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Understanding Parent-Child Ticketing System

Alert
We are opening this feature on request basis. You can raise your request through the Early Access Form. More information on Parent-Child Ticketing in this announcement

A ticketing system allows businesses to manage customer requests and support enquiries efficiently. In some organizations ticketing systems are also used to manage internal processes, such as HR, IT requests, and employee grievance, to ensure things stay streamlined.

In most cases it is common to see tickets for a similar issue or related query from one or many users.

For example:
  1. You may receive multiple tickets from customers during an outage
  2. A request to replace a faulty product from many buyers
  3. Order enquiry, return, and refund requests from a customer

In the above cases, the person who is handling the request will have better context if the related tickets are interlinked. They can easily refer to the relevant ticket and understand the issue before replying. Moreover, it will allow them to maintain a well-organized database where information can be found easily.  

Zoho Desk facilitates parent-child ticket relationships. It provides an option to select one ticket as a parent and associate a similar ticket to it as its child. 

Business scenarios 

Here are some scenarios that businesses come across routinely where parent-child ticketing can simplify the issue management. 

Lapse in critical transaction due to unplanned system outage

Sudden interruption in service can make the day tough for customer support teams. Tickets pour in from all channels making it difficult for the support agents to reply and close them individually. One of the tickets can be marked as a parent ticket, and the related ones as its child tickets. This will establish a parent-child relationship, allowing agents to close only the parent ticket, which will automatically close all the child tickets saving their valuable time. 

Seeking no dues clearance for employee exit 

When an employee resigns from the organization, most departments are required to issue a No Due certificate or letter to ensure there are no outstanding dues. Tickets created in each department can be considered as child tickets and linked to the parent ticket created in the HR department. The parent-child relationship will ensure that HR can close the ticket only when all the child tickets are closed. In other words, an employee's exit process can only begin after No Due has been received from each department. 

In some cases, if a child ticket is reopened, the parent ticket will automatically reopen acting as a checkpoint to prevent any oversight. 

Order, replacement, and refund enquiry for a product

In the ecommerce business, it is common to receive multiple enquiries from a customer for a single product. For example, if a customer raises a request to enquire about an order and subsequent requests for replacement and refund, these three tickets can be linked through parent-child ticketing. 

The parent ticket about the order enquiry can be automatically closed once the child tickets on replacement and refund are closed. Automatic closure will ensure that tickets do not remain open needlessly by reducing dependency on agents, and preventing inadvertent delays due to manual intervention.


Availability
Info
Permission Required
  • Users with administrative privilege can configure parent-child ticketing
  • Users with permission to update and create Tickets can link tickets as parent or child.
  • Professional and Enterprise editions

Configuring parent-child ticketing

Zoho Desk allows admins to enable parent-child ticketing for the required departments. While setting up, they can select the preference based on the support process and ticketing system followed by the organization. The ticketing preferences you can choose are:

  • Automatically close child ticket when parent is closed - The agent can close the parent ticket, which will ensure all child tickets are closed. This option can be useful in cases where the same issue has been reported by multiple customers, as in the above example of system outage. An automatic response can be sent to the contact once the child tickets are closed. 

  • Allow agents to close the parent ticket only when the child ticket is closed - The agents can be restricted from closing the parent ticket if a child ticket is open. In the above case of employee exit processing the HR team cannot close the parent ticket unless all the child tickets are closed. 
    Note: The above two preferences are linked and cannot be enabled simultaneously. 

  • Automatically close the parent ticket once all the child tickets are closed - The agents need not close the parent ticket. It can be closed automatically if all the child tickets are closed. In the above instance for product enquiry, once the related tickets on replacement and refund are completed, the parent ticket is closed. 
Info

Points to remember 

  • A child ticket can be associated with only one parent ticket. 
  • A parent ticket can be associated with a maximum of 200 child tickets.
  • Once the association is initiated a notification will be displayed that "child ticket association is initiated and will take a while to complete.   
  • While associating, only those tickets that are unassociated with any tickets are listed. 
  • A child ticket cannot be associated with further child tickets.
  • A parent or child ticket can be reopened if needed. 
  • If a child ticket is reopened, the parent ticket will open automatically. However, this will not reopen the other child tickets. 
  • Parent-child ticketing is department specific. 
  • Tickets from within a department can be associated with each other. 
  • The following tickets cannot be associated as a child:
    • that are already associated as a parent or child. You can disassociate and associate them with another ticket.
    • that are archived, marked as spam or moved to recycle bin.
    • tickets for which you don't have permission.
  • Within the parent-child subtab of a ticket, users can update the ticket status and owner of a child and parent ticket. However, ticket statuses cannot be modified if they are associated with a blueprint. 


