Feature request: Show descriptions for duplicate topics within standard reply thread

Jonathan

8 years ago
updated 4 years ago
Under review

After having merged two help desk tickets together, the merged ticket is hidden from the agent. Following are steps required to then view the merged ticket's description:

Click the down arrow to expand the "Duplicates" section
Click the "Show description" link to display the description
Repeat #2 for every merged ticket

Even then, the description is shown out of context (i.e. above the rest of the other replies).

This is a request to have any duplicates display their description *and* replies in the replies section of the main ticket, organized by timestamp. This way, if an end user happens to email help@domain.com (thus starting a new thread), merging the new ticket with the original would present a near-identical interface to the agent (as if the end user had replied to the correct message in the first place).

It's still useful to maintain a "Duplicates" section on top, but it's usefulness to me ends with a listing of the linked titles of duplicate tickets. I would rather see description and replies of the merged ticket interleaved with the original ticket, sorted by timestamp.

Thanks for your consideration!

Pinned replies

Vladimir Mullagaliyev co-founder

8 years ago
Answer
Under review

Hello Jonathan,

Thank you for your Idea. Actually we do not think that this will be useful in most cases because usually you do merge of topics when you received it. And the topic do not have comments yet. That's why in most cases there is no problem.

Even if the topic has comments the merge means that this topics are the same. So, the comments discussion could be in the same thread too.

We set it to "Under review" for now.

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8 years ago

Hello! Thanks (as always) for your quick responses.

There's a good chance that I'm using the "merge" feature in a way that you did not originally intend.

I'll start with an example. Let's say that I were making my current reply (the one I'm typing right now) by submitting a brand new ticket (as opposed to replying to ticket #9841). I use a slightly different subject line, and the description of my new ticket is actually my reply to your last message to me. On its own, the new ticket would be missing context, and the old ticket would be orphaned. How would you handle that scenario? Would you merge the new ticket into the original ticket?

If you would merge the new ticket into the original one, you'd then be in my circumstance: You would need to make two separate clicks in order to reveal the text in my reply, and it would be displayed out of order (i.e. above your reply to me).

I've only had ~130 help desk tickets over the past month, but I've already had to do this over a dozen times. In fact, this is the only reason that I've used the "merge" feature. It can also occur when:

Someone accidentally opens a brand new ticket when intending to reply to a currently open ticket (as detailed in my example above)
Someone's email program modifies the subject line or body such that UE doesn't correlate the reply with the original ticket

The net result is that I have multiple tickets, each representing a part of a single conversation with a single end user. This has happened quite a few times to me, and I thought that "merging" the topics was the right way to handle it.

If that's not the recommended approach, I'm happy to learn. How do you handle scenarios like mine?

Thanks!

-jonathan

I should clarify: My feature request is focused on help desk tickets (not community forum topics).

I agree with your response as it pertains to community forum topics. However, I think that the concept of merging help desk tickets differs from merging community forum topics.