Switching from Ticket Tool

If your server uses Ticket Tool, Sortr can bring its setup over for you: its panels and their buttons, the ticket categories, the staff roles, the opening message, the questions and the ticket numbering. You check what was found, replace each Ticket Tool panel with Sortr's when you're ready, and let Sortr take over the tickets Ticket Tool still has open.

#Start the import

1. Add Sortr, and let it see Ticket Tool's tickets. See Add Sortr. Ticket Tool's tickets are private channels, each with its own permissions, so letting Sortr into their category is not enough. Sortr sees them only if its role is given Administrator by hand for the switch, in Discord under Server Settings › Roles (you can take it off afterwards: see Take over open tickets), or let into each ticket channel.
2. Open the server in the dashboard. While Ticket Tool is in the server, a card on the server page says "Ticket Tool is in this server. Sortr can bring its panels, categories, staff roles and questions over, replace its panels one at a time, and take over the tickets it has open." with Take over its tickets, Replace a panel and Import from Ticket Tool.
3. Press Import from Ticket Tool. Sortr scans the server: the latest 50 messages of up to 250 channels that it can read and Ticket Tool can post in (Ticket Tool has View Channel and Send Messages there), and the first 10 messages of up to 60 recent Ticket Tool tickets, enough to tell apart the kinds of ticket each Ticket Tool panel opens. Where Sortr's own posts have pushed Ticket Tool's out of a channel's latest 50, it reads up to 200 more there. It takes a few seconds and changes nothing.

Sortr looks only at the channels Ticket Tool can post in, because Discord's rules forbid reading more of a server than a feature needs. It skips them altogether in two cases, and the review says why instead of listing panels:

• "Sortr isn't reading message text in this server's channels right now, so it didn't look through them for Ticket Tool's panels. Right-click each Ticket Tool panel in Discord, then Apps, then Import into Sortr, and scan again." Sortr reads message text only while Discord grants it Message Content access, and without it the scan would find nothing. Picking each panel by hand still works (see below).
• "Ticket Tool isn't in this server, so Sortr didn't look through the channels for its panels."

Each server can scan twice in a row, then once about every 10 minutes. Opening the window again within 15 minutes shows the last scan without using one, and says how long ago it was read, for example "Read 6 min ago". Only Scan again reads the server afresh. A scan sooner than that makes the window say "Too many requests. Try again in 540 s.", with its own number of seconds. Scans, the list of Ticket Tool's tickets and take-overs run one at a time in each server, and three at a time across Sortr. When it can't start yet, the window says "Sortr is still reading this server for an earlier scan or take-over. Try again in a minute." or, when other servers are being read, "Sortr is busy reading other servers. Try again in a minute."

When Sortr can't see some channels, the review starts with a note, for example: "Sortr can't see 3 channels, so it couldn't look in them. Ticket Tool's tickets are usually among them, and each has its own permissions, so letting Sortr into their category isn't enough. Give Sortr's role Administrator in Server Settings, Roles, for the switch (you can take it off afterwards), then scan again." What it couldn't read from the tickets then says "Not found, Sortr's default" under Carried over.

#What Sortr finds

The Import from Ticket Tool window shows what the scan found, in four parts.

Panels. Each Ticket Tool panel Sortr found, with a switch to import it, its name in Sortr (up to 80 characters), a link to it in Discord and a Preview. Turn off any you don't want.

Kinds of ticket. Ticket Tool gives each of its panels its own category, opening message and questions, but doesn't say which panel opened a ticket. So Sortr sorts the recent tickets into kinds by their opening message. When it finds more than one kind, each panel in the list, and each of its extra buttons, gets a Tickets like choice. Sortr fills it in where the names agree, for example a panel called Sample Request with tickets that open with "Sample Request". Pick the kind for the others: under the choice you see where its tickets open, how they're named, its staff roles and its questions, and Preview shows its opening message. That kind's categories, staff roles, channel names, opening message and questions then go to that panel. All tickets, mixed uses what most tickets show.

Carried over. What Sortr read from Ticket Tool's tickets. Panels set to All tickets, mixed, and every panel when there is only one kind, start with these; anything not found says "Not found, Sortr's default".

Sortr looks at the latest messages in each channel. If a panel sits further back in a busy channel, right-click it in Discord, then Apps, then Import into Sortr, and scan again within 30 minutes; the panel then says "Picked with Import into Sortr". That command is on the Apps menu only while Ticket Tool is in the server, and Discord shows it only to members with Administrator. In a server that requires 2FA for moderator actions, only the owner can use it. It refuses anything that isn't a Ticket Tool panel, such as a ticket's own message.

