Ticket lifecycle

This page walks through the life of a ticket from the moment it is created to the moment it disappears. For the exact rules per status, see Ticket statuses.

Creation

• Customers create tickets from the customer portal, optionally linking a purchased Tebex package so staff immediately know which product the request is about.
• Staff with the tickets.create permission can also create tickets from the dashboard.

A new ticket starts in the Open status.

The conversation

Both sides post messages in the ticket thread:

• Customers can reply and edit their own messages on any status except closed.
• Staff can reply on any status. Staff can also post internal notes that customers never see (requires the messages.create_internal permission).
• Status changes along the way (in_progress, awaiting_customer, required_test, required_action) are manual staff actions — a customer reply never changes the status by itself.

The creator can invite other customers to the ticket via invite links; those links stop working once the ticket is resolved or closed.

Ways a ticket ends

There are four paths to closure:

1. Staff resolves or closes directly

Staff changes the status to resolved or closed from the dashboard. resolved is a soft landing — the customer can still reply if something is not actually fixed. closed is final: customer replies are blocked.

2. Staff schedules a closure

Staff can schedule a closure for a future date. The ticket moves to Closure scheduled and a system message announces when it will close. When the time passes, the ticket is closed automatically and a system message is added.

While the closure is pending:

• Staff can still change the status (which cancels the scheduled closure), but cannot schedule a second closure on top.
• The customer can close the ticket immediately instead of waiting.

3. The customer requests closure

From the portal, the customer can request closure on any active ticket. The ticket moves to Pending closure immediately, a system message is posted, and a satisfaction survey is created right away. Staff then confirms by closing the ticket (or moves it back to an active status if there is more to do).

A closure request is rejected when the ticket is already closed, pending_closure, or closure_scheduled.

4. Staff schedules a deletion

Staff can schedule a ticket for permanent deletion at a future date. Two things happen immediately:

1. The ticket is closed right away (if it was not already closed).
2. A system message announces the scheduled deletion date.

The actual deletion happens automatically at the scheduled time. Until then, staff can cancel the scheduled deletion — the ticket stays closed but is no longer marked for deletion. Deletion is permanent: the ticket and its messages are removed.

Reopening

A resolved or closed ticket is not gone — staff can move it back to any active status at any time:

• Reopening deletes the satisfaction survey if the customer has not submitted it yet; a new survey is created the next time the ticket reaches a survey-eligible status.
• On resolved (but not closed), customers can simply keep replying — which is the usual signal that the issue was not fully fixed.

Side effects along the way