Working a ticket

This page is for your support team. Everything here happens in Discord, inside the ticket channel, with Sortr's buttons and a few slash commands.

#Who counts as staff

Each support role has an access level, set per panel under Who can see it. The support team is the roles with Full access. Anyone with the Administrator permission in the server counts as Full access on every panel, even without a support role, except in a server that requires 2FA for moderator actions: there only the server owner does, and other Administrators need a support role like everyone else.

These are the defaults. An admin can change who may press each button under Ticket buttons, and who can use each command under Slash commands › Who can use it.

• Buttons. Support team only, Allowed roles and Blocked roles are set for each button. Blocked roles never stop the server owner or Administrators (in a server that requires 2FA for moderator actions, only the owner). Pressing a button you may not use gets a private notice, such as "That is for the support team.", and leaves the ticket alone.
• Commands. The rows above hold while no roles are picked for a command. Once roles are picked, only members holding one of them can use it, and the support team no longer can unless they hold one too. The server owner always can, and so can Administrators, except in a server that requires 2FA for moderator actions, and except /new on a panel that gives a role at or above their own highest role, where they need a role picked for it or, with none picked, a support role on Full access. Anyone else gets "Only the support team can use /close here." or "Only some roles can use /close here." While no panel in the server has roles picked for a command, Discord lists it only for members with the Manage Messages permission. Once any panel picks roles for it, Discord lists it for every member. So if a command is missing when you type /, ask an admin. See Who sees a command.
• The ticket owner closes their ticket with the Close button. They cannot use /close, /transcript, /add or /remove unless a role they hold is picked for it.

#The opening message

Every ticket starts with Sortr's opening message. It mentions the member and the support roles, and is pinned by default (Pin the opening message under Ticket channel). If the panel asks questions, the answers sit in their own box under it. A question left blank reads "No answer", and a very long answer may be shortened there, but Sortr keeps it in full. For a question that takes files, the box reads "3 files attached" with the files' names, or "No files": Sortr posts the member's files in the ticket under the opening message, one message per question, headed with the question and "from @ren.oakley" (which pings nobody). A file Sortr could not copy, such as one too large for it to post here or of a kind the question does not take, is named instead, with "Not copied. @ren.oakley can post them in this channel." (see Files Sortr does not copy). Its Close button stays for the life of the ticket, and answers "This ticket is already closed." once it is.

#Close a ticket

1. Press Close. It is under the opening message.
2. Confirm. Sortr asks, in a message only you see: Close this ticket? "The ticket closes as this panel is set to. You can reopen it afterwards if the member comes back." Press Close ticket, or Cancel to leave it open.
3. Done. Sortr answers "Ticket closed."

If the panel has /close switched on, you can also run it inside the ticket. It closes straight away, without the confirmation, and answers "Closed."

If Sortr's role can no longer see the channel, or lacks Manage Permissions there, Sortr could not lock the member out, so it does not close the ticket at all. It answers "Sortr can't manage this ticket's channel any more, so it can't close it. Let the server's staff know." Let Sortr's role back in, then close it again.

When a ticket closes, Sortr:

• takes away the member's access, and that of anyone added with /add, so the channel disappears from their list. Staff and bots keep theirs. If Discord refuses Sortr in that channel, for example when its role lacks Send Messages there, taking the channel away can fail, and the event log then names who may still be in;
• posts the Ticket closed notice with Reopen, Transcript and Delete, and tells you it is closed;
• saves a transcript, if the panel saves it when the ticket closes. A panel set to save when the ticket is deleted saves nothing now, and the closed notice has no transcript link. See Transcripts;
• sends the member a direct message, if the panel has that switched on;
• gives or removes roles, if the panel has close role triggers;
• renames the channel, to closed- and the member's Discord username by default, such as closed-renoakley, and moves it to your closed category if you set one under Destination category.

Discord allows two renames per channel every ten minutes, so after a quick close and reopen Sortr may skip a rename and the name can lag behind. Sortr then says so in the event log, under Something went wrong, so you can rename the channel by hand if the name matters.

#Give a reason

The Close button has no box for a reason. To record one, close with the command instead: /close reason:Refund issued. A reason can be up to 500 characters. Add the ticket option to close a different ticket from any channel. The reason goes into the log channel and to webhooks. It only appears in the closed notice or the member's message if those messages use {reason}, which the default ones do not. See Variables.

#Reopen a ticket

Press Reopen on the closed notice. Sortr answers "Reopened.", gives the member back the permissions the panel gives a ticket owner, lets back in anyone who was added with /add, renames the channel back and moves it to your open category. It also takes the buttons off the closed notice. It posts Ticket reopened, mentioning the member so they find it, unless that message is switched off. Automatic close starts counting again from zero. If Discord refuses Sortr in that channel, for example when its role lacks Manage Permissions there, letting them back can fail, and the event log then names who is still locked out.

