How to Set Up a Helpdesk: Ticket Tracking and SLAs

A helpdesk is the routine that makes sure every incoming support request is recorded, assigned to someone and resolved within a set time. The SLA (Service Level Agreement) is that time itself: “critical tickets are picked up within 4 hours and resolved within 2 days”. This guide explains how to turn support work scattered across email and phone into a measurable helpdesk.

Which fields should a support ticket have?

An automatic ticket number, subject, requester, category, channel (phone, email, app, messaging, on site), priority (low, normal, high, critical — work is stopped), description, attachment, assignee, opening date, first-response date, target resolution date, resolution notes, resolution date, a satisfaction score (1-5) and status. Recording the channel shows how much of the team each channel really needs.

Which steps does a ticket go through?

In Tenderely BPM’s Helpdesk module the flow is: 1) The ticket is opened. 2) Triage and assignment — 4-hour deadline. 3) Resolution — 2-day deadline. 4) The requester is notified. 5) Resolution check — the requester confirms the problem is really solved. 6) The ticket closes. The confirmation step keeps tickets that were closed as “solved” but were not from polluting the numbers.

How are SLAs set and monitored?

Each category gets a target time in hours, and the target resolution date is set from it when the ticket opens. Durations can be counted in business days. Triggers send notifications when the target date is approaching (one day before) and when it is missed. Two numbers are enough to measure SLA performance: time to first response, and the share of tickets resolved within target.

When the same problem keeps coming back

Repeating tickets are linked to a root cause. The module has a separate root-cause form, and a trigger sends an alert when the number of tickets linked to one root cause passes a threshold you set. Instead of closing the same fault twenty times, the support team alerts whoever can fix it at the source. Resolutions are written into the knowledge base and reused on the next similar ticket.

What do requesters and the team see?

Visibility is set per form: requesters see only their own tickets, while the support team sees all of them. Requesters follow the status (new, assigned, in progress, waiting on requester, resolved, closed) on the web or in the mobile app. Tickets waiting on the requester are brought up for a weekly review by a trigger, so unanswered tickets do not stay open forever.

Common helpdesk mistakes

1) Using a single SLA: a password reset and a server outage should not share a deadline; targets should be set per category. 2) Letting requesters set priority: every ticket arrives as “critical”; priority should be set by the support team at triage. 3) Closing tickets without confirmation: unresolved tickets look closed and the success rate stops reflecting reality. 4) Not writing the resolution down: the same question is researched from scratch every time; resolution notes and a knowledge base prevent that. 5) Watching only time to close: time to first response often shapes requester satisfaction more than time to resolution.

Frequently Asked Questions