To configure parent-child ticketing
  1. Navigate to Setup > Customization > General Settings > Tickets.
  2. In General Settings for Tickets, go to Parent-Child Ticketing and click Configure.
  3. In the Parent-Child Ticketing Preferences page, click Select Departments to enable.
  4. Select the departments from the drop-down list and click Enable.
  5. Click on the department and select the preferences from the following options:
    1. Automatically close child requests when parent is closed
    2. Allow agents to close parent ticket only when all its child tickets are closed
    3. Automatically close the parent ticket when all the child tickets are closed.
  6. Click the Close icon to save the changes and exit the configuration page.

Establishing parent-child association between tickets

Once parent-child ticketing is enabled, the tickets created in the respective department will display the parent-child tab in the tickets detail page. 


From this page, agents can:

  • Create a parent or child ticket
  • Associate existing tickets as a parent or child
  • Clone the ticket as a parent or child

To create or associate parent or child tickets
  1. In the Tickets module, select a ticket and click the Parent-Child tab.
  2. Click Associate Parent/Child Ticket drop-down and choose + Create new child ticket or + Create new parent ticket.
    Alternately, click Associate Child Tickets or Associate Parent Tickets drop-down and click Create Child Ticket or Create Parent Ticket as required.  


  3. In the Add Ticket page, enter the details and Save
  4. The ticket will be associated as a parent or child as selected. 

  5. Click Associate existing Ticket, and select the available tickets from the list view and click Associate.  

To clone the ticket as parent or child

  1. In the Tickets module, select a ticket and click the Parent-Child tab.
  2. Click the drop-down next to Create Child Ticket and select Clone this ticket as a parent or child.

  3. In the Ticket Detail page, edit the required information and Submit.

Dissociating tickets from parent-child relationship

As per ones requirement, tickets can be dissociated from the parent-child relationship. 

To dissociate tickets

  1. Select a Ticket and click on it.
  2. In the Tickets detail page, click the Parent-Child tab.
  3. Hover on the ticket you want to dissociate.
  4. Click the Dissociate icon (  ).

  5. Click Dissociate in the popup. 

Helpful?192
Updated: 3 months ago
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14 comments

WIll it be possible to sync fields between parent and child?

Is this right that the Parent-Child Function is NOT possible to use with our Zoho One Subscription?

Hello, is it possible to have the parent ticket in one department and the child ticket in a different department?

I tried to action this today and the tickets are not associated.

I have reported this to support also

Hello! So excited for this feature! Will we able to run reports on parent/child relationships? Also, will this data be available to sync with Zoho Analytics? My team runs various reports out of Analytics and we rely on information that can be synced from Desk.

We have the Professional version of Zoho, but I do not see Parent/Child ability anywhere.  Does it require Enterprise or does it require us asking for it?  Thanks for any help you can give.

A sum of all registered time in the main ticket would be nice though. 
Is that still to come? 

Will it be available for Zoho One customers? 

It appears that when closing a parent ticket with open child tickets, even if the 'Allow agents to close the parent ticket only when the child ticket is closed' option for the department is set, I am still able to close the ticket.

How does one filter or create a view for Parent/Child Tickets?  I need to be able to easily see how many Parent or Child tickets I have.

I also need to create a view for parent/child tickets. The old extension used to use the parentId field I could filter on, but this new feature doesn't seem to use that field for making associations. So I can't filter for parent or child tickets.

So I see a field called Associated Type on the ticket, and it has the values None, Parent Ticket, Child Ticket. It looks like the field isn't automatically set when creating a parent-child relationship, have to set it manually. Can it be changed to assign this value automatically because then we can filter on that value.

We have multiple departments in zoho desk. 

Can I raise a child ticket to another department for them to respond and once they give me resolution I need to close my parent ticket.

Is it possible?

Hi, How can we use Parent and Chield tickets for AMC Service Tickets. E.g. If any Account purchased the AMC and we alloted 12 Services aginast that AMC. Can we generate the 12 Tickets in advance for each Month? will it affetc the ticket resolution time? PLease suggest.

  • 8 months ago

Is there a way to automate this. as in the parent child tracker in the market place we manage to create an automated way to create parent and tag the child. 

How would this be possible in the beta. do you have like documentation for the developers? 

This seems to be poorly implemented.  There seems to be no way to view all parent tickets or all child tickets.  I have to open each ticket to see if it happens to be a parent or a child of another?

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