Viewing new/pending/open tickets
When you first log into LibAnswers, you'll be taken to the Dashboard, which gives you quick access to the new and open tickets in your queues. From here you can quickly view information about the unclosed tickets including:
Id: Lists the ID of the ticket along with options for deleting or closing the ticket, and marking the ticket as spam.
Status
New: these are tickets where the patron has not yet received any reply.
Open: these are tickets where the someone has interacted with the ticket (sending a reply to the patron, adding an internal note, transferring it to another user or queue, etc.) and may require additional follow-up.
Pending: are tickets where a reply has been sent to the patron, but a follow-up from the patron is expected.
Queue: Will display the queue the ticket is assigned to.
Question: Will display the question text, an option to preview the question without opening/claiming it, the name and email address of the submitter, and the method by which the ticket was submitted.
Last Message From: Indicates whether the last reply came from the patron or a LibAnswers account holder (User).
Owner: If the Owner column is blank, then that means nobody has claimed the ticket yet. If a name is displayed in the Owner column, then that is the user currently responsible for that ticket.
Updated: Indicates the date and time that the last action (reply, note, etc.) was made for the ticket.
Claiming tickets
In order for the patron to receive a reply, a staff member must first claim the ticket. If you spot a ticket on the dashboard without an owner, then that means the ticket has not yet been claimed.
To claim a ticket, click on the question.
This will allow you to view the entire text of the question and submit a reply.
The first person to claim a ticket automatically becomes the owner.
If you'd like to preview the entire question without claiming the ticket, click on the Quick Look () icon next to the question.
This will display the entire text of the question in a pop-up window.
Previewing questions can be helpful if you're not quite sure if you're the best person to answer.
It can also be helpful if you want to "triage" a large number of new tickets, making it easier to spot more urgent questions that need immediate attention versus questions that may be able to wait.
To delete or close a ticket, click on the Delete or Close this Ticket () icon.
If a patron accidentally sent in the same question twice, this will allow you to delete the duplicate. This will permanently remove the ticket from LibAnswers and it will not be reflected in your stats.
If the ticket needs no further action, perhaps the patron replied with a simple 'thank you,' you can close the ticket via this icon. Closing the ticket from here is the same as changing the status of a ticket to Closed from the ticket's page, but without having to view the ticket directly.
To flag a ticket as spam, click on the Mark this ticket as spam () icon.
On occasion, you might receive a ticket via email that is actually spam. This option will allow you to move that ticket into your Spam queue.
Flagging tickets as spam can help the LibAnswers spam filter better identify spammy tickets in the future, helping them bypass your open tickets entirely.
To select a ticket for bulk updating, click on the checkbox.
Admins (and Regular accounts with queue-level admin permissions) can select multiple tickets on the dashboard and make bulk updates to them.