Problem-and-incident tickets are useful when a problem or service interruption is reported by more than one person. For example, when the wireless network in an office stops working, several people might file tickets. You can treat the tickets as incident reports. Instead of handling each ticket separately, you can link the tickets to one problem ticket, and then solve the problem ticket to solve all the incident tickets.
Here's the general workflow:
You must have the ticket Type field available in your ticket form to create this workflow.
- Identify a service interruption or problem that's causing people to file tickets.
- Create your own ticket to address the problem.
- Change the other tickets to incident tickets and link them to your problem ticket.
- Solve the problem ticket.
When you solve the problem ticket, the status of all the incident tickets is automatically set to solved. The comment added to the problem ticket when solved is added to all incident tickets that aren't already solved.
Refrain from solving any of the incident tickets directly. Solving an incident ticket still leaves the other tickets unsolved. Save work by solving only the problem ticket. It automatically solves all the linked incident tickets. When the problem ticket is solved, any empty required fields on linked incident tickets are ignored and the tickets are solved anyway.
To create and solve problem-and-incident tickets
- After identifying a problem that's causing people to file tickets, create your own ticket
describing the problem and set the ticket type to Problem.
- For every other ticket reporting the same problem, set the ticket type to Incident
and link it to the problem ticket.
After you set the type to Incident, a second menu appears that lets you link the incident to a problem ticket.
Make sure to click Submit to update and save the changes to the ticket.
- Return to the problem ticket to view the linked tickets and review the incident
reports.
- When you're ready to solve the problem ticket and linked incidents, add a comment. Note
that the comment you add when solving the problem ticket is only included in unsolved linked
incident tickets.
You may want to use placeholders to personalize the comment for wide distribution. For example:
See Using placeholders.
Use caution when using macros to update problem and incident tickets. See Using macros to update problem and incident tickets. - Solve the problem ticket, then confirm that you want to solve all open linked incident
tickets.
If you decide to reopen the solved problem ticket, the incident tickets aren't updated. They stay solved. If you solved a problem ticket prematurely or if you need to communicate something more to the requesters, you can reopen the incident tickets before solving the problem ticket again. Click the Incidents tab when viewing the problem ticket and bulk edit all of the tickets. Submit the tickets as open and proceed with re-solving the problem ticket.
Related topics
65 comments
Dave Dyson
Hi Maarten,
Unfortunately, I think the only way to do this would require writing custom API scripts outside of Zendesk. Triggers don't have a way to perform actions when a custom field value (in this case, you sub-status) changes, and they also don't have a way to perform actions on Incident tickets when a trigger is activated on their attached Problem ticket. There is an API endpoint that can give you a list of the Incidents attached to a given Problem Ticket (List Ticket Incidents), and there is an API endpoint that allows you to update a list of tickets all at once (Update Many Tickets). But I don't know that there's an easy way to detect when that field changes in the Problem ticket, so you'd likely end up using a lot of API calls watching every ticket. Maybe someone else has a better idea?
0
Anne-Flore Caire
Hello,
I have to identify the "Incident" tickets which are link or not no a "Problem" Ticket. But I don't see any condition in triggers, nor tag to do that.
It was difficult to read all the comments of this article, but I think I didn't see any one.
I hope I am wrong... So if someone have a solution, i'll be very interested to get it.
Thanks
2
Amber Barnes
Is there a way to create an incident from a problem ticket in the Zendesk support UI? We have situations where a "problem" ticket comes in, and we need to create incident tickets manually. The only way I know of linking a newly created incident ticket is to backtrack to the problem ticket and link manually. It would be nice if there was was a way to create incident from problem ticket (unless there is and I'm just missing it!)
0
Beau P.
Hi Amber,
Presently there doesn't exist a mechanism to create linked incident tickets from a problem ticket itself; you would need to manually create new incident tickets or connect existing tickets to your newly created PT.
Let us know if you have any additional questions.
Beau | Customer Advocate
0
Lou
Can the linked tickets view be modified?
The default shows ID-Subject-Requester-Requested-Group-Assignee.
I'd like to add columns to this view.
Thank you
5
Cheeny Aban
Hi Lou,
As of the moment, there is no native way to customize the incident ticket view, but I've marked this conversation as product feedback for review, which means that your input will be aggregated as a part of our Voice of the Customer program that provides customer feedback to our product development teams.
We truly value customer feedback and your voice and votes in the product feedback topics in the community help influence future Zendesk functionality.
