Support

CoreInto's support area takes tickets from clients, from visitors who are not signed in, from staff and from email, and gives staff one place to answer them. Tickets belong to departments; each department can have its own email address and mailbox, its own staff, and its own rules about who may open tickets there. Around the tickets sit the knowledgebase, announcements, downloads and the network status page, which clients read on the public side of the site. This chapter covers the settings under Settings > Support Departments, Ticket Statuses, Escalation Rules and Spam Control, the pages under the Support menu, the client and guest sides of tickets, and the automation that closes old tickets and removes old attachments.

Settings that affect tickets

Most ticket settings live on the Support tab of Settings > General Settings. Two more are on the Support tab of Settings > Automation Settings. The settings pages themselves are described in Settings.

Two settings elsewhere also matter: "Department for the contact form" on the Mail tab of General Settings sends contact-form messages into a department, and the captcha settings on the Security tab decide whether a guest who opens a ticket must pass a captcha (the "New support ticket" form is ticked by default).

Settings > Support Departments

A department is a queue of tickets with its own staff and, if you like, its own email address. Clients choose a department when they open a ticket. The list shows each department's email address, the staff in it, its mailbox and how many tickets it holds. Below the list the page shows the piping command for your mail server (see "Tickets by email").

Click Add Department, or a department's name, to edit it.

Under "Mailbox to collect" you can give the department a POP3 or IMAP mailbox to read:

With a mailbox set, a "Collect mail now" button at the top of the page reads the mailbox at once and reports how many emails were collected, or why the connection failed. The page also lists the last ten emails received at the department's address. Department mailboxes have not been tried against a real mail server yet; piping has.

A department that still holds tickets cannot be deleted. Move its tickets to another department first, or hide it instead.

Who sees which tickets

• A staff member sees the tickets of the departments they are in, and any ticket assigned to them, whatever its department.
• A staff member who is in no department sees every ticket.
• The role permission "Open tickets of any department directly" (tickets.all_departments) also shows every department.
• Opening a ticket that is outside your departments gives "There is no such ticket, or it is in a department you do not work in."

Emails about a new ticket or a client's reply go to the assigned staff member if there is one, otherwise to the staff of the department, plus anyone watching the ticket. When nobody fits, the notice goes to every role that receives support notices.

Settings > Ticket Statuses

Every ticket has a status. CoreInto comes with six: Open, Answered, Customer-Reply, On Hold, In Progress and Closed. You can add more and change colours and behaviour.

Deleting a status you added puts its tickets back to Open.

How statuses change by themselves: a ticket opened by a client, a guest or email is Open; one opened by staff is Answered. A staff reply sets Answered unless the staff member picks another status while replying; a client or email reply sets Customer-Reply. Closing sets Closed. A client who replies to a closed ticket opens it again (it becomes Customer-Reply).

Settings > Escalation Rules

An escalation rule acts on tickets that match it and have waited a given time since their last reply. Rules are checked by the automation task ticket-escalations every five minutes. A rule acts once per wait: after it has acted on a ticket, it does not act again until there has been a new reply and the ticket has waited again.

Each action is written to the ticket log with the rule's name.

Settings > Spam Control

Email to support that matches a filter is not turned into a ticket or reply. Add a filter by choosing what to check and typing the text:

• Sender contains: matched against the sender address, for example @spam-domain.example.
• Subject contains: matched against the subject.
• Message contains: matched against the text of the message.

Matching ignores case. The page lists the last twenty emails that were blocked, each with the filter kind that stopped it. Blocked email is also in Utilities > Ticket Mail Import Log. Filters apply to email only; tickets opened in the client area are not checked against them.

Support > Support Overview

The overview shows, for the departments you work in:

• Tickets by status, each a link to the list filtered by that status.
• Open tickets by department.
• The last 30 days: tickets opened and staff replies, and replies this week per staff member.
• Waiting longest for a reply: the ten tickets in an "awaiting" status that have waited longest.
• Email received: the last ten emails that reached support, with what happened to each.

Support > Support Tickets

The ticket list has five views as tabs:

Above the table you can filter by number, subject or client (also matches the client's company and email address, and a guest's name and email), status, department and priority. Searching or opening a client's tickets from their page switches to All. The list can also be narrowed to one tag by adding ?tag=NAME to its address.

