Resolving tickets automatically using auto-close rules
Using auto-close rules, you can have GFI HelpDesk automatically email your customers if their ticket has been inactive for a certain length of time, and then automatically resolve the ticket if you still get no response.
This means your team won't have to lift a finger to prompt customers who have fallen silent, or clear their tickets out of the queue, when that silence stretches too long.
In this topic, we'll walk you through how to auto-close rules work, and then walk you through how to set up auto-close for your own desk.
Understanding how auto-close rules work
You'll manage your auto-close rules from the 'Tickets' menu in the admin panel. When you create a new rule, you'll have the chance to define a few different criteria:
- Resolved status – You can choose any 'resolved' ticket status – standard or custom – to move the tickets to, when the rule closes them.
- Inactivity threshold – This is the first of two-time limits you'll set. If no update is made to a ticket in the number of hours you define here, GFI HelpDesk automatically marks the ticket as inactive.
- Closure threshold – Once a ticket has been marked inactive, GFI HelpDesk then starts counting toward the closure threshold. When the ticket has stayed inactive for the number of hours you define here, the rule sets the ticket to the resolved status you've chosen.
- Notifications – You'll have the option to send customers an automatic email when either the inactivity or closure threshold has been met. You can also customize those messages by modifying the phrases for the auto-close notifications.
- Ticket criteria – You can also limit the scope of the auto-close rule according to tickets' attributes as well, like department, type, status, etc.
Overall, by defining a set of auto-close rules, you can tell GFI HelpDesk to send reminders about and set timers for any subset of your tickets, so your team doesn't have to chase down disengaged customers manually.