Support

Part of the IP4CMS portal. ← All module guides

What it's for — Support is your help-desk and ticketing tool. People raise a request (a "ticket"), you assign it to a person or team, track progress through a set of statuses, and keep a conversation going with comments and file attachments. Every ticket can be measured against a Service Level Agreement (SLA) — a target time for responding or resolving — so nothing quietly slips past its deadline. Tickets are organised under Topics (and optional sub-topics), which also decide which SLA applies and where the work routes.

Where to find it — Open Support in the main portal menu. It opens on the Requests list. From there you can open any ticket, or use New Request to log one yourself. The configuration screens live separately under Settings → Support (Topics and Teams/Groups).

Before you start

• Support must be enabled for your tenant (it appears in the menu when licensed). If you don't see it, ask your administrator to switch on the module.
• You need the right permissions. Viewing and working tickets, configuring topics, managing SLAs, and managing teams are each governed by separate permissions (see Permissions & access below). Without them, buttons and whole screens are hidden.

Key tasks

Configure topics and sub-topics

Topics are the categories tickets are filed under. Set these up before you start taking tickets so requests land in the right place and pick up the correct SLA.

Steps:

1. Go to Settings → Support → Topics.
2. Click Create Topic, fill in the fields, and save.
3. To add a sub-topic, find the topic in the list and add a sub-topic under it. Sub-topics use the same fields and let you break a broad topic into finer categories.

Fields:

• Name (required, up to 100 characters) — what operators and requesters see in the topic dropdown.
• Description (optional, up to 500 characters) — internal note explaining when to use this topic.
• Active — when off, the topic is hidden from new tickets but existing tickets keep it.
• Sort order — a number controlling the order topics appear in lists and dropdowns (lower first).
• Default SLA — the SLA definition automatically attached to any ticket filed under this topic. A sub-topic's default SLA, if set, takes precedence over its parent topic's.

Configure SLAs (response/resolution targets)

An SLA definition sets the clock that runs against a ticket. When a topic with a default SLA is chosen, the clock starts automatically; you can also attach one by hand on a ticket.

Where: SLA definitions are managed from the support settings area (you need the support:sla:manage permission). Once created they appear in the topic's Default SLA dropdown and in the ticket's manual-attach picker.

Key fields on an SLA definition:

• Name and Description.
• Business hours — an optional schedule so the clock only counts working hours.
• Warning value, unit (minute / hour / day) and colour — when the ticket reaches this point it shows a coloured warning (default amber).
• Breach value, unit and colour — the deadline; passing it marks the ticket breached (default red).
• Warning / breach message templates — the message sent out at each stage.
• Who to notify — specific users, the primary assignee, and/or all assignees.
• On-warning / on-breach actions — optional automatic steps (e.g. re-assign).
• Complete-when statuses — statuses that stop the clock (default Resolved and Closed).
• Pause-when statuses — statuses that pause the clock (e.g. while waiting on the customer).

Create and triage a ticket

Tickets can arrive three ways: a requester logs one, an operator logs one on someone's behalf, or one is created automatically from an inbound support email (the email body becomes the description, prefixed [Created from email]). Each ticket gets a unique reference like SR-2024-0001.

To create one yourself:

1. In Support → Requests, click New Request.
2. Complete the fields and Save.

Fields on the request form:

• Subject (required) — short summary.
• Description (required) — the full detail of the problem.
• Status (required) — defaults to Open (see Statuses below).
• Priority (required) — Low, Medium (default), High, or Urgent.
• Topic and Sub-topic — choosing a topic filters the sub-topic list to that topic's sub-topics.
• Member, Customer and Location — optional links to a member, a customer record and a property/location. Each is a type-to-search box: start typing a name and pick from the matches (no need to scroll a long list). See Link people and organisations to a ticket below.
• Assigned to — the primary person or team (see Assignment).

Triaging means working the Requests list: sort by Created date and filter by Status, Priority, Topic, Tag, or Assigned to me, plus free-text Search. Use this to find unassigned or high-priority tickets, open each one, set the right topic/priority, and assign it.