The extra confirmation. Once a ticket is closed, staff sometimes leave notes in it. Reopening shows the whole history, notes included, to everyone who comes back. So if a person other than the member wrote in the channel after it closed, Sortr asks first and names everyone who comes back, members added with /add included: "Reopening lets @ren.oakley and @dev.sam scroll up and read the 2 messages staff posted here after it closed. Reopen anyway?" It names up to 20 people, then says how many more. Press Reopen anyway to go ahead, or leave it. Notes written while the ticket was closed never appear in the member's copy of the transcript, even after a reopen.

#Save a transcript

Press Transcript on the closed notice, or run /transcript in the ticket at any time, open or closed. Sortr replies privately with the conversation as an HTML file: "Saved, 42 messages." from the button, "Transcript saved, 42 messages." from the command. A file too large for Discord in your server is not attached: the reply adds "It's too large to attach here." and, when Sortr keeps a copy on its site, "Read it on sortr.xyz:" with the link. It also posts and keeps copies the way the panel's transcript settings say, except the member's DM copy: only a save at the close or the delete sends that.

The button and the command save at most once per ticket every 2 minutes between them. A second try sooner gets "A transcript of this ticket was saved moments ago. Try again in 2 minutes.", with the time counting down. When ten transcripts from the server are already being saved or waiting their turn, Sortr answers "Sortr is saving many transcripts for this server right now. Try again in a few minutes."

The file you get and the copy in your transcript channel hold everything. The copy on sortr.xyz and the member's copy leave out messages written while the ticket was closed. A transcript holds up to 5,000 messages, with times in UTC; pictures and files are links to Discord, not copies. There is no need to press it yourself: Sortr saves one on its own, when the ticket closes or when it is deleted, whichever the panel is set to.

#Delete a ticket

1. Press Delete. It is on the closed notice.
2. Read the prompt. Sortr asks, in a message only you see: "Deleting removes the channel and everything in it for good. A transcript is saved first. Delete it? Dismiss this message to keep it." The middle sentence says what happens to the conversation: "A transcript is saved first.", "Its transcript is already saved." or "No transcript is kept, because transcripts are switched off for this panel." If the ticket has been reopened since, and the button was left on an older notice, the prompt starts with "This ticket is still open."
3. Confirm. Press the red Delete ticket button, or dismiss the message to keep the ticket.

Sortr then saves a transcript if the prompt said so and, unless that message is switched off, posts Deleting this ticket: "This channel and everything in it will be gone in 8 seconds." It answers "Deleting.", and after 8 seconds the channel and its messages are gone.

Deleting the channel by hand in Discord also works, but a channel deleted that way is never saved. Sortr notices and records the ticket as deleted. To have closed tickets deleted on a timer, see Automations. Deleting has the full rule.

#Add and remove people

Inside a ticket, run /add member: to bring someone in, or /remove member: to take them out. Both have to be switched on under Slash commands, and both start switched off. They are for the support team, or for the roles picked for each command.

• Someone added can read the whole history, write and attach files. Sortr posts "@mira.k added @dev.sam to this ticket." with a mention of them above it, which pings them so they find it.
• When the ticket closes they lose access with the owner, and get it back if it is reopened. If Discord refuses Sortr in that channel, taking the channel away can fail, and the event log then names who may still be in; letting them back can fail too, for example when Sortr's role lacks Manage Permissions there, and the event log then names who is still locked out.
• Sortr can only give someone what its own role holds in the channel. Someone added with less gets in all the same, and the event log says A member was added with less access. If Sortr cannot let them in at all, it answers "Sortr can't add people to this ticket: it needs Manage Permissions on the channel. A server admin can fix that." /remove can be refused the same way, with "Sortr can't take @dev.sam out of this ticket: it needs Manage Permissions on the channel. A server admin can fix that.", and they stay in.
• /add leaves out someone who can already see the ticket, through a support role or Administrator, and answers "@dev.sam can already see this ticket." Adding them would only lock them out at the close.
• /remove only removes someone who was added. For anyone else, such as someone who sees the ticket through a role, Sortr answers "@dev.sam was not added to this ticket."
• Only the support team can remove a member of the support team.

To open a ticket on someone's behalf, run /new member:. It skips the panel's questions, but limits, cooldown, blocked roles and support hours still apply to that member. If it is refused, Sortr says why, starting with "Not opened:". /new is for the support team, or for the roles picked for it, and opening a ticket for someone else always needs the support team. On a panel that gives or takes roles when a ticket opens or closes, you also need a higher role than that member, and on a panel that gives a role at or above your own highest role, only the server owner can open a ticket for someone else. The owner is not limited. See Commands for every command and reply.

#What staff cannot do

• Claim or assign a ticket. There is no claiming.
• Remove the ticket owner. Sortr answers "That is the ticket owner. Close the ticket instead."
• Add or remove bots: "Bots are not added to or removed from tickets. Sortr manages its own access."
• Change who is in a closed ticket: "This ticket is closed." Reopen it first.
• Reopen or delete with a command. Those are the buttons on the closed notice.
• Bring back a deleted ticket.

If two people act on the same ticket at once, the second gets "This ticket is busy right now. Try again in a moment." or "This ticket is already being changed." and nothing is done twice. /add and /remove first wait up to about 6 seconds for the other action to finish.