change additional trouble ticket info:
- Click the Additional Info link.
- Edit or enter new trouble ticket title.
- Edit or enter new email address.
- Click Change.
Searching Trouble Tickets
Among all trouble tickets received from users, you can select
those that match your specified criteria.
Trouble Ticket system allows searching tickets via Search Tickets (advanced search) and
Quick Search (directly from the TTAP)
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Searching Trouble Tickets
To perfom advanced search:
- Select Search Tickets in the toolbar. The following page will show:
- Enter or choose the search criteria.
- Click Submit.
Searching Trouble Tickets Via Quick Search
To search tickets directly from the main screen,
use the Quick Search feature under the toolbar, above the tickets.
To quick search tickets, just enter its ID, title or email address and click Search.
Mass Action
You may apply a specific command to a selected range of TTs:
- Launch the Search utility.
- Once you get tickets that match your criteria, click the
Mass Action link at the bottom of the Search Results page.
You can close, delete, or assign the selected TTs:
Version 2.3 and higher also allows mass closing and assigning tickets directly
from the main queue. To mass close/assign/delete selected tickets, do the following:
- Select Tickets Center in the Support Center menu.
- In the Newest Unassigned Tickets section, check the necessary tickets.
- On the bottom of the page, select Assign, Close or Delete option.
- Click Apply.
Deleting Trouble Tickets
When you close trouble tickets, they still remain in the database, and you
can always retrieve them with the Search Tickets utility.
To remove TTs permanently:
- Search the necessary tickets with Search Tickets option.
- Click Mass Action link at the bottom of the page.
- In the Action field, select Delete from the drop-down box.
- Click Submit and tickets will be removed permanently.
Alternatively, use Mass Action directly in the main queue of the tickets described above.
Edit TechSupport Info
Trouble tickets contain TechSupport information that shows in emails together
with your answers to customers' trouble tickets. If you want to change this info:
- Select Admin Info in the Support Center menu.
- Enter the following info:
- Full name of the TechSupport assistant shows in Assigned to
line at the beginning of the email, e.g: Assigned to: John Woods.
- Description shows in brackets next to the full name. It may contain
the position or status of the support person, e.g: John Woods (senior programmer)
- Email of Tech Support assistant.
- Signature is available in version 2.3 and higher.
It shows at the bottom of the e-mail and may contain the name of support person, company's
name and website, for example:
John Woods
Professional Hosting
www.prohost.net
- Click Submit to confirm changes.
Deleting Trouble Tickets.
When you close trouble tickets, they still remain in the database, and you
can always retrieve them with the Search Tickets utility. To remove TTs
permanently:
- Search the necessary tickets with Search Tickets option.
- Click Mass Action link at the bottom of the page.
- In the Action field, select Delete from the drop-down box.
- Click Submit and tickets will be removed permanently.
Edit TechSupport Info.
Trouble tickets contain TechSupport information that shows in emails together
with your answers to customers' trouble tickets. If you want to change this
info, select Admin Info in the Support Center menu.
- Full name of the TechSupport assistant shows in Assigned to
line at the beginning of the email, e.g: Assigned to: John Woods.
- Description shows in brackets next to the full name. It may contain
the position or status of the support person, e.g: John Woods (senior programmer)
- Email of Tech Support assistant. De facto, it is not used by H-Sphere.
- Signature is available in version 2.3 and higher. It shows at the
bottom of the e-mail and may contain the name of support person, company's
name and website, for example:
John Woods
Professional Hosting
www.prohost.net
Click Submit to confirm changes.
Ticket Queues
If you have different support departments, for instance billing, sales, and technical support,
each with its own email address, you will probably want each deparment to receive only relevant
tickets, but still have all tickets centralized in one support center. To ensure this, create
a ticket queue for each department:
- the Sales queue for tickets sent to sales@your_company.com;
- the Billing queue for tickets sent to billing@your_company.com;
- the Support queue for tickets sent to support@your_company.com.
A support admin can see and answer tickets:
- tickets in the queue he is entitled to;
- tickets in the default queue (it is seen by all support admins);
- tickets that are assigned to him regardless of the queue.
Important: Messages sent to one of these queue email addresses will appear and be processed
in your Trouble Ticket system only if these messages are redirected to the
main support e-mail address configured in the
Settings -> Tech Support menu. Thus, queue e-mail addresses should be configured
mail aliases/redirects to the main support address.
To create a ticket queue:
- Select Queue Configuration in the ticket administration toolbar:
- Click Create New Queue on the page that appears:
- Fill in the form on the next page:
- Name - the name of the queue
- E-Mail - the mailbox to be polled for this queue
- New ticket auto response and Resolved/closed ticket auto response
- autoresponse messages that will be sent to customers.
Queues may serve one of search ticket criteria in the Search Tickets form.
When you delete a queue, you will be prompted either to delete all its tickets, or move them
to another queue:
You can't delete the last queue remaining in the TT system.
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