Installing and using the Linked Ticket app

The Linked Ticket app enables you to create a child ticket from an existing parent ticket and link the two tickets together. This is particularly useful when you need to have two separate conversations around the same issue.

This article will cover the following topics:

• Installing the Linked Ticket app
• Creating a child ticket from a parent ticket
• Creating a View for child tickets
• Using business rules with the Linked Ticket app
• This ticket form is missing the linked data field
• Legacy Reference Field (existing/old installations only)

Installing the Linked Ticket app

To install the Linked Ticket app

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Apps > Marketplace.
2. Search for Linked Ticket and select the app from the results list.
3. Click Install in the upper-right corner.
4. Click Install to complete the setup
5. Enterprise customers: Go to Ticket Forms and add the automatically created "Linked Data" field to each active ticket form.

Creating a child ticket from a parent ticket

To create a child ticket from a parent ticket, you can refer to the apps sidebar in the ticket, and click on Create a ticket.

From there, you can fill in each of the ticket fields, and check Copy current ticket description if you would like to carry the ticket description from the parent ticket through to the child ticket. Please note that ticking this option will only carry through public replies (no internal notes), and post the description as a public reply.

Once the child ticket is created, there will be a link in the app to each ticket as per the screenshots below.

Updating the status of a child ticket will not automatically update the status of a parent ticket, and vice versa.

Creating a View for child tickets

The Linked Ticket app will automatically add a tag to child tickets called 'child_ticket'. This tag can be customized when installing the app (see Installing the Linked Ticket app).

To track your child tickets, you can create a View that meets the condition Ticket: Tags Contains at least one of the following "child_ticket".

To create this View

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > Views.
2. Click Add view in the upper-right corner.
3. Under Meet all of the following conditions add:
   • Ticket: Tags Contains at least one of the following child_ticket
   • Ticket: Status Less than Solved

You could also add a tag to parent tickets (for example parent_ticket) to create a view for these tickets, as the app will not tag them automatically.

For more information on how to create Views, check Using views to manage ticket workflow.

Using business rules with the Linked Ticket app

You can set up triggers and automations for parent and child tickets using the tags above (child_ticket, parent_ticket). However, it is not possible to set up business rules to make two linked tickets interact with each other. For instance, it is not possible to setup a trigger to automatically solve a parent ticket once the child ticket is solved.

This ticket form is missing the linked data field

If you see an error that states that that "This ticket form is missing the linked data field", this means the required ticket field is not on the ticket form and the Linked Ticket app will not be able to work. The error looks like this, which shows the name and ID of the ticket field required:

To resolve this, you must be an admin:

Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > Ticket Forms. The ticket field ID can be found by going to Manage > Ticket Fields.

Drag the "Linked Data" field into the ticket form and save. Refresh your browser and the app should start working. 

If you are on the Zendesk Suite Enterprise plan or above, ensure the ticket field appears on any ticket forms that require the Linked Ticket app to work. 

Legacy Reference field (existing/old installations only)

Note: This field only applies to existing/older installations of the Linked Ticket app. If you are installing a new instance of the Linked Ticket app, you do not have to populate this field.

You may have a custom ticket field field in your Ticket Forms/Form called "Linked Data". This was previously a requirement for administrators to create this field for the app to use, however this process is no longer required for new installations.

"Reference Field" in the app settings is the custom field ID for the ticket field called "Linked Data". This is a manually created ticket field that contains the data to link tickets together in the app. This field should be on all active ticket forms. 

When installing:

Deleting this ticket field will erase all links between tickets and is not recoverable. If this field exists, it's best to leave it as is.