How to Design a Ticketing System Process Flow

Digital transformation is picking up speed, which introduces more interconnected systems and processes—and along with it, more service issues. Research shows that average ticket volume is up 11% since the pandemic began, a trend that’s bound to increase. To accommodate more and more tickets, businesses need to have a framework for troubleshooting performance issues and quickly resolving challenges.  

What’s the secret to an effective ticketing system? It starts with a well-designed ticketing system process flow.  

Keep reading to learn more about what a ticketing system process flow is, why it’s important, and some key factors to keep in mind when rolling one out at your organization.  

What Is a Ticketing System Process Flow?

A ticketing system process flow is a plan for moving support requests forward from end users to service teams. Its main purpose is to ensure that all ticket requests make it through to their final destination and close in a timely manner. 

Most ticketing system processes tend to follow a standard format like the one below.  

1. Submit a request

First, a user sends a message describing the issue they're having. For example, they might be unable to access an account or be unable to connect a device to the internet.  

The process for submitting a request depends on the system that the company is using. Email systems, mobile applications, and digital forms are all common methods for submitting ticket requests. 

2. Route the ticket

After submitting the request, the message goes through an internal routing process to reach an appropriate team member.  

Some companies prefer routing all trouble tickets to a single helpdesk, while others filter messages and automatically distribute them to qualified individuals. For example, a team may route trouble tickets to cybersecurity, network, or hardware specialists. These groups may include internal team members or third-party managed service providers. 

3. Resolve the issue

After receiving the trouble ticket, IT and security teams process the item and work to resolve the issue. At this point, team members may need to forward—or escalate—tickets to their colleagues for additional review.  

4. Close the ticket

The next step is to send a ticket to the team member confirming the resolution to officially close the ticket. Some IT departments send automated follow-up messages to check in on employees and ensure their systems are running without any issues.  

Why Is a Ticketing System Process Flow Important?

Companies depend on ticketing system process flows to keep their software, applications, and hardware functioning smoothly. A strong ticketing system process flow is necessary for several reasons. 

Prevent Bottlenecks

Without an efficient process flow in place, trouble tickets can easily pile up and bottleneck. A reliable process flow eliminates bottlenecks, which leads to faster ticket resolutions and less stress for helpdesk workers.  

Respond to Cyberthreats

Employees may use tickets to alert cybersecurity team members about issues like phishing, malware, and suspicious account activities. Having an efficient ticketing system process flow enables IT leaders to spring to action and respond to threats quickly before they can cascade across the network.  

Maintain Productivity

Trouble tickets usually indicate that a worker or user is experiencing something that's preventing them from doing work. A ticketing system process flow helps solve challenges quickly, which minimizes costly downtime and boosts productivity.  

Keep Workers Happy

Part of IT’s job is to ensure a positive and efficient employee experience. People need access to secure and reliable systems and tools to do their best work. By streamlining trouble ticketing, organizations show their employees that the company is committed to empowering and enabling them. It may seem like a small thing. But these simple gestures contribute to employee happiness and can potentially reduce turnover.  

Track Known Issues

IT departments need to track issues when they appear and analyze them to pick up on patterns and events. Oftentimes, an issue or vulnerability impacting one person will affect many different users. By tracking tickets and using reporting, teams can have an easier time identifying vulnerabilities and taking corrective measures to fix them.  

Features and Considerations for Process Flows in Ticketing Systems

Companies are continuously evolving their ticketing system process flows, modernizing them to be more effective. Consider adding these useful features to your system to experience better outcomes. 

Automation

Many organizations now automate ticketing flows in order to process them at a faster clip. Automation frees helpdesk workers to focus on resolving issues instead of manually digging through service requests and triaging replies.  

Customization

Ticketing systems need to be customizable to align with today’s ever-changing business landscape. Companies should be able to easily update ticketing flows to accommodate worker needs. For example, a company may need to quickly change internal routing due to a worker leaving the company or switching roles. This process should be fast and intuitive.  

Integration

For the best results, ticketing systems need to integrate seamlessly with tools that employees are already using. For example, most of your team is probably already using a platform like Slack to communicate. By running ticketing through Slack—a platform your team spends the bulk of their time in—you can make it easier to submit requests and follow up with support teams.

"The ticketing system you choose will have a big role to play in the operational stability of your organization. Because of this, it’s necessary to watch out for some common pitfalls."  

Pitfalls to Avoid in Ticketing Systems

The ticketing system you choose will have a big role to play in the operational stability of your organization. Because of this, it’s necessary to watch out for some common pitfalls.  

Downtime

When ticketing systems experience outages, employees and users can’t send tickets and resolve issues. Consider using a cloud-based SaaS platform to avoid unplanned downtime. 

Delays

Users today expect immediate replies when submitting tickets, confirming receipt, and indicating that the ticket is processing. To meet user expectations, it’s best to automate replies and have a live agent on standby to answer immediate questions and provide assistance. 

Account Spoofing

Threat actors may attempt to impersonate helpdesk workers in order to obtain sensitive account information and private data. IT administrators need to take proper security precautions to protect accounts using multi-factor authentication and identity access management services.  

Best Practices to Implement When Designing a Process Flow

To maximize efficiency and prevent slowdowns, keep the following points in mind when designing ticketing systems process flows.  

Prioritize Tickets

Your ticketing system should be able to assess incoming messages and determine an appropriate priority level. For example, a potential ransomware attack would most likely take higher priority over a software account lock-out. 

Establish Ticketing Policies

It’s a good idea to create an official policy governing how employees issue helpdesk requests. This reduces communication issues and keeps tickets flowing in a fair and orderly fashion. 

Use Alerts

It can be easy for team members to miss requests, leading to service response delays. As such, it helps to have a comprehensive alert system in place for SMS and email. 

"By adding Wrangle, team members can go about their business without having to sit on the platform and wait for replies."

Wrangle: The Ultimate Ticketing Tool

If you’re using Slack for trouble ticketing, you’re off to a good start. But as your team likely knows too well, it’s easy to miss notifications and move workflows forward on Slack because the platform requires users to reply manually to requests. 

Luckily, there’s an easy fix: Wrangle, a popular Slack app that automates ticketing and notifications. By adding Wrangle, team members can go about their business without having to sit on the platform and wait for replies. Simply put, Wrangle makes Slack easier and more effective for ticketing and issue resolutions.

Wrangle transforms Slack into an advanced IT help desk and ticketing platform by:

• Turning any Slack message into a ticket
• Instantly allowing users to see the status of a ticket
• Gathering all the issue context with an intake form
• Automatically assigning tickets to the right agent
• Automating reminders to keep agents moving
• Reporting to uncover bottlenecks

To learn more about how Wrangle enhances and improves Slack for ticketing, request a free demo today or add it to your workspace for free.

This post was written by Justin Reynolds. Justin is a freelance writer who enjoys telling stories about how technology, science, and creativity can help workers be more productive. In his spare time, he likes seeing or playing live music, hiking, and traveling.

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