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- Email ticketing
- Frequently asked questions
Ticket number referred to in an email does not correlate
FocalScope automatically assigns a unique ticket number for every incoming query. If you are using the Autoresponder, you may have chosen to send this unique ticket number to customers when you receive their queries. As such, the customer may use the ticket number to refer to their query in future correspondence. This article details two main causes of ticket number confusion on either the part of the customer or the FocalScope agent, and how to dispel any confusion.
Symptoms
- A customer references a ticket number that is different from the one that was related to the initial query they submitted. E.g., a customer submits a support ticket regarding upgrading their internet connection
- The system assigned a ticket number, e.g., 17212, to this query and the customer was informed of this ticket number via an autoresponse. However, later, the customer refers to an altogether different ticket number as if it were related to their query regarding upgrading of their internet connection
- New customer queries appear as emails under existing tickets
Cause
- FocalScope allows the joining of two (or more) tickets into one and the creation of new tickets from existing ones by use of the drag and drop action. It is possible that a customer's ticket got merged with a different ticket, or that a message in the original ticket got separated and made into a new ticket. If this happens after the Autoresponder sent the customer the ticket number, the mismatch would occur between the ticket number that the customer was given, and the new ticket number created by the system after the message got separated from the main ticket
- FocalScope associates incoming emails with existing tickets based on hidden information in the email header. If a new email appears under an existing ticket, there exists a relation between the two based on the email header information. This can be problematic if customers have a habit of sending new queries by replying to old emails
- Email Processing Rules may have moved emails to different folders, thus, breaking the connection between the original message and replies to it
Troubleshooting
Determining if tickets were merged or separated
It is possible to see if a ticket was merged with (or separated from) a certain ticket by viewing the action history log.
- Locate the ticket in question (search for the missing ticket number located in the email subject or body)
- Hover the mouse pointer over the leftmost icon (highlighted)
- Observe the action history log and look for any 'move' operation(s) logged there within
Figure 2 - Determining if a ticket has been separated from another
New queries are coming into FocalScope under existing tickets
Occasionally a customer may send a new query by replying to an old email. This would result in the new email appearing under an existing ticket in FocalScope, despite the fact that the two are not related. Here is how to verify such cases:
- Open the email in question by double-clicking it
- In the [Message Properties] window, click [View] and select [Message Headers] (see Figure 3). The email body contents will change to display the email header information
- See if the email header information contains the 'In-Reply-To:' header (see Figure 4). If this header exists, it means the customer sent this email in response to a previous email sent to the customer from FocalScope
Figure 3 - Viewing the email header information
Figure 4 - Determining if the email is a reply
Determining if Email Processing Rules moved an email
Email Processing Rules can move emails to different folders and break the connection between these emails and replies sent to them. To see if Email Processing Rules have moved an email, do the following:
- From the recipient's perspective, open an email by double-clicking it
- Click [View > Dispatching Plan]
- Check the [Rules applied] section for any ACT_MOVE entries. These entries indicate that an email was moved and that replies sent to is after it was moved are no longer connected with the moved email