Assign a ticket

A ticket has one primary assignee plus any number of additional assignees. Assignees can be individual users or teams/groups.

On the ticket detail screen:

• Pick someone in Assigned to (or on the form) to set the primary assignee.
• Use Add assignee to add more people or teams to the same ticket.
• Use the make primary action on an assignee to switch which one is primary; the others stay attached as additional assignees.

Teams are set up in Settings → Support → Teams/Groups: create a group with a Name and Description, then add member users. Assigning a ticket to the group routes it to that whole team.

Add comments and attachments

The conversation and evidence live on the ticket detail screen.

Comments:

1. Type in the comment box at the bottom of the ticket.
2. Tick Internal note if the comment should be visible to staff only (not to the requester). Leave it unticked for a reply the requester can see.
3. @mention a colleague by typing @ and picking their name — they get notified.
4. Post the comment.

Use the Show internal comments toggle to include or hide internal notes in the thread.

Attachments:

• Drag a file onto the ticket, or use the upload control, to attach it to the ticket itself.
• You can also attach files to a specific comment when you post it.
• Image attachments show a thumbnail; click any attachment to download it.

Link people and organisations to a ticket

On the ticket detail screen, the Ticket details panel lets you tie the request to the rest of your portal data. Each link is a single, searchable selection:

• Member — the resident/member the ticket is about. Type a name to search and pick one; use Clear member to remove it.
• Customer — the customer account involved. Same type-to-search box, with Clear customer.
• Location — the property or location concerned, again type-to-search with Clear location.

A ticket holds one of each (one member, one customer, one location). Linking matters beyond tidiness: it's what lets you raise a financial transaction against the right account (see below), and it ties the ticket into reporting. You need an edit permission on the ticket to change these links.

Switch between Comments, Transactions and Audit log

The activity area of a ticket is organised into tabs:

• Comments — the conversation and internal notes (above).
• Transactions — the financial documents raised from this ticket (only shown when your tenant is licensed for Financials and Accounts and you have the create-transaction permission).
• Audit log — the full history of changes, comments and attachments for the ticket.

Click a tab to switch; the Transactions list loads the first time you open it.

Raise a financial transaction from a ticket

If your tenant is licensed for Financials and Accounts, a Create transaction button appears on the ticket. It lets you raise any document type — Invoice, Quote, Credit Note, Receipt, Refund or Journal — billed to one of the accounts linked to the ticket (the member's, customer's or location's account).

Steps:

1. Click Create transaction and pick the document type from the dropdown.
2. If the ticket is linked to more than one account, choose which account to bill. (If there's only one, this step is skipped; if there are none, link a member/customer/location with a financial account first.)
3. You land on the full transaction form with the type, account and a reference (the ticket number, e.g. SR-2024-0001) pre-filled. Complete it the same way as any transaction — lines for invoices/quotes, a total for receipts, allocations for credits — and save.

The saved transaction is linked back to the ticket and appears under the ticket's Transactions tab. Creating one needs both the support create-transaction permission (to show the button) and the normal Financials create-transaction permission (on the form).

Escalate a ticket to your owner tenant

If your tenant was created under an owner tenant, you can escalate a ticket to them — this opens a matching ticket in the owner's support desk and keeps the two in sync.

Steps:

1. On an open ticket, click Escalate to {owner}.
2. Choose the owner's category (and sub-category) and priority, adjust the subject/description if needed, and decide whether to include attachments and comment history.
3. Submit. The owner receives a new ticket referencing yours; your ticket shows an Escalated banner with the upstream reference and its live status.

Once escalated you can read the owner's public comments and post replies back to them from the upstream thread on your ticket, and the owner's status changes flow back to your ticket automatically. A ticket can't be escalated twice, and closed tickets can't be escalated.

Move a ticket through its statuses

Tickets flow through five statuses:

• Open — newly logged, not yet being worked.
• In Progress — actively being worked.
• Pending — waiting on something (often the requester); commonly used as an SLA-pause status.
• Resolved — fixed, awaiting confirmation; stamps a resolved date and who resolved it.
• Closed — finished; stamps a closed date and who closed it.