Rows you have not read yet are shown in bold. Pinned tickets come first, then the most recent reply. Each row shows the number and subject, a High badge for high priority, a Flagged badge, who it is assigned to, the submitter (a client link, or a guest's name), department, status and when and by whom the last reply was written.

Tick tickets and use the bar under the table to act on them all at once:

• Close.
• Merge: the ticked tickets are merged into the oldest of them (the lowest number).
• Assign to a staff member, or to Nobody.
• Delete (needs the "Delete tickets" permission).

The ticket page

The page title shows the number, the subject and the status. The buttons at the top:

• Watch / Stop watching: watchers are emailed about new client replies on the ticket, whichever department or assignee it has.
• Pin to top / Unpin: pinned tickets come first in the list for everyone.
• Close.
• Delete: removes the ticket with all messages, notes, files, tags and feedback. It cannot be undone and needs the "Delete tickets" permission.

The From card shows the client (a link to the client, and to all their tickets) or the guest's name and address, what the ticket is about (a service or domain), the feedback the client left, and the client's other tickets.

The details form changes the ticket; press Save Changes:

Every change is written to the ticket log at the foot of the page (the last 50 entries are shown).

Replying

The reply box takes Markdown (see "Markdown in messages"). Above it, when predefined replies exist, a drop-down inserts one into the box. Then:

• Attachments: up to 10 files at a time, each checked against the allowed types and size.
• Then set the status to: Answered unless you pick another status.
• Assign the ticket to me: shown when nobody is assigned; ticked by default.
• Add my signature: shown when your staff account has a signature; it is added under the reply.
• Email the reply to the client: ticked by default. Untick to answer without an email.

Three buttons: Send Reply, Send and go to the list, and Add as a staff note, which saves the text as a note instead of a reply.

A staff reply emails the client (and the copy addresses) the message with the ticket number in the subject, from the department's address. The client can answer that email or reply in the client area.

Staff notes

Notes are seen by staff only. They appear above the messages, with any files attached to them. You can delete your own notes.

Messages

Each message shows who wrote it (Staff, Client or Guest), when, the rating the client gave a staff reply, the text and its attachments. Attachments are downloaded through CoreInto; the files are kept under storage/attachments/tickets with random names.

Merging

Under the messages, "Merge another ticket into this one" takes the other ticket's number (or id). Its messages, notes, files and log move into this ticket, and the other ticket is closed and marked as merged. Anyone opening the old ticket, or replying to it by email, is taken to the one it was merged into.

Feedback

When a department asks for feedback, closing a ticket emails the client a link to a form. The form asks for a rating from 1 to 10 and comments, and can be filled in once per ticket. The result is shown on the ticket page and counted for each staff member who replied on the ticket. Separately, when "Clients may rate staff replies" is on, clients rate individual replies from 1 to 5; those ratings show next to the replies and in the Ticket Feedback Scores report (see Reports and utilities).

Support > Open New Ticket

Staff open a ticket for a client or for anyone else:

• Client number: the ticket belongs to that client, who is emailed at their account address. From a client's page the number is filled in. Or leave it empty and give a name and email address: the ticket is then a guest ticket for that person.
• Department, Priority and, for a client, About (a service or domain).
• Subject and Message (Markdown; a predefined reply can be inserted). Your signature is added.
• Attachments.
• Email the ticket to the client: ticked by default. The ticket starts in status Answered.

Tickets by email

Email becomes tickets in two ways. Both go through the same import, and every email is written to Utilities > Ticket Mail Import Log with what happened to it.

Piping

Forward a department's address to this command in your hosting control panel (the exact path is shown on Settings > Support Departments):

php /home/USER/public_html/cli.php pipe-ticket

The email is read from standard input. To force a department when the mail server does not keep the original recipient, add its id:

php /home/USER/public_html/cli.php pipe-ticket 3

Mailboxes

Give a department a POP3 or IMAP mailbox (see "Settings > Support Departments"). The automation task ticket-mail runs every five minutes, reads up to 50 messages from each mailbox, imports them and deletes them from the mailbox. "Collect mail now" on the department page does the same at once.

