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Set Up Your Helpdesk

This guide takes you from an empty instance to a working helpdesk: tickets created from incoming emails, distributed to the right agents, with deadlines your team can act on. Follow the steps in order β€” each step links to the reference page with all the details. If you haven't yet, read How the Helpdesk Works first.

1. Define Your Working Hours

Go to Settings β†’ Workflows β†’ Time groups and create a time group with your support hours. SLA deadlines only run during these hours.

See Time Groups for details.

2. Create an SLA

Go to Settings β†’ Tickets β†’ SLA and set how long agents have to reply (Response) and to solve the ticket (Solution) for each priority.

See SLA for how deadlines are calculated and what counts as a response.

3. Create a Category

Go to Settings β†’ Tickets β†’ Categories and create a category for your first team or topic (e.g. "Support"). Select the SLA from step 2 and the Working hours from step 1, and pick the default outgoing email, call and SMS queues if you already have them.

See Categories for all category settings.

4. Give Agents Access and Set Distribution

In the category list, click Change in the profiles column. Check the profiles that should work with the category, toggle Access to Yes for those who should see its tickets, and set Distribution if unowned tickets should be assigned automatically.

The profiles must exist first β€” Set Up Your Contact Centre shows the order. See Categories – Select Rights for how distribution picks the agent. This setting is the pull-style mechanism tied to the email queue β€” for push distribution, see step 6.

5. Connect Your Email Channel

Tickets are typically created by an email queue. If you don't have one yet, follow Set Up Email first. Then make sure the queue's Category is set to the category from step 3.

Warning

This applies to the category's Distribution setting: tickets are distributed that way only to agents that are logged in to the email queue. Active pauses don't prevent tickets from being distributed. Tickets pushed by a ticket distribution rule reach agents logged in to the ticket queue instead β€” see step 6.

See Email Queue for the queue fields.

6. Push Tickets to Agents (Optional)

Up to here, tickets wait in views until an agent picks one up, or the category's Distribution setting hands them out. To push tickets instead, create a ticket queue and a ticket distribution rule that sends tickets into it.

When importance depends on the ticket itself β€” the customer, the deadline, the work it is competing with on other channels β€” point the rule at a scored priority flow instead. Set Up Priority Flows covers the whole chain.

Nothing is pushed to anybody until a ticket queue or a distribution rule exists. Skip this step and your helpdesk works exactly as it does today.

7. Add Statuses

Go to Settings β†’ Workflows β†’ Statuses and create the statuses your process needs (e.g. "Waiting for customer", "Order received"). Then connect them to the category in the category's Relations β†’ Statuses.

See Statuses for details.

8. Build the Ticket Form

In the category's Relations β†’ Form, define the fields agents fill in when working with tickets β€” order numbers, issue types, anything your process tracks.

See Custom Fields & Forms for the form builder and field types.

9. Create Views for Agents

Go to Settings β†’ Tickets β†’ Views and create the filters agents will work from β€” e.g. "My open tickets", "Unassigned", one view per category or status. Assign the views to profiles in the View list.

See Views for filtering, sorting and colour settings.

10. Add Macros (Optional)

Go to Settings β†’ Tickets β†’ Macros and create one-click buttons for repetitive actions β€” e.g. "Solve and close" (status + close + back) or "Waiting 1 week" (reopen + back). Connect them to your categories.

See Macros for the available actions.

11. Test Your Helpdesk

  1. Send an email to the mailbox connected in step 5.
  2. Check that a ticket is created in the right category and appears in your views.
  3. Check the deadline tooltip in the ticket β€” it should match your SLA and working hours.
  4. If distribution is on, check the ticket is assigned to a logged-in agent.
  5. Reply from the ticket and verify the First answer time turns green.

Go Further

  • Email notifications per user and event β€” category Relations β†’ Notifications, see Categories.
  • Auto-archive closed tickets after a set number of days β€” category settings.
  • External comments for communicating with people outside your team β€” category settings and External Users.
  • Automation β€” trigger actions on ticket events with Events.
  • Measure satisfaction with CSAT Forms.
  • Quality control with QA Forms.

Not Working?

  1. No tickets are created? Work through the email checks in Set Up Email.
  2. Tickets have no deadline? The category needs an SLA; without Working hours the SLA clock runs 24/7. See SLA.
  3. Agents can't see tickets? Their profile must cover the category, with Access turned on, and they need a view that shows the tickets.
  4. Tickets aren't assigned? Category Distribution only works for agents logged in to the email queue; pushed distribution needs a ticket queue and a distribution rule.

More checks, by symptom, are in Troubleshooting.