Working the ticket queue

This chapter is for IT Support agents. You need agent access within the organization; an employee account alone does not grant the queue. Assignment is limited to the organization's IT Support group. See People and organization accounts.

Find the work you need

1. Open Queue.
2. Choose Everyone for the organization queue, Mine for your assigned tickets that are not assistant-held, or With [assistant name] / With assistants for assistant-held tickets.
3. With several front-line assistants, use Which assistant to choose one or All assistants. An assistant marked (off) can still hold existing work; turning it off does not reassign those tickets.
4. Use Looped in when available for tickets where someone involved you. This indicates collaboration, not ownership.
5. Enter a number, name or phrase in Find a ticket. Search covers ticket number, title, requester name, System, Department, latest conversation preview and IT notes. It does not search every historical conversation message.
6. Open Completed → Show all for completed cards. This section starts collapsed.
7. Select a card's requester/title area to open its conversation.

Scope and assistant filter are remembered in this browser. Search and completed-section expansion are page state. Scope counts are open-ticket counts, not search-result counts. Cards are grouped by status. Open groups sort Urgent, High, Normal, Low, then oldest activity first, then unread count. Completed cards use most recent completion first.

Cards show requester, number, classification, title, latest preview, unread count, assistant holder and number looped in. Open the conversation before deciding what to do; the preview is not the whole request. Live updates arrive while connected. If loading fails, read the error and reload once connectivity or the underlying connection is restored.

Triage from a card

1. Read the card and assess urgency.
2. Change Priority, Status or assignee directly on the card when the action is clear.
3. Wait for saving and check the new value. These controls save immediately; there is no separate queue Save button.
4. Resolve any error naming the ticket before retrying. A concurrent-change conflict reloads the queue; review the latest values before attempting your change again.

See Rules and ticket classifications for routing and Batch ticket actions and CSV export for several tickets at once.

Assess a ticket

1. Open the card and read the requester's header, conversation and any hand-off summary.
2. Inspect Status, Priority and Assigned to. The [assistant] is handling this strip means the assistant still holds it.
3. Select Details for the record. It is a side panel on wide screens and a drawer on smaller screens. Hide details or Close restores space. Desktop panel preference is remembered in this browser.
4. Review System, Department, routing reasons, reported/completed dates, satisfaction, resolved-by value, description, IT definition, resolution and assistant summary.
5. Inspect linked devices and relevant history. Imported from identifies a historical import; any SharePoint reference identifies the source record.

Opening another person's ticket marks requester messages read for IT. Here now means other people are viewing; coordinate before replying.

Assign responsibility

1. Open Assigned to in the ticket header or the queue card's assignee control.
2. Under IT Support, select the responsible colleague or Nobody yet / Unassigned for no human owner.
3. Under Assistants, select an enabled front-line assistant. Where offered, Any assistant chooses by System preference and then turn order. It starts picking up the conversation after assignment saves.
4. Confirm the displayed holder. Choosing a person clears assistant ownership. Choosing an assistant clears the human assignee.

Completed tickets must be reopened before an assistant can take them. Tickets whose requesters are missing from the directory cannot be given to an assistant. Disabled options explain why. If an assistant is off or removed, choose an eligible one or ask the administrator to restore it.

A suggests [person] routing line is a recommendation, not a human assignment. An agent can become the assignee through manual assignment or when the assistant hands off. Loop in permits collaboration without transferring responsibility.

Take over and hand back

1. On an assistant-held ticket, select Take over in the handling strip.
2. Read the outcome. The ticket becomes yours, assistant ownership clears, and New or Completed becomes In Progress.
3. The reply box receives focus. Read the last posted message before replying.
4. A reply still being written is cancelled and its unfinished stream removed. A reply already being posted may finish; the outcome explains what happened.

If the assistant no longer holds the ticket, inspect its current owner; someone else may have acted. A normal IT reply can claim a ticket with no human assignee and move New to In Progress. Take over provides the explicit cancellation and ownership result for an assistant-held conversation.

To return a taken-over ticket, open Assigned to and choose Hand back to [assistant]. Read the confirmation. It returns to the previous enabled front-line assistant where possible, otherwise an eligible assistant is selected. The existing conversation remains. Reopen Completed before handing back.

Reply to the requester

1. Choose Reply above the composer.
2. Explain the next action and who should do it.
3. Optionally attach PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP pictures, each at most 10 MB. Ordinary reply pictures are shared with permitted conversation participants.
4. If available, select Canned replies, choose a saved reply and edit the inserted text. It appends to an existing draft; selection does not send it. This control appears only when enabled saved replies exist.
5. Select Send or press Enter. Use Shift+Enter for a new line.
6. Check that it appears. A failed send retains your draft and pending pictures for retry.
7. If the next action belongs to the employee, set Status → Waiting on Requester. Sending a reply alone does not set that status.

For private handover information choose Note for IT, not Reply. Notes do not count as public IT replies. See Collaboration and internal notes.

Update the record

In Details, edit Title, System, Department, User's Description of the Issue, IT Definition of the Issue, or Resolution Details. Dropdowns save on selection; text fields save when their change is committed, normally by leaving the field. Check Saved where shown and watch for errors. There is no final Save button for the whole ticket.

Keep the reported problem in the employee description, the diagnosis in the IT definition and the actual fix in Resolution Details. Requester, dates and satisfaction are displayed separately. Classification values must be from the organization's choices.

A concurrent-update conflict reloads the details. Read the latest record and re-enter only your intended change; do not assume unsaved draft text survived.

Resolve and follow up

1. Send the final explanation to the requester.
2. Fill Resolution Details and all fields required by your organization's completion rules.
3. Set Status → Completed.
4. If refused, read the missing fields and rule name, fill them and retry.
5. Confirm completion. Human completion records Resolved by Agent and adds Did this fix it? for the original requester.
6. Monitor reopened work: No on that card records Not fixed, returns the ticket to In Progress and notifies the responsible person or IT. An ordinary requester reply can also reopen completed work.

Completion does not delete the ticket. See Ticket lifecycle and resolution for all transitions and limits on automatic completion.

Keyboard and mobile use

Outside editable fields, j/k move between visible cards, Enter opens the focused card, and x toggles batch selection. Shift-click ticket checkboxes for a visible range. Escape closes Rules, then clears selection, then clears search. In an input, Escape first removes focus. On a ticket, Escape closes a narrow details drawer before returning to the queue when focus is outside editable fields.

On phones, card controls wrap, Details is a drawer and the batch bar docks at the bottom. Do not assume typed drafts are saved after leaving a page.

See Queue suggestions and assistant changes for summaries, proposals and Undo.