Ticket "splitting"

[MrKurt]

I have a bunch of users who have a bad habit of just responding to the last open ticket for something completely unrelated. I'd like to be able to split tickets, or just elevate a particular response to its own ticket.

[easel]

Same here. I'd also like to be able to merge tickets. For some reason, the concept of a 'reply' is just too much for some folks.

[neenach2002]

You can merge tickets from the dashboard...

Select the tickets you want to merge, click more, then merge.

[easel]

Woo thanks! That little more button eluded me =/

[neenach2002]

Yea, it's not very prominent, is it? But I'm the type of person who clicks _everything_ I see...so naturally I almost always see everything...lol

[jstanden]

Hey there!

I'll have Joe@WGM add a feature request for 'splitting'. That's something we always meant to do (even to fix an over-eager merge).

And yeah, 'merge' is a bit buried -- but if we didn't put some of the lesser-used things in that expandable menu you'd end up with 500 options in the UI. :) It just needs better documentation, and it should be pointed out by the tour.

[neenach2002]

Hey there!

I'll have Joe@WGM add a feature request for 'splitting'. That's something we always meant to do (even to fix an over-eager merge).

And yeah, 'merge' is a bit buried -- but if we didn't put some of the lesser-used things in that expandable menu you'd end up with 500 options in the UI. :) It just needs better documentation, and it should be pointed out by the tour.

I think the tour is really REALLY awesome! If only all products could have such a thing...

[joegeck]

I went ahead and filed a request for 'ticket splitting' in our bug/improvement tracking database.

http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-248

[roustem]

We just migrated from version 3 and found that "split" functionality is not available :(

We send a newsletter to 20,000+ users and many of them reply to the newsletter message and create one huge thread. How can we handle this without splitting? I need to respond the the e-mail, is there anything we can do while the "ticket splitting" is getting implemented?

[jstanden]

Any reasonable workarounds would create far more work on your end than us implementing split on our end (e.g., editing the database directly, copying/pasting).

I'll go ahead and bump up the "Split" feature on my list since it's a quickie.

It would only take a couple minutes to implement the feature where any e-mail in a thread could spin-off into its own ticket.

It's possible down the road to implement it where you could select multiple messages and group them into a single ticket -- but in the meantime the simple workaround there is to just merge them after splitting. Adding extra steps will just delay the feature, and in most cases you'd just want to split single messages (which is the fastest thing to implement).

I'll give it a sincere effort to get this committed tonight.

Tracking: http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-248

[jstanden]

We send a newsletter to 20,000+ users and many of them reply to the newsletter message and create one huge thread. How can we handle this without splitting? I need to respond the the e-mail, is there anything we can do while the "ticket splitting" is getting implemented?

In that situation, even with perfect splitting functionality, you're creating a headache for yourself somewhere.

If you didn't send the newsletters from Cerb4, none of the "message-id" headers in the database should match the incoming replies. Each reply should properly be opening a new ticket (which is how our newsletters from the forums here are handled in our helpdesk).

Is this newsletter being sent from Cerberus somehow?

Thanks!

[roustem]

Any reasonable workarounds would create far more work on your end than us implementing split on our end (e.g., editing the database directly, copying/pasting).

I'll go ahead and bump up the "Split" feature on my list since it's a quickie.

It would only take a couple minutes to implement the feature where any e-mail in a thread could spin-off into its own ticket.

It's possible down the road to implement it where you could select multiple messages and group them into a single ticket -- but in the meantime the simple workaround there is to just merge them after splitting. Adding extra steps will just delay the feature, and in most cases you'd just want to split single messages (which is the fastest thing to implement).

I'll give it a sincere effort to get this committed tonight.

Tracking: http://www.wgmdev.com/jira/browse/CHD-248

Thank you Jeff! I really appreciate your help!

[roustem]

In that situation, even with perfect splitting functionality, you're creating a headache for yourself somewhere.

If you didn't send the newsletters from Cerb4, none of the "message-id" headers in the database should match the incoming replies. Each reply should properly be opening a new ticket (which is how our newsletters from the forums here are handled in our helpdesk).

Is this newsletter being sent from Cerberus somehow?

Thanks!

No, we are not using Cerberus. The newsletter is sent via Dada Mail mailing list manager. Is there anything we should change (perhaps a header field somewhere in the outgoing message) to make sure every reply creates its own thread?

[jstanden]

No, we are not using Cerberus. The newsletter is sent via Dada Mail mailing list manager. Is there anything we should change (perhaps a header field somewhere in the outgoing message) to make sure every reply creates its own thread?

In Cerb4 we're comparing the incoming 'in-reply-to' or 'references' header to any existing 'message-id' in the database. For things to thread as you describe, it sounds like your mailing list responses are all responding to a message-id which is being found in the helpdesk. Since message-ids should be globally unique, and your outgoing mail isn't sent from Cerberus, that's pretty bizarre behavior. Off the top of my head I'm not sure why those replies would be grouped together.

So by default each of those replies should be treated as their own new ticket. The helpdesk shouldn't care that they're replies if it doesn't control what someone is replying to.

If you can send over the headers from one of these replies it would be helpful in troubleshooting. Split would be a great feature, but you still shouldn't have to deal with this issue.

Thanks!

[roustem]

In Cerb4 we're comparing the incoming 'in-reply-to' or 'references' header to any existing 'message-id' in the database. For things to thread as you describe, it sounds like your mailing list responses are all responding to a message-id which is being found in the helpdesk. Since message-ids should be globally unique, and your outgoing mail isn't sent from Cerberus, that's pretty bizarre behavior. Off the top of my head I'm not sure why those replies would be grouped together.

So by default each of those replies should be treated as their own new ticket. The helpdesk shouldn't care that they're replies if it doesn't control what someone is replying to.

If you can send over the headers from one of these replies it would be helpful in troubleshooting. Split would be a great feature, but you still shouldn't have to deal with this issue.

Thanks!

Hi Jeff,

You are right! I collected the message-id headers of several outgoing e-mail that were sent and they all have the same value. I will make sure this is fixed.

Thanks again for your help! Let me know if you still need the headers.

[jstanden]

I shouldn't need the headers if that fixes your problem. ;)

I also committed the 'Split' feature to Subversion!

[pk4]

For some reason, i can't seem to find the "Split" function in the UI. How do i do a split?

I'm currently using Version 4.0 RC1 (Build 566)

[dsugita]

When you are viewing a ticket with more than one reply, at the bottom next the reply, add note, etc, there should be a button for 'more options', it'll show the split ticket button there.