6
Mac Hill
@... I would like to +1 for modifying the linked ticket view. Seeing the ORG would be really helpful to us.
Thanks!
8
Mark Leci
We also use organizations heavily and want to add this to the incident tab. The alternative using a view per problem ticket is very clumsy, since we may have 15+ problem tickets open at once and each would require a new view (since you can't show any details about the linked problem ticket in a view) Is there an open feature request for this yet? I wasn't able to find one.
1
Brett Bowser
Hey Mark,
I wasn't able to locate an existing feedback request related to the functionality you're looking for. I'd recommend creating a new feedback post in our Feedback on Support topic for our product managers to review. You can also copy and paste the following template when submitting your feedback.
Thanks for taking the time to share this with us!
0
Adarsh Shet
Is there any recent change in the problem and incident ticket, i see comments made in the problem ticket is automatically get commented in the incident ticket as an internal comment? which was earlier only during solving the problem ticket.
0
Cheeny Aban
Hi Adarsh,
I suggest that you check the ticket events of the two tickets to verify why the comments were automatically added. If you think that it was caused by the system, you may reach out to our Customer Support with the ticket ids for a closer look
0
DJ Yoder
When you solve the problem ticket and then choose the option to also solve all associated incidents, it ignores fields on the related incidents that are not yet filled out but are required on solve. We are ending up with tickets with incomplete field data as a result. Is this intended (there is no warning that it will override "required field" settings)? Or is this a bug?
3
Erik Boudreault
@DJ Solving a Problem Ticket will ignore rules such as Required ticket fields as to avoid collision.
@Paul There is not a way to send an update to all Linked Incidents. Only the Solved Status will send an update to all Linked tickets with the last comment made.
0
Paul Toomey
Hi @Erik - thanks for the response - I actually removed my question as I found how to update all linked tickets at once with a progress update without having the solve the main ticket. I used the incidents view and then selected all linked tickets and hit the 'Edit xx Tickets' button, then added a public comment and hit submit and the comment is added to all tickets - so it was simple in the end.
1
Lou
Paul Toomey The down side to that is you're limited to 100 tickets at a time. We have many problem tickets with well over 100 linked tickets.
1
Stacey
Is there any way to set all incoming customer tickets as "question" type?
0
Lou
Stacey
A trigger should do that. You need to be very sure of what you want to accomplish and how you'll structure it.
0
Mike
If you leave an internal comment on a problem ticket, will this be sent out to all incident reports linked? or will it only update the assignee of the problem ticket?
0
Lou
Mike
No. The only comment on a problem ticket that filters down to the incident tickets is a public comment, but ONLY when the problem ticket is solved.
1
Lala
Hello. I have a weird situation where incidents that I link to a problem ticket will sometimes "unlink" or just not stay on the linked ticket if that makes sense. This will happen without the ticket even being solved. Can you tell me what might be causing that to happen? Thank you!
0
Viktor Hristovski
Lou hello - i wonder if there is a way when creating a new ticket from the helpsuppport (guide) , for the requester to somehow link their issue to an open problem ticket? In other words, if we have a list of known issues and the reporter can choose to link their ticket to some problem ticket? Thank you
0
Lou
Lala have you looked at the events on the incident ticket to see when it was unlinked?
Viktor Hristovski I don't believe you can do that. Not knowing all the details, I would assume the requester doesn't have authority to access the problem ticket, and as such cannot link to it.
0
Sy Sussman
All of my incoming tickets are set to a default ticket type of Incident and I don't know why. We don't have a trigger doing this.
0
Lou
Sy Sussman
When you say "incoming tickets", what channel are you using (email, answer bot, etc.)?
0
Sy Sussman
Lou - email
0
Lou
Sy Sussman
Are they coming in to your main support email address and from the requester directly (not forwarded)? Just looking at the variables to figure out why that would happen.
0
Sy Sussman
Lou - yes to both
0
Lou
I would really need to see your Events. There's something going on here. All of our tickets are created without a ticket type no matter the channel. We run a macro to set that attribute.
0
Sy Sussman
Here are the events for a new ticket that came in today. It came into our support email.
Can you continue this conversation with me via my work email?
---
Note: the user's email address was redacted by the Community Team in accordance with our Zendesk Community Code of Conduct
0
Lou
I'd be interested in the actions of that priority trigger. Ticket type and priority are somewhat related.
0