How an email is handled

1. Emails without a sender address are ignored.
2. Automatic messages are ignored: an Auto-Submitted header other than no, a Precedence of bulk, junk, list or auto_reply, an X-Autoreply or X-Autorespond header, or a sender starting with mailer-daemon, postmaster, noreply or no-reply.
3. Email sent from one of your own department addresses is ignored, so two systems cannot answer each other for ever (a mail loop).
4. The spam filters are checked; a match blocks the email.
5. The per-sender limit is checked: if the sender has already made that many tickets or replies in the last 15 minutes, the email is blocked.
6. Attachments are checked against the allowed types and size. Files that fail are left out and the message ends with a note naming them.
7. If the subject contains [Ticket #NUMBER] and that ticket exists, the email is a reply. If that ticket was merged, the reply goes to the ticket it was merged into. The quoted part of the email (lines starting with >, and everything after a line such as "On ... wrote:" or "-----Original Message-----") is left out.
   • From a staff member's address (an enabled staff account), it becomes a staff reply and the client is emailed.
   • From the ticket's own address, from an address on the ticket's client account (a user, the account's email, or a contact), or from one of the ticket's copy addresses, it becomes a client reply.
   • From anyone else, it is not a reply; it is treated as a new ticket.
8. Otherwise it opens a new ticket. The department is the one whose email address the mail was sent to; if none matches, the department given on the piping command; if none, the first department in the list. If there is no department at all, the email is ignored.
   • A department set to "Email only adds replies to existing tickets" refuses it.
   • A department set to "Only clients may open tickets here" refuses it when the sender's address is not on a client account.
   • A refused sender gets the "Email ticket not accepted" email, from the department's address, with the reason and a link to the client area.
   • The sender is matched to a client account by address (users first, then the account's email, then contacts). The ticket belongs to that client, or is a guest ticket.

Replies and tickets from email are stored as plain text, with line breaks and web addresses kept.

Guest tickets and the access key link

When "Only signed-in clients may open tickets" is off, anyone can open a ticket at /client/tickets/new without an account. The visitor chooses a department (departments marked "Only clients" are not offered), gives a name and email address, the subject and message, a priority, copy addresses when allowed, and attachments, and passes the captcha if one is on for the ticket form. One address may open at most 10 tickets an hour; banned addresses cannot open any.

A guest ticket has no client. The guest follows it through a private link of the form

https://www.example.com/ticket/QXR-482913?k=ACCESS_KEY

which is sent in the "ticket received" email and in every staff reply. Anyone with the link can read the ticket, download its attachments, reply, close it (unless the department prevents that) and rate staff replies. Treat the link as a password. If a guest ticket is later given to a client account (by changing the client on the ticket, or because the email matched an account), the link sends the visitor to the client area instead.

Tickets opened by email from an unknown address, and tickets staff open for a name and address, are guest tickets too and use the same link.

The client area: Support Tickets

Signed-in clients see Support Tickets in the menu (/client/tickets) when their user has the "tickets" permission on the account. The list has two tabs, Open (everything except Closed) and All, and marks tickets with a staff reply the client has not read yet as "New reply". The dashboard shows the five most recent open tickets.

Open Ticket (/client/tickets/new) first offers the departments that are not hidden (when there is only one it is chosen at once), then the form: subject, Related Service (the client's active, suspended or pending services and their domains), priority, Copy replies to (when allowed), message, attachments. Under the form CoreInto suggests knowledgebase articles when that setting is on.

On a ticket the client can reply (with attachments), close the ticket when the department allows it, and rate each staff reply from 1 to 5 when ratings are on. A reply to a closed ticket opens it again. The client's replies email the assigned staff member or the department's staff.

Markdown in messages

Ticket messages written on the site, staff notes, knowledgebase articles, announcements and network issue descriptions use a small, safe Markdown. Everything is escaped first, so no HTML or script ever passes through. What works:

• **bold**, *italic* or _italic_, ` code `
• fenced code blocks between lines of three backticks
• [a link](https://example.com) and mailto: links; bare web addresses also become links, opening in a new tab
• lists with - or 1. at the start of each line
• quotes with >
• headings with # to #### on a line of their own (articles and announcements)

Messages that arrive by email are kept as plain text; only line breaks and web addresses are turned into HTML.