#Importing again after a take-over

You can scan again later, for example after Sortr has taken over Ticket Tool's tickets. A ticket Sortr took over still counts for its category, staff roles and channel name, though not as an open Ticket Tool ticket, and its opening message, questions and Close button are read from the copy Sortr posted when it took the ticket over. Whatever the scan can no longer read comes from the panels your earlier import made, as they are set up now. The review then says so above the list: "Sortr couldn't read these from Ticket Tool any more, so they come from the panels you imported earlier, as they are set up now:", followed by what it took. The opening message then reads "From your earlier import" instead of "From a recent ticket". What the scan finds in your server always comes first.

#What you confirm

Set these yourself. Some settings live only inside Ticket Tool, so Sortr can't read them. Each is folded, with its current choice beside its name; open one to change it.

Press Import (the button names how many panels it will make, such as Import 3 panels). Sortr checks the panels as it checks any save, and refuses an import that would take the server past 25 panels. Nothing is posted yet. If the import fails part way, nothing is saved, and the window says "The import didn't finish, and nothing was saved. Scan again, then try once more." The scan is kept for an hour: after that, Scan again. Everything else, such as limits and rules, starts from Sortr's defaults and can be changed in each panel afterwards. The event log records the import as "Imported from Ticket Tool".

#Replace Ticket Tool's panels

After the import the window becomes Switch from Ticket Tool and lists the new panels, "in Sortr, not posted yet". Each one that has a Ticket Tool panel to replace shows "Replaces the panel in" and the channel, with three buttons:

• Replace posts Sortr's panel in the same channel, then removes Ticket Tool's: "New tickets now open in Sortr." Replace all does every panel still waiting, one after another.
• Keep Ticket Tool's leaves Ticket Tool's panel where it is: "Ticket Tool's panel stays. Send this one from its own page whenever you like."
• Open opens the panel's editor.

Panels made for a panel's extra buttons need no post of their own; the window says so. Whatever you leave waits: until then the panel list shows those panels as "Imported - Not Posted", and the card on the server page reads, for example, "2 imported panels are waiting to replace Ticket Tool's." with Replace panels to come back to them, Take over tickets for the tickets Ticket Tool has open, and Import more. Each opens on its own: Replace panels never touches tickets, and Take over tickets never touches panels.

• Sortr only ever removes a Ticket Tool panel message that an import, or a Replace from Send panel, recorded. If it can't, Sortr's panel stays posted and the row says why. Delete Ticket Tool's panel in Discord: it no longer opens tickets in Sortr.
• Each removal is logged as "Ticket Tool panel replaced", under Panel posted, updated or deleted.
• Tickets Ticket Tool already opened stay with Ticket Tool until your team closes them, or until Sortr takes them over.

#Replace with a panel you made yourself

A panel you set up in Sortr by hand can replace one of Ticket Tool's too. On the server page press Replace panels (or Replace a panel) and, under Replace with a panel you made, pick your panel and Ticket Tool's. Or on the panel's page press Send panel, switch on Replace a Ticket Tool panel and pick Ticket Tool's panel from the list. Sortr finds them with a scan, or uses one from the last 15 minutes. Replace posts your panel in that channel, then removes Ticket Tool's: "Replaced. New tickets from the post open in Sortr. Ticket Tool's open tickets stay with Ticket Tool." Those tickets stay with Ticket Tool until you take them over. The switch is there only while Ticket Tool is in the server. A Ticket Tool panel that another Sortr panel is already set to replace can't be picked again. And a Sortr panel already waiting to replace one Ticket Tool panel can't be pointed at another until you replace or keep the first. If the removal fails, your panel stays posted and waits under Switch from Ticket Tool like an imported one.

#Take over open tickets

Under Open Ticket Tool tickets in the same window (or from Take over its tickets or Take over tickets on the server page, which opens only this list), Sortr lists Ticket Tool's tickets. Each row shows who opened it, which roles become its staff, the settings it will run on ("Runs on" a panel), the channels it posts in, and any channel it is kept out of. Take over takes one; Take over all, with the number, takes every ticket that can be.

