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Parent > Child Ticket Info: We want your feedback!



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Toby Sterrett

Zendesk Product Manager

Posted Apr 01, 2022

 

One of the main requests we've gotten from folks about child ticket side conversations is to enable the inclusion of information from the originating parent ticket when the child ticket is created. For example, it's common to want to include the ticket form from the parent when creating child tickets, which then provides contextual information to the assigned team, and also provides a way for triggers to fire based on the contents of that form for further routing and processing.

We've been working on making this happen, and the initial release will make is possible to include the parent ticket's ticket form, followers, and/or tags. We're introducing a simple new menu available during the creation of a new child ticket side conversation:

When the "Add" button is clicked after a selection is made, the fields that will be included are displayed at the bottom of the composer:

These can be edited any time before the child ticket is sent by clicking on the field names or the form icon.

Please let us know if there are any other pieces of information you'd like us to consider for future updates and/or how you'd use this. If you're one of the folks who's been testing this out in beta, please feel free to leave some feedback here as well!

FYI, this will not be available as part of the macro initiation or trigger action creation of child tickets at this time, but we'll be investigating it for the future.


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There's a pretty killer app that has a lot of feature build out for this:  https://www.zendesk.com/marketplace/apps/support/179836/escalator/

One really nice feature of this, is that I can set up specific fields to be filled out in specific ways, when an agent escalates and splits a ticket. so the new ticket can not only inherit the form values from the original ticket, I can also set specific fields around the escalation and reason, and what team it went to, etc.  Even more valuable maybe, is the ability to ensure that *attachments* from the parent ticket can be passed over. Often we need to pass images along, and this makes it super easy for agents, we just set up the escalations to do it automatically for those kinds of escalations. 

Those are just two suggestions from that app, that I would love to see natively in the product. 

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Toby Sterrett

Zendesk Product Manager

 

Thanks CJ Johnson! It's currently possible to include attachments from the parent in a couple ways:

1. If you include a comment that has an attachment, the attachment will come along with it:

2. Or, you could attach a file from the parent directly by attaching from ticket:

Selecting a specific ticket form and values to create on the child ticket is something we want to do in the future, but it will take some unification in the approach to ticket forms that needs to be done first.

Hope this helps!

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This functionality has made one of our high volume processes so much more efficient and less prone to human error. It works perfectly, thanks @...

Selecting the Form is on the roadmap I see, that will be a good addition and if we could set the requestor as an external end user in future too that would be amazing.

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Toby Sterrett

Zendesk Product Manager

Andrew Paterson glad to hear it's working well! Thanks for the kind words. Setting an end user as the requester is something we're actively investigating. Out of curiosity, do you want to set them as the requester in order to communicate with them directly? Or do you want to internally collaborate but have the child tied to the customer/org?

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Thanks@..., I was thinking of the former but the latter could also be a use case for us if it's possible (I didn't think that it was possible to tie a ticket to a org without specifying the requester as someone from that org though?)

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+1 to being able to have the requester be an end user. We often have requests come in from Party A, on behalf of Party B. Often times we request additional information from Party A, at the same time as we initiate communication with party B.

Our team is currently creating a child ticket with the agent as the requester, and then changing the requester to be an end user, but it would be very helpful to be able to have an end user as the requester for a child ticket for our use case. 

Being able to transfer form details is very helpful so I like this add-on. We are finding side conversations to be a great communication tool in our workflows and appreciate this extra functionality being added.

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I am very new to child tickets. Very much still learning.

Being able to add the form is good, but we are only attaching the parent ticket form. 

It would be nice to create a child ticket off the parent ticket, using a different form. 

For example: Parent ticket is about trash waste. Create a child ticket about a type of trash and use a form to collect information about that type. 

The parent ticket / conversation can remain, but the side conversation / child ticket can address problems found in the parent ticket, without interfering with the parent ticket. 

 

I'm currently learning on how to set up a view to see only the child ticket, not the parent ticket. Any help appreciated.

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You could set up a separate view for side conversations that meet certain conditions. 
If your 2 hypothetical forms are using the same fields, then an agent would just need to change the form - or you could even set a condition something along the lines of when "ticket is created" type=side conversation (and whatever other conditions are always present such as the original form, product, etc) then the action taken would be to change the form to the form you want on the child tickets.)