Support > Predefined Replies

Predefined replies are texts staff insert into a reply with one click. They are grouped in categories.

• Add a category with "New category".
• Add or edit a reply: choose the category, give it a name and the text. The text is inserted into the reply box as it is, so write it in the same Markdown as a reply.

Three permissions apply: "Use predefined replies" (see them and insert them), "Create and edit predefined replies" and "Delete predefined replies".

Support > Knowledgebase

The knowledgebase is public at /knowledgebase. Staff manage it under Support > Knowledgebase.

Categories (left column): name, description, Inside (a parent category, or Top level), order and Hidden. Hidden categories are not shown to visitors. Deleting a category keeps its articles.

Articles: title, text in Markdown, the categories it belongs to (an article can be in several), tags (comma separated, lower-cased), order, and "Only for signed-in clients". The list shows each article's views and how many readers found it useful. "View on the site" opens the public page.

On the public side:

• The front page shows the top-level categories with their article counts, the eight most viewed articles, and a search box. Search looks in titles, texts and tags.
• A category page lists its subcategories and articles in order.
• An article page counts a view, shows the article, its tags (each a search link), and up to five related articles from the same categories. Visitors can vote whether the article was helpful, once a day per address.
• Articles marked "Only for signed-in clients" are not listed to visitors; opening one directly sends the visitor to the sign-in page.

Support > Announcements

Announcements are news items shown at /announcements and on the client dashboard. Each has a title, a date, the text in Markdown, and a Published box. Only published announcements whose date has arrived are shown; untick Published to keep a draft, or set a future date to publish it later. The public list shows ten per page, newest first.

Support > Downloads

Downloads are files or links offered at /downloads. They sit in categories (name, description, Hidden). A category that still holds downloads cannot be deleted.

Each download has:

The public page lists downloads by category, with a search box, and counts each download.

Support > Network Issues

Network issues are notices about outages and maintenance, shown at /network-status. Each has a title, a kind (Server, System or Other), the server it affects or a free "Affecting" text, a priority (Critical, High, Medium, Low), a status (Reported, Investigating, In Progress, Outage, Scheduled, Resolved), a From and an Until time, and the details in Markdown, which you can extend with updates as the issue goes on. Setting the status to Resolved fills in the end time when it is empty.

The public page has three tabs: Open (every issue that is not scheduled or resolved), Scheduled and Resolved. Under them it lists your servers, each marked "Issue reported" when it has an open issue or "Normal" otherwise. With "Network status only for signed-in clients" on, visitors are sent to the sign-in page.

Closing idle tickets and removing old attachments

Closing idle tickets

The daily task close-tickets closes tickets that are waiting on the client. It looks at tickets whose status is marked "May be closed when the client does not answer", whose last message was written by staff, and whose last reply is older than "Close tickets with no reply for this many hours" (Automation Settings, Support). Each is set to Closed, the client is sent the "Ticket closed for no reply" email, the ticket log records the closure, and the department's feedback request goes out when it asks for one. With the setting at 0 nothing is closed.

Removing old attachments

The same task then deletes the files of attachments on tickets that have been Closed for longer than "Delete attachments of closed tickets after (months)". The attachment stays listed on the ticket, but the file is gone and a download says so. With the setting at 0 files are kept.

Deleting tickets

Deleting a ticket (on the ticket page, or in bulk from the list) removes the ticket with its messages, notes, files, tags, watchers and feedback. The deletion is written to the activity log.

Where else tickets appear

• The API can list, read, open, reply to and change tickets, and list departments and announcements: see The API.
• Reports: Daily Performance counts tickets and staff replies per day; Ticket Feedback Scores, Ticket Replies and Ticket Tags are under Reports > Support. See Reports and utilities.
• Email about tickets uses the templates in the Support and Staff notices groups of Settings > Email Templates (see Email): Ticket received, Staff reply to a ticket, Ticket closed for no reply, Feedback on a closed ticket, Email ticket not accepted, New ticket, Client replied to a ticket, Ticket assigned to you.
• The automation tasks are close-tickets (daily), ticket-escalations (every 5 minutes) and ticket-mail (every 5 minutes); see Automation.
• Tickets from your previous system come across with the import, including their replies, notes, tags and feedback: see Import.