Question
Why didn't my ticket reopen with a comment from the end-user?
Answer
When an end-user comments on a pending, solved, or on-hold ticket, the ticket status changes to open. This is part of the inborn system ticket rules. If an update of a requester does not change the status to open, it could be one of the causes below.
- A trigger changed the status
- API updated the ticket status using agent credentials to perform the update
- The requester is an agent
A trigger changed the status
A trigger can update the ticket and change the status to solved. Check the events of the ticket to see what triggers fired on a particular update.
API updated the ticket status using agent credentials to perform the update
If the status is not specified in the API request, then the API call may not update the ticket status to open. View the events on the ticket and check if the API was used to update the ticket. Updates made using the API show a By Web Service message when viewing the ticket events.
When updating tickets via the API, there are two different ways to do so:
- The Requests endpoint
This endpoint can be used by authenticated end-users. When you add a comment to a ticket from this endpoint, the ticket automatically reopens because the actor is an end-user. - The Tickets endpoint
Only agents or admins are allowed to use the tickets endpoint but can pass in an author_id along with a comment to make it appear to have been sent by an end-user: Author ID.
Because the actor on this endpoint is an agent, the ticket doesn't automatically reopen. To reopen the ticket when using this endpoint, include a "status":"open" attribute with the ticket update request. To confirm that your API call used the Tickets endpoint, check the audits of the ticket:api/v2/tickets/TICKET_ID/audits.jsonCheck if the audit's author is the same as the comment's author. If they match, then the user listed is the actor. If they do not match as in the example below, then the update was made using the tickets endpoint and passing a different author_id in when updating the ticket.
The requester is an agent
It is expected behavior that if a requester replies to a ticket, and is also an agent, the ticket stays in whichever status was selected at the time of their reply. If the requester of the ticket is an agent, you can make the status change to open with a trigger with the conditions below.
-
- Under Meet ALL of the following conditions:
- Ticket | Is | Updated
- Requester | Is | (current user)
- Current user | Is | (agent)
- Ticket status | Not changed to | Solved
- Under Actions:
- Ticket status | Open
- Under Meet ALL of the following conditions:
Alternatively, your agents can use the Mail API to pass through the ticket status #open as they reply by email.
For more information, see the article: Admin's guide to the Zendesk API.
8 Comments
Looking for some support. I've automated Zendesk with our proprietary platform based on conditions met to fire an email to the requestor asking for certain pieces of information.
I have these emails sent to the requestor and also sent to the requestor/clients group within Zendesk so that we can capture they got notified. Because it's only for tracking and we don't need to touch the ticket I have the ticket set to auto solve. However when the requestor replies with the information we need I need for the ticket to reopen however the requestor is replying with the details we need ye the ticket stays in solved. Can you please help? Here is what I have created.
Meet ALL of the following conditions
Ticket is Created
Group is ___
Subject Text Contains the Following String____
Actions will occur
Status Solved
Thanks.
Hi Sabrina -
Thanks for including the details of your trigger that solves the tickets created for this purpose. Because you've included "Ticket is Created", that shouldn't affect what happens when your customer responds. As the article says at the top, the default behavior when a customer responds to a ticket in the Solved status is that the ticket's status should reset to Open. Since that's not happening, I'd suggest you take a look at the ticket Events log, as it's likely there's something happening during the update (another trigger, perhaps) that's changing the ticket's status (to something other than Open): Viewing all events of a ticket
If you're not able to figure out what's going on after looking at the ticket events, I'd suggest you chat with our support team using Option 1 here: Contacting Zendesk Customer Support
Thank you,
HI all,
We set this up in our instance as directed above. We noticed an issue with the setup. If the ticket requester and the ticket assignee are both agents, then the ticket doesn't seem to ever be allowed to be Solved. This trigger continuously keeps the ticket in the Open status. I had to add another Global condition:
Status > Not changed to > Solved
Please advise. Thanks! I feel the conditions in this support doc might need to be edited, unless I am missing something.
Hey Mucci Marinucci -
You'll want to add a condition to say Current User is not Assignee to account for this.
Thanks for flagging!
Brandon
I have had success with the below, however sometimes our agents have tickets where they are the requester AND the assignee, so in this case, if that agent tries to set the status of that ticket to anything other than solved, it reopens the ticket. This was resolved by adding (under the ALL conditions) - Requester IS NOT (assignee).
Therefore if _another_ agent replies (either in Zendesk itself or via email) to a ticket which is assigned to you (and that ticket is on hold or pending), it will reopen that ticket, but if you reply to your own tickets this trigger will not hit.
Final setup:
Is it traditional that when a Follower on a ticket sends a reply it does not reopen a ticket?
Ive been trying to find documentation but cannot find any.
If anyone can let me know. Thanks!
Users added as Followers are agents or admins, and this is why when they reply to the email thread to update the ticket, the status does not change to Open. Per the inborn system rule, only when end users reply to the thread will the status be changed to Open.
If you need email updates from followers to change the ticket status, then you may have to use triggers that will fire when the comment update is over email and the user is an agent. Note though that this trigger will also fire when the assignee sends an update via email. But if this will fit your workflow needs, then you can give this a try.
Thanks Jameela!
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