What is the difference between a solved ticket and a closed ticket?

Question

What is the difference between a solved ticket and a closed ticket?

Answer

You can set tickets to solved first, and then, after a pre-defined amount of time, they move to closed status. The major differences between solved and closed tickets are below:

• Solved tickets can be reopened and updated. Tickets in solved status, that are not closed by a trigger or automation, are automatically closed after 28 days through a system action.
  
• Closed tickets are locked. They can't be reopened and they can be modified only by admins or through the ticket API endpoints. Tickets can be closed by a trigger or automation, but not by agents. If an end user responds to a closed ticket, it will create a follow-up ticket. A closed ticket moves to an archived state automatically after 120 days. See the image below for an example of a closed ticket in search results in an account with custom ticket statuses deactivated.
  
  
  • • When custom ticket statuses is activated, closed tickets retain a custom or default solved ticket status after they are closed. The closed tickets will also display a symbol that they are closed. You can use the search operator status:closed to filter for these tickets once they are archived. See below for an example of a closed ticket in search results in an account with custom ticket statuses activated.
      
    • When modify closed tickets is activated, admins can edit the Tags, Subject, and Priority ticket fields on closed tickets.

By default, Zendesk contains an automation called Close ticket 4 days after status is set to solved that gives your customers four days to respond to a solved ticket before moving the ticket to the closed status. The best practice recommended by Zendesk is to close a ticket after three to five days. However, you can adjust this automation to run anywhere between one hour and 28 days.

In accounts with custom ticket statuses activated, Closed tickets display a custom or default Solved status.

For more information on the other ticket statuses, see these articles:

• About open vs. pending and on-hold tickets
• Modifying closed tickets