AWRA Help Center

The Helpdesk module runs your internal and customer support desk. Every request becomes a ticket with a reference, a status, a priority, a category and an owning department. Because it shares the same identity, roles, departments and records as the rest of AWRA, a ticket can be tied back to the customer, project, or asset it concerns — and the same people, permissions and approvals apply.

How Tickets Come In (Intake)

Turn the public intake portal on from Settings → Support & Helpdesk → Intake Portals, and choose the category public-form tickets file into so they start with an SLA deadline. Share the portal link on your website, email signatures, or a "Contact support" button.

Queues, Categories & Assignment

• Categories classify a ticket (e.g. Billing, Technical, Access) and drive routing and the SLA. Manage them under Settings → Support & Helpdesk → Categories & SLA.
• Department queues collect tickets so the right team sees their work in one place.
• Assignment gives a ticket a single owner. Each category can hand new tickets to a default assignee, rotate them round robin through a pool of agents, or give them to the agent with the fewest open tickets, skipping anyone on leave. Agents can also pick up tickets or a lead assigns them; the reassignment queue lists open tickets still owned by someone who has left, so they can be handed on.
• Priority (from low to urgent) sets expectations and, together with the category, feeds the SLA clock.

The SLA Clock

A ticket in a category with targets runs on an SLA with a first-response target and a resolution target. Each category chooses its clock: elapsed time, or business hours, which pauses outside your working week and on public holidays. The resolution clock also pauses while a ticket is waiting on the requester. When a deadline passes, the assignee and their manager are alerted, or the department queue when nobody can be reached that way. To act on a stuck ticket as well — raise its priority, reassign it, tag it, notify a lead — set up escalation rules; see Helpdesk Automation.

Working a Ticket (Agents)

1. Open the Tickets queue or the agent Dashboard to see incoming and at-risk work.
2. Assign the ticket to yourself (or the right owner) and set the correct category and priority.
3. Reply to the requester with a public reply, or leave an internal note for teammates that the requester never sees. Insert a canned reply to answer common questions with the ticket's details already filled in.
4. Attach files, watch the ticket to get updates, and escalate or reassign if it needs another team.
5. Move the status through its lifecycle to resolution, then close. The requester can leave a satisfaction rating.

Self-Service (Staff & Requesters)

• Staff raise a ticket from My Tickets → Raise a ticket and follow status, comments, attachments and their resolution rating.
• Public requesters use the tracking reference from their submission to check status and reply — no account needed.

Signed Resolutions

A resolved ticket can carry the requester's signature that the work was actually done, stored with their printed name and the moment they signed. On a desk ticket a resolution timestamp is enough — the requester is on the other end of the thread and will say if the job is not finished. On field work it is not: the engineer leaves, the ticket closes, and later nobody can show the customer ever agreed.

• Set the status to Resolved or Closed with the pad signed and both are recorded in one action — on the mobile app that means closing a job out on the doorstep.
• Or take it afterwards from the ticket's sign-off card, for the customer who signs a minute later.
• Type the printed name of whoever accepted the work. It need not be the person who raised the ticket.
• The mark cannot be taken before the job is finished, and cannot be changed once taken. Reopening the ticket clears it, because reopening is the agreement being withdrawn.
• It is optional. Most tickets are resolved over email with nobody in the room.

This is separate from the satisfaction rating: a rating is the requester's opinion of the service, given afterwards on their own device and revisable; a sign-off is a statement that the work was done, taken once, in person. See Signature Capture for how the pad works and what a captured mark is worth as evidence.

Common Mistakes

• Leaving tickets unassigned — no owner means no SLA accountability.
• Marking everything "urgent", which makes real emergencies invisible.
• Putting sensitive detail in a public reply instead of an internal note.
• Opening a new ticket for an existing issue instead of updating the same thread.
• Resolving without a reply, so the requester never learns what happened.