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Installing and using the Linked Ticket app

Ricardo Pinto
  • Edited
Zendesk Digital Resources Team

Suite allSuite all

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

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.

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8 Comments

  • Jed Hollander

    Hi there,

     

    I don't suppose that this app carries over any of the linked ticket updates back to the linked ticket? For example, if I link 2 tickets together, I would want the communication on the "child" ticket to be populated back to the "parent' ticket.

     

    Thanks in advance.

    1
  • Casey

    Hi @...,

    Thanks for the in-depth explanation about the Linked Tickets app.

    I have installed this following the instructions however when the app appears in-ticket on the app side panel, even after adding the Linked Data ticket field to the one and only Ticket form wI am using, I'm still getting the 'This ticket form is missing the linked data field. Missing field: 'Linked Data' (360020019919):



    Do you have any idea what the issue could be? I look forward to your reply - thank you in advance :)

    0
  • Kieran Thorpe

    is there still noting that lets us link multiple tickets to one parent? we need to be able to link known problems reported by multiple people to one larger ticket and push updates from the parent without everyone being cc'd in a single ticket causing confusion when someone replies.

    0
  • Tod Brown

    Hi Jed! As per the article, the updates will not update on the linked tickets back to the parent ticket. You can use the workflow with Problem Tickets and Incidents tied to those, as noted here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203691086-Working-with-problem-and-incident-tickets.

    The Problem Ticket in this situation would be the Parent ticket, and the incidents would be the Child tickets.

    This is how Zendesk updates customers when we have service incidents, and it is an amazing method for linking tickets in an extremely productive manner.

    Shift: Sunday - Thursday

    0
  • Jed Hollander

    Thanks @... another question,

    We noticed that when we create a linked ticket and select the requester's name that the Child / Linked ticket is showing the requester VIA the person who created the ticket. See SS's 1 and 2.

     

    That "via" is confusing the trigger as the requester is not getting the updates on the ticket, unless I add them to the CC field in the child ticket.

    Is this a bug or do I have my triggers set wrong

     

    Thanks

    0
  • Grzegorz

    Hi Jed!

    I can confirm that this behaviour is expected. When you create a ticket via the app, the child ticket shows by which person the ticket was created. Therefore, you will see the reference "via" on the ticket interface. However, this fact does not mean that the requester will not receive your email. In fact, when you create a ticket, you select who should be the requester and this person will receive your updates through triggers.

    Please note, however, that this is going to be a proactive ticket. For this reason, you need to ensure that you have a trigger that sends a proactive message to customers when you create tickets yourself. Please see the configuration of our default trigger for reference in our Help Centre article here: Notify requester of new proactive ticket.

    Let us know if you have further questions!

    1
  • Jed Hollander

    Hi @...,

     

    Thank you, I have that setup but if I am reading the Help Center article correctly, this will only email notification of a created ticket to the requester, not any subsequent updates on the proactive ticket. That's the issue that we're running into, Notifying requesters of updates on proactive tickets. 

     

    Thanks.

    0
  • Grzegorz

    Hey Jed!

    Any comments that you add to tickets are sent through triggers. There's an action on the trigger that generates an email notification to the end-user. This trigger will only fire if the conditions specified for this trigger are fulfilled on the ticket. That being said, the app will only create a new child ticket from the existing parent ticket, but any comment will be sent via triggers.

    If no email messages are sent, I would suggest as a first step to check in the ticket events if the trigger that normally sends emails to the end-users has been activated. If this trigger has not fired, you'll need to check the setup of this trigger with your admins. Most likely, there is a condition that was not met in this particular ticket, which is why the email was not sent. You'll need to check what condition was not fulfilled and adjust the trigger accordingly.

    Natively, there is the standard Zendesk trigger that sends updates about any new comment to the end-user that you can also take a look at: Notify requester and CCs of comment update.

    I hope I could point you in the right direction, but let us know if you still need help!

    0

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