Change the status from the status control on the ticket detail screen. Moving to Resolved or Closed stops the SLA clock by default. You can move a ticket back to an earlier status (e.g. reopen) if more work is needed.

Track SLA on a ticket

When an SLA is attached, the ticket shows an SLA banner with its current state: OK, Warning (amber), or Breached (red), coloured to match the SLA definition. The clock starts when the SLA attaches (usually the moment the topic is chosen), pauses on any pause-when status, and completes when the ticket reaches a complete-when status (Resolved/Closed by default). If a topic had no default SLA, or you need a different one, use Attach SLA on the ticket to pick one manually (requires the SLA-attach permission). When the warning or breach point is reached, the configured people are notified using the SLA's message templates.

How the data connects

• Topics / sub-topics → tickets: a ticket's topic and sub-topic decide its category and, via the topic's default SLA, its target times.
• SLA definitions → tickets: attaching an SLA creates a live clock (an "SLA instance") on that ticket; the definition supplies the timings, colours, notifications and pause/complete rules.
• Assignees (users and teams): the primary assignee plus any additional assignees come from your portal users and the support Teams/Groups you define. SLA notifications can target the primary assignee or all assignees.
• Member, Customer and Location links: a ticket can link to a member, a customer record and a location/property (one each), tying the request to the rest of the portal's data. If the issue isn't at a known property, a map pin (latitude/longitude) can be stored instead.
• Transactions: a transaction raised from a ticket records the ticket against it, so the financial document and the support request stay connected — visible from the ticket's Transactions tab.
• Owner tenant (escalation): if your tenant has an owner, escalating a ticket creates a linked ticket in the owner's desk; comments and status stay in sync between the two through the platform.
• Members/requesters: tickets record who created them (or, for an escalated ticket, the child tenant that raised it). Requesters working through their portal see only non-internal comments and replies.
• Email: an inbound support mailbox can turn incoming emails into tickets automatically, and SLA/comment notifications go out using your message templates.

Permissions & access

Access is controlled by granular permissions, so what each operator can do varies. Key ones:

• View / work tickets: support:request:update:own, support:request:update:assigned, and support:request:update:all — update your own, your assigned, or all tickets respectively.
• Delete tickets: support:request:delete:all.
• Comments: support:comment:create; support:comment:delete:own to remove your own; support:internal to see and post internal notes.
• Attachments: support:attachment:upload and support:attachment:delete.
• Configuration: support:settings:topics (Topics & sub-topics) and support:settings:groups (Teams/Groups).
• SLAs: support:sla:manage (create/edit definitions) and support:sla:attach (attach an SLA to a ticket).
• Escalation: support:escalate (escalate a ticket to the owner tenant and use the upstream thread).
• Raise transactions: support:transaction:create shows the Create transaction button on a ticket; you also need the Financials create-transaction permission (and the Financials + Accounts modules) to complete and save the document.

If a screen or button is missing, you most likely lack the matching permission — ask your administrator.

Tips & gotchas

• Set up topics and SLAs first. Tickets only pick up an SLA automatically if their topic (or sub-topic) has a Default SLA set. No default means no clock unless someone attaches one manually.
• Sub-topic SLA wins. A sub-topic's default SLA overrides the parent topic's — check both when a ticket gets the wrong target.
• Internal vs. customer-visible. The Internal note tick is the line between staff-only and requester-visible. Double-check it before posting anything you don't want the requester to read.
• Use Pending to pause the clock. Configure your SLA's pause-when statuses (commonly Pending) so time spent waiting on the customer doesn't count against you.
• Deactivating a topic is safe — it hides the topic from new tickets but leaves existing tickets untouched, so historical reporting stays intact.
• Primary vs. additional assignees. A ticket can have many assignees but only one primary; switching the primary doesn't unassign the others.
• Reference numbers like SR-2024-0001 are unique per tenant — use them when referring to a ticket in conversation or email.
• Link an account before billing. The Create transaction flow can only bill an account attached to the ticket — set the Member, Customer or Location first, otherwise there's nothing to raise the transaction against.
• Escalate once, while open. A ticket can only be escalated to your owner once, and not after it's closed — escalate before closing if you need their help.