Taking one over re-posts Ticket Tool's first message in that ticket as Sortr's, word for word and pinging nobody, with Sortr's own Close button in Ticket Tool's look, pins it, then removes Ticket Tool's. From then on it is a Sortr ticket: it closes, saves its transcript and logs like any other. It gives and takes no roles, though: the panel's roles under When a ticket opens and When it closes are never used for it, so closing or deleting it changes nobody's roles. It keeps the number in its name where Sortr hasn't used that number, and its time for Close quiet tickets starts from the take-over.

• Who can close it. The member who opened it, the roles shown as its staff (those with their own permission to see and write in the ticket), and the server owner and Administrators. After the close, those roles can reopen, delete or save it like a panel's support team. Changing a panel's support roles later does not change taken-over tickets.
• Whose settings. The first panel that opens tickets in the ticket's category. With none, Sortr's defaults, which post nothing to your channels. Such a ticket has no panel's slash command settings to go by, so once a panel has put /close, /transcript, /add or /remove in the server's list, its own roles, the server owner and Administrators can use it there. Anyone else gets "This ticket came from Ticket Tool without a Sortr panel, so only the server owner, administrators and the ticket's own roles can use /close here."
• Where its transcript and log go. Only to a channel that nobody outside the ticket's own roles can read (the server owner, Administrators and bots aside). Sortr checks the log channel when it takes the ticket over and again before each log post, and the transcript channel at each save, so a channel opened up to others later gets nothing more about the ticket. The row says "Nothing of it goes to" such a channel. Its log entries are then recorded but not posted, and its transcript is kept on Sortr's site, where only the member and the server's admins can open it. See Transcripts.
• Which tickets qualify. Only a channel whose first message is Ticket Tool's own, with its Close button, whose member Sortr can tell and who still has access. Otherwise the row says why: "Ticket Tool has already closed it.", or that Sortr can't tell who opened it.
• What Sortr needs. In each ticket: View Channel, Read Message History, Send Messages, Embed Links, Attach Files, Pin Messages, Manage Messages, Manage Channels and Manage Permissions. Administrator on Sortr's role covers them all. Without it, the list says "Sortr only lists the tickets its role was let into. Giving its role Administrator for the switch shows them all.", and a ticket missing one says, for example, "Sortr can't take this one over: it needs Pin Messages, Manage Permissions in this channel. Let Sortr's role in with them in the channel's permissions, or give Sortr's role Administrator for the switch." When Sortr can see none of them, the list says "Sortr can't see Ticket Tool's tickets: each is a private channel with its own permissions. Give Sortr's role Administrator in Server Settings, Roles, for the switch (you can take it off afterwards), or let Sortr into each ticket channel, then open this again."

Taking a ticket over also gives Sortr its own access in that channel, limited to what its role holds, so it keeps working there after you take Administrator off its role again. Tickets taken over earlier get the same. If Sortr could not write that access, the ticket's result says "Sortr couldn't give itself access here: keep Administrator on its role until this ticket is closed."

Each ticket then says how it went, such as "Taken over. Its Close button is Sortr's now.", or, when Sortr is busy sending images across all servers, "Sortr was busy sending images, so nothing changed. Take it over again in a moment." The event log records "Ticket Tool tickets taken over", one entry per log channel naming only the tickets logged there. Tell your members that their open tickets are now handled by Sortr, and that a ticket's transcript includes what was written before Sortr took it over.

Ticket Tool keeps handling any ticket you don't take over. Once its panels are replaced and its tickets taken over or closed, remove Ticket Tool from the server.

#What works differently

The review lists what it couldn't bring over under Not carried over. The common ones:

• Claiming. The review says "Claiming was on in Ticket Tool. Imported panels work without it." Sortr has no claiming: everyone on a panel's support team sees its tickets.
• A transcript or log channel everyone can read. The review names it, for example "Ticket Tool posted transcripts or logs in #ticket-logs, which everyone in the server can read, so Sortr doesn't use it. Pick a staff-only channel under Transcripts/Logging on each panel after the import." See Transcripts and Event log.
• Emoji in channel names. Sortr's ticket names are letters, numbers and dashes, so 🎫┃ticket-0001 becomes ticket-0001.
• One setup for every button. Ticket Tool keeps a separate setup per button in its own database. The panels the import makes for extra buttons all start like the first, so change their categories, roles or questions if they differed.
• Question details. Whether each question was required, and how long answers could be, aren't visible to Sortr. Set them under Question details before you import, or under Questions afterwards.

#Many servers

Import each server on its own: the import reads that server's own categories, roles and channels, and only an import made in a server can replace its Ticket Tool panels. To give several servers the same messages and settings afterwards, see Copy panels.