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Split a request into a new ticket

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Kevin Ford

Community Moderator

Posted Mar 10, 2020

Often, a requester will request something within an existing ticket. I cobbled something together that allows you to create a new ticket and copy CCs/followers. Be warned, this isn't trivial and you're going outside the realm of what Zendesk considers best practice.

You're going to create a ticket via the API and trigger this by notifying an external target. So, to start, create an external HTTP target. For the URL, use https://YOURDOMAIN.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets.json but replace YOURDOMAIN with your actual domain. Method is POST. Content type is JSON. Enable basic authentication and put in valid credentials.

Now, you need to build your user interface. I used ticket fields with conditions.

Drop all of those on your form(s). I set a condition to hide all of the fields when Split Ticket? is unchecked. I also require Subject and Description. Note that if you don't have conditional fields, requiring those fields might be problematic. If you leave them as optional you MUST fill out the description otherwise ticket creation will fail.

Next, create your trigger. These are the conditions I set:

And these are the actions:

Note you want the target to be your ticket creation target. The JSON/Liquid is kind of complex, so here is what I wrote. Note: you MUST change the ticket field ID number (the 360036041113 in {{ticket.ticket_field_360036041113}} to match the ID numbers of your unique fields. Sorry, it's horrible to read. I would suggest pasting it into your favorite text editor to help.

{
    "ticket": {
        {% comment %} Set subject to Subject ticket field on parent. Change long number to match actual subject field number. {% endcomment %}
        "subject": "{{ticket.ticket_field_360036041113}}", 
        {% comment %} Set requester to match parent requester. {% endcomment %}
        "requester_id": "{{ticket.requester.id}}",
        {% comment %} Set assignee to match parent assignee. {% endcomment %}
        "assignee_id": "{{ticket.assignee.id}}",
        {% comment %} If copy CCs is checked, add them to the child ticket. Change long number to match actual copy CCs field number. {% endcomment %}
        {% if ticket.ticket_field_360036041493 contains 1 %}
        {% comment %} The for loop iterates over all of the CCs and adds them. The if inhibits a trailing comma. {% endcomment %}
        "collaborator_ids": [{% for cc in ticket.ccs %}{{cc.id}}{% if forloop.last %}{% break %}{% else %}, {% endif %} {% endfor %}],
        {% endif %}
        {% comment %} If copy followers is checked, add them to the child ticket. Change long number to match actual copy followers field number. {% endcomment %}
        {% if ticket.ticket_field_360036106114 contains 1 %}
        {% comment %} The for loop iterates over all of the followers and adds them. The if inhibits a trailing comma. {% endcomment %}
        "additional_collaborators": [{% for cc in ticket.followers %}{{cc.id}}{% if forloop.last %}{% break %}{% else %}, {% endif %} {% endfor %}],
        {% endif %}
        "comment": { 
            {% comment %} Set first comment to Description ticket field on parent and add a link to parent ticket. Change long number to match actual field number. {% endcomment %}
            "body": "{{ticket.ticket_field_360036041273}}\n\nThis request originated in ticket #{{ticket.id}}.", 
            {% comment %} If public is checked, the comment on the child will be public. Change long number to match actual public field number. {% endcomment %}
            "public": {% if ticket.ticket_field_360036106034 contains 1 %} true {% else %} false {% endif %},
            "author_id": "{{ticket.assignee.id}}" 
        }
    }
}

Anyway, that's working for us now. Let me know if you have questions.

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11 comments

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    Brett Bowser

    Zendesk Community Manager

    Thanks for sharing this Kevin!

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    Quetzal

    I would LOVE to see a simpler way to do this. I have clients respond to the same ticket with new questions over and over and over. It makes tracking their questions very challenging. I love that I can merge tickets, but sometimes I just want to split out a ticket.

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    Kevin Ford

    Community Moderator

    @... I've actually stopped using my solution above. Now that Zendesk has rolled out side conversation tickets, it's actually a much better solution. It's not perfect for this use case, but it's definitely an improvement.

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    Naomi Watnick

    hi @... - for Side Conversation Tickets, this doesn't allow us to have the requester be the requester again, correct?  

    Thanks!
    ~Naomi

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    Kevin Ford

    Community Moderator

    @... yes, but you have to manually set the requester to the appropriate person. 

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    Naomi Watnick

    Thanks @... - And we still don't have a way to inherit all the same selected values from the original ticket, though, right?

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    Kevin Ford

    Community Moderator

    @... there is a way using the API but it's not built into Zendesk. 

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    Naomi Watnick

    Thanks, @... - That's great! I can do something with that and I'll put it in our backlog.

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    Craig Robichaud

    Great work here, @...! I just wish it wouldn't take such a herculean effort just to have what every other platform considers basic functionality.

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    Simon Woodside

    But Side Conversation Tickets aren't for communicating with customers are they? They are for internal communication.

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    Craig Robichaud

    Good point, @.... Right now, we do most customer comms through ZD because we want everything documented on one platform, linked to the ticket interaction, etc. but recently, when I can find a the unique email address for a specific ticket, I will send the email from Outlook and just add that address to the CC; the email goes to the ticket and so does the customer's reply.

    If there was an easy way for us to capture the email address that is unique to our tickets, that would solve all of my personal frustrations with trying to do emails from a place that should just be for ticket notes-- Anyone know if that information is readily available in some ticket properties section somewhere?

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