Service Setup: Adding Agents and Managing Unassigned Tickets

RapidPro’s ticketing system lets you escalate contacts from automated flows to human agents without leaving your workspace. Tickets help your team assign conversations, respond directly to contacts, add internal notes, track open vs closed issues, and run follow-up flows after resolution. In this guide, you’ll learn how to invite agents, open tickets from flows, organize tickets by topics, manage unassigned tickets, add internal notes, and set up a follow-up trigger when a ticket is closed.

Quick Setup Checklist

Use this checklist to set up tickets quickly, then follow the steps for details and screenshots.

  1. Invite agents and assign the Agent role
  2. Create (or review) ticket topics
  3. Open tickets from flows and pass context with @results
  4. Manage tickets (All / Unassigned) and filters
  5. Use internal notes and the Notepad for collaboration
  6. Assign or reassign tickets to agents
  7. Trigger a follow-up flow after a ticket is closed
  8. Review common issues
1

Add Agents to Handle Tickets

Before opening tickets, invite your support agents to the workspace and give them the Agent role.

  1. Go to Workspace Settings.
  2. Click Invitations.
  3. Click New.
  4. Enter the agent’s email address.
  5. Assign the role Agent.
  6. Click Send.

[CAPTURE: Show the Invitations page with the New button and role selector set to Agent.]

Important: Only users added as Agents can be assigned tickets.
2

Create Ticket Topics

Tickets are organized by Topics (categories). This helps agents filter and prioritize work.

  • Only Administrators and Editors can create topics.
  • Topics are created from the Tickets tab.
  • General is the default topic.

[CAPTURE: Show the Tickets tab with the New Topic button visible in the left panel.]

3

Open a Ticket in a Flow

You can open a ticket at any point in a flow using the Open a Ticket with a Human Agent action.

When configuring the action:

  • Select a Topic
  • Assign an Agent (optional)
  • Add context or background information for the agent
  • Reference flow results using @results

[CAPTURE: Show a flow editor with the Open a Ticket with a Human Agent action configured.]

Tip: Adding context with @results helps agents understand the issue before responding.
4

View and Manage Tickets

Use the Tickets tab to monitor your queue and handle unassigned conversations.

In Tickets, you can:

  • Open All (all tickets)
  • Open Unassigned (tickets without an assigned agent)
  • Filter by Open or Closed
  • Filter by Topic

[CAPTURE: Show the Tickets tab with folders for All and Unassigned, and topic filters visible.]

To close and reopen tickets:

  • Agents can close a ticket using the Close button.
  • Closed tickets can be reopened at any time.

[CAPTURE: Show an open ticket with the Close button visible above the reply box.]

5

Use Contact Fields, Notes, and Notepad

View Contact Details from a Ticket

  1. Open a ticket.
  2. Click the Fields tab next to Chat.
  3. Enable Show All to view all available fields.

[CAPTURE: Show the Fields tab with featured fields and the Show All option enabled.]

Note: Admins and Editors can see all fields. Agents only see fields they have permission to access.

Add Internal Notes

Internal notes are visible only to the support team (not to contacts).

  1. Open a ticket.
  2. Open the ticket menu and click Add note.
  3. Enter the note and click Save.

[CAPTURE: Show a ticket conversation with a yellow internal note visible.]

Use the Notepad for Shared Comments

For comments that should be visible to Administrators and Editors, use the Notepad tab (available from both Tickets and Contacts pages).

  • Changes are saved automatically
  • Each update shows who made the change and when

[CAPTURE: Show the Notepad tab with an edited note and user attribution.]

6

Assign and Reassign Tickets

Tickets can be assigned automatically from a flow or manually from the Tickets tab.

Above each ticket, you can:

  • Use the Agent dropdown to assign or unassign
  • Use the Topic dropdown to change the category

[CAPTURE: Show a ticket with agent and topic dropdowns visible above the message box.]

Tip: Click the X next to an agent name to unassign a ticket.

Monitor Open Tickets with the Smart Group

The platform provides an Open Tickets Smart Group that automatically includes all contacts with unresolved tickets.

Use it for monitoring workload, reporting, and escalation workflows.

7

Start a Follow-Up Flow After a Ticket Is Closed

You can automatically follow up with contacts after a ticket is resolved using a trigger.

  1. Go to the Triggers tab.
  2. Click New Trigger.
  3. Select Start a flow after a ticket is closed.
  4. Choose the follow-up flow.

[CAPTURE: Show the Triggers page with Start a flow after a ticket is closed selected.]

Important: Follow-up flows help close the feedback loop and improve the contact experience.

Common Issues

An agent cannot be assigned to a ticket

Possible cause: The user was invited without the Agent role.

Fix: Go to Workspace Settings → Invitations, confirm the user’s role, and ensure they are added as an Agent.

I don’t see the Unassigned folder or it’s always empty

Explanation: Unassigned shows only tickets with no agent assigned.

Fix: Open a ticket without selecting an agent (or unassign one) and refresh the Tickets view.

Agents can’t see the contact fields they need

Possible cause: Agent permissions may limit which fields are visible.

Fix: Review which fields are available to agents and use Featured fields where appropriate.

Follow-up flow didn’t start after the ticket was closed

Possible causes: The trigger wasn’t created, the wrong flow was selected, or the ticket was not actually closed.

Fix: Verify the trigger under Triggers and confirm the ticket status is Closed.

Tickets are hard to triage

Possible cause: Topics are too broad or not used consistently.

Fix: Create clearer topics and ensure flows open tickets under the correct topic.