Set up ticket queues

You can set up a ticketing queue system, for optimal ticket organization, handling, and flow. Set up tiers based on ticket severity, escalation level, different product support types, or any other criteria you wish.

Atera gives you complete flexibility to set up any kind of ticketing queue system you can dream up. The specifications and rules are completely flexible and can be handled automatically or manually. For example, you can create simple ticket queues by escalation level, or specialized 'support type' queues, complete with specialized support emails. Queue types are limited only by your imagination.

Queues by escalation levels

You can create a simple ticketing queue system based on escalation levels. You can do this by creating a 'Tiers' (name optional) custom field, which will then appear in all tickets.

1. From Admin (on the side panel), click Custom Fields.

The Custom Fields page appears.

2. Ensure the Ticket column is selected, and click Add Field.

The Add Field screen appears.

Fill in the fields as follows:

Target - Select Ticket
Type - Select Dropdown
Title - Give the new field a relevant name. For the purposes of our example, we will call it 'Tiers'.
Required field - Select Yes
Customer portal configurations - Select Hide Field

3. Click the + sign next to Values to create the subcategories of 'Tiers'.

Add a subcategory name. In this example, we will call it Tier 1. Click the + sign again to create a second category (Tier 2), and then a third category (Tier 3).

4. Click Add to create the custom field.

Queues by product support

You can create a ticket queue system based on different product support types.

1. From Admin (on the side panel), click Custom Fields.

The Custom Fields page appears.

2. Click Add Field.

The Add Field screen appears.

3. Fill in the fields as follows:

Target - Select Ticket
Type - Select Dropdown
Title - Give the new field a relevant name. For the purposes of our example, we will call it 'Products'.
Required field - Select Yes or No
Customer portal configurations - Select Hide Field or User can edit.

4. Click the + sign next to Values to create the subcategories of 'Products'.

Add a subcategory name. In this example, we will name it Windows. Click the + sign next to Values again to create a second category, which we will name Mac.

5. Click Add to create the custom fields.

Add specialized support addresses (optional)

If you'd like your customers to email specific addresses, depending on support type, you can set up a forward with your email provider and Atera.

Set up the forward on Atera

1. From Admin (on the side panel), click Email Settings.

The Email Settings page appears.

2. Add the additional support emails, that you'd like forwarded to your main support address, under the Additional Support Email Address. In this example, we've used: windows@petespcs.com and mac@petespcs.com

See additional information about Email Settings

Set up automation rules

You can automate ticket tier assignments based on the particular support email address used. There is a lot you can do with automation rules. For the purpose of this example we will create a rule that assigns support requests sent to windows@petespcs.com to the 'Windows' ticket tier and requests to mac@petespcs.com to the 'Mac' ticket tier.

Create automation

1. From Admin (on the side panel), click Ticket Automation Rules.

The Ticket Automation Rules page appears.

2. Click Add New Rule.

The Add Rule form appears.

3. Fill in the form:

Give your rule a relevant name and description. For our example, the Rule Name is 'Sort Windows Tickets' and the Description is 'Sort incoming Windows tickets'.
Event - New Ticket Created
Ignore Flow - Yes (This ensures no other rules interfere with the new rule.)
Active - Yes

4. Click Add, to create the new rule.

5. Set the conditions/actions: Click on the newly created rule.

The Conditions and Actions fields appear.

For this example, we'll set the fields as follows:

Condition:

Ticket Field = Destination Email
Operator = Equals
Expected Value = windows@petespcs.com

Click Add to add this condition.

Actions:

Action Type = Set Field Value
Related Field/Email Template = Products
Values = Windows

Click Add to add this action.

Note: The dropdown menu displays the support emails you created in the previous step.

6. Repeat the process to create a new ticket automation rule for the Mac support category.

Assigning tickets to queues

You can assign new, or existing, tickets to queues.

Assign a new ticket to a queue

1. When creating a new ticket, click the mandatory 'Queues' (in our example it's called 'Tiers') dropdown menu, and select the appropriate queue (Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3...).