I feel like triggers could likely be used for whatever it is you're looking to accomplish.

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I want to be able to pass custom field values from Parent to Child

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Fernando Duarte You can use the 'Set Child Tickets' button that is just to the left of the Send button when you create the Child Ticket.

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We have a requirement for starting a child ticket with end users. Toby, is it still on the road map?
Creating a child ticket with agent as requester to change the requester to end user seems as unnecessary step, and it’s make awkward by being forced to write a comment before being able to create the child ticket. Cannot create without writing a comment.
I wonder what the reasoning is for not allowing child tickets being created with end user as requester? We frequently collaborate with partners and different customer stakeholders in our support environment per ticket, and a child ticket is perfect for us to keep the conversation linked to a specific topic. By mail format is mostly used now and quickly becomes insufficient as the complexity of the correspondence increases. Looking forward to your update!

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We would love to be able to spawn multiple child tickets in one go if possible. Most applicable use-case for us is:

Manager submits ticket to Finance that their direct report is leaving the organization. Finance handles the ticket, but both IT and HR need to know as well, so upon getting the ticket, Finance splits the ticket twice, once to IT and once to HR, and all three teams deactivate the employee on their end.

Additionally if there was a way to automate this via trigger/otherwise, that would be amazing.

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Maybe I've missed it, but how do I select defaults for this or otherwise set this via a trigger/macro? I _really_ want to copy over the `Ticket form` for an escalation path we're implementing and don't want this to be manual.

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I would love to be able to show the parent ticket number in a view!!

It's great that we can now finally parent/child, but I have to go into the child to see the parent ticket number. That is an extra click for no reason. Please add a column for views to show the parent ticket number, please!

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Option to pass along custom field data from parent to child ticket is a total no brainer. Just right there in the child ticket widget. Youre so close to “there”, but not quite.

 

 

The customer (agent or end user) expectation is that a “child” ticket is exactly that. A relative of its parent. Including its genetic code and inherent makeup, should that be required.

The custom fields API has the ticket data available from the parent, its plausible to believe that with some filtration pertaining to the nature of the parent ticket ("Form" being the obvious one to provide semblance of consistent object schema) these fields could be presented and passed alond simply enough as checkbox items similarly to the “select fields” option that is currently available.
 



EG: HR workflow. Where the core ticket contains various information types. Some would be sensitive and contained in the body of the parent ticket. Some Macro scenarios would want to create side conversations and actions arising. The child ticket should have an option (next to attachments, for example) to carry Parent ticket information into the child ticket. The child ticket could be an assigned action for an incident, or a new candidate in a recruitment workflow. You name it. The possibilities are endless. If you allow them to be…

EG2: Maintenance notice: Client submits request for maintenance or infra works. Ticket between agent and end user (client) develops to a point whereby external suppliers are required. One of the exact purposes for Side Conversations.
Child ticket is a scope / quotation workflow that would benefit significantly from information contained within the parent ticket.

 

Of course, There are other ways around these specific scenarios (webhooks, custom even triggers etc). 

But currently a lack of native functionality is causing just that. Workarounds. The problem with workarounds is that they generate great burden on Zendesk Admins to produce hyper specific or otherwise creative workflows for teams who could (and would prefer to) engage in ‘follow the bouncing ball’ processes. 

This ‘cause for creativity’ in turn creates White Elephant employees in orgs. When that Administrator leaves, there is significantly greater risk for Zendesk of client churn if the successor opts to “Work Around” the existing pile of workarounds in the handover notes by ditching Zendesk and choosing a more ‘user friendly’ solution - even if it's less ‘powerful’. 
Users will always choose a path of least resistance where possible, even if it costs them. 

The 80/20 split has proven that for some time now.

Zendesk is a great tool and its customization capacity is outstanding. Personally, I love it. 

But its user friendliness is by far one of its biggest known pain points. Scenarios like this (of which there are plenty) will only continue to lose ZD customers, both potential and existing, to the booming low-code / no-code competitors who pitch OOTB solutions.

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Is there a way to automate adding attachments to a child ticket when it is created? 

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