How to create & manage Internal tickets

Overview

Internal tickets (formerly Back-office tickets) track work behind the scenes – such as escalations, cross-team requests, or one issue that many customers report. Customers never see them.

There are several ways to create and link Internal tickets:

• Create an Internal ticket from a conversation – when it requires collaboration with another team

• Link a conversation to an existing Internal ticket – when more customers report the same issue

• Create an Internal ticket via the API – to create tickets programmatically from your app or systems

Once a ticket is created, you can manage it directly from the Inbox – change statuses, add and cross-post notes, reply to all linked conversations, edit ticket details, and view linked conversations.

Before you can create tickets from the Inbox, you'll need to set up at least one Internal ticket type →

Good to know

• Internal tickets are always internal – they are never visible to customers and do not trigger customer notifications

• You can link multiple Internal tickets to the same conversation or Customer ticket. Each one can track a separate issue or team task

• One Internal ticket can be linked to many conversations. Use one Internal ticket for an issue that affects several customers

• Only internal notes are available in the Internal ticket's editor. To answer every linked customer at once, use Reply all

• Notes added to an Internal ticket can be cross-posted to every linked conversation, so front-office teammates stay informed

• When the ticket's status changes, an internal note is added to every linked conversation

Creating Internal tickets

Create an Internal ticket from a conversation

You can create Internal tickets directly from the right-hand sidebar in any conversation:

1. Click Create in the Internal tickets section

   • You can also open the command palette with CMD+K / CTRL+K and select Create internal ticket

2. Select the Internal ticket type

3. Fill in the ticket form (title, description, and any custom fields)

4. Click Create

Once created, the Internal ticket appears in the Internal tickets section of the original conversation. You can hover over it to see details like ticket type, status, and custom fields, or click it to open a side-by-side preview.

The team assigned to the Internal ticket will see the ticket title, ID, and description alongside internal notes in the middle panel. They can also access the original conversation from the right-hand sidebar:

Link a conversation to an existing Internal ticket

When more customers report the same issue, link their conversations to the Internal ticket you already have.

1. Open the conversation

2. Click Link existing in the Internal tickets section of the right-hand sidebar

   • You can also open the command palette with CMD+K / CTRL+K and select Link existing internal ticket

3. Search for the ticket and select it to preview its type, ticket ID, and number of linked conversations

4. Click Link to conversation

The ticket now shows in the conversation's Internal tickets section, and the conversation shows in the ticket's Linked conversations section. A conversation can be linked to any number of Internal tickets.

Create an Internal ticket via the API

You can programmatically create Internal tickets using the Featurebase API (POST /v2/tickets). This is useful when you want to:

• Create tickets from external systems or internal tools

• Automate ticket creation based on events in your app

• Migrate tickets from another tool

Set the ticketCategoryId to an Internal ticket type. The linkedConversationId field is optional – you can create standalone Internal tickets without linking them to a conversation.

Managing Internal tickets

Once an Internal ticket is created, you can manage it directly from the Inbox.

To help your team differentiate between Customer tickets, Internal tickets, and regular conversations, the Inbox shows visual indicators for each type.

Internal tickets always have the following default fields visible in the middle panel:

1. Ticket title (click to edit)

2. Ticket description (click to edit)

3. Internal ticket ID (click to copy)

4. User

5. Users company

6. Visibility label (always Internal)

7. Custom fields (click to edit)

An Internal ticket can have multiple conversations / Customer tickets linked to it. They appear in the Linked conversations section of the right-hand sidebar.

Changing the ticket status

You can change an Internal ticket's status directly from the conversation header using the status dropdown.

When you change the status, an internal note such as [ticket title] #[number] moved to "[status]" is added to every linked conversation – so teammates working on the original conversation can see the progress. Customers are not notified, and linked Customer tickets keep their own status. To tell customers, use Reply all.

Viewing linked conversations

Open the Internal ticket to see all linked conversations / Customer tickets in the Linked conversations section of the right-hand sidebar. Up to 5 are shown directly – if there are more, click See all to open the full list. Click any linked conversation to open it in a side-by-side view.

From a linked conversation, you can also see the Internal ticket in its own Internal tickets section – making it easy to navigate between the ticket and its linked conversations.

Adding notes

The Internal ticket's editor supports internal notes only – there's no option to send customer-facing replies in the editor. To reply to every linked customer, use Reply all.

When an Internal ticket is linked to one or more conversations, you'll see two options in the message editor:

• Add note – adds the note to the Internal ticket being worked on

• Cross-post note – adds the note to the Internal ticket and cross-posts it as an internal note to all linked conversations / Customer tickets.

Cross-posted notes appear in linked conversations with a Note from: [ticket title] header and a ↖Respond to note link that navigates back to the Internal ticket.

Replying to all linked conversations

You can send one customer-facing reply to all linked conversations / Customer tickets at once using Reply all.

1. Open the Internal ticket

2. In the right-hand sidebar, under the Linked conversations section, click Reply all

3. Type your message and choose any bulk actions to apply alongside your reply:

   • Assign to a person

   • Assign to a team

   • Set as a priority

   • Snooze

   • Close

4. Click Reply all to send

The reply is sent as a customer-facing message to all linked conversations (excluding the Internal ticket's own conversation).

Unlinking an Internal ticket

To remove the link between an Internal ticket and a conversation:

1. Open the linked conversation / Customer ticket

2. In the Internal tickets section of the right-hand sidebar, find the Internal ticket

3. While hovering over it, click the unlink option

FAQ