Departments

What departments are for

Departments are the buckets your support tickets are routed into — for example Billing, Sales, Technical Support, or Abuse. Each department controls which staff members can see and work its tickets, what actions those staff are allowed to perform, and (optionally) a connected mailbox that turns incoming email into tickets automatically.

How to open the Departments page

Open Settings from the admin sidebar, then under the Organization group choose Departments. This tab is available to Super Admins only — regular staff will not see it.

Reading a department card

Departments are shown as cards in a grid. Each card displays the department’s coloured icon, its name, its slug (the short identifier shown just under the name), an optional description, and two counts: how many admins are assigned and how many tickets currently belong to it. A department that has been switched off shows a grey Inactive badge and appears dimmed.

At the bottom of each card are the action buttons: Edit, Permissions, Admins, Mailbox, and a trash icon to delete.

Create a department

1. Click Add Department in the top-right of the page.
2. Enter a Name (for example, “Billing”). As you type the name, the Slug is filled in for you automatically.
3. Adjust the Slug if you wish. It must be lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only. The slug is a stable identifier — keep it short and avoid changing it later once tickets rely on it.
4. Optionally add a Description to explain what the department handles.
5. Pick an Icon from the grid and a Color from the eight swatches. These appear on the card and on tickets to make departments easy to tell apart at a glance.
6. Leave Active ticked so the department is usable. Tick Visible to Clients if you want customers to be able to pick this department when they open a ticket from the client area; untick it to keep the department internal-only.
7. Click Create.

Department fields reference

Field	What it does
Name	The label shown on the card, on tickets, and (if visible) to customers.
Slug	A short, stable identifier. Lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens only. Generated from the name when creating, editable thereafter.
Description	Optional free text describing the department’s purpose.
Icon	An icon chosen from a grid, shown on the card and tickets.
Color	One of eight accent colours used for the icon and badges.
Active	When on, the department is in use. Turn off to retire a department without deleting it; it dims and shows an Inactive badge.
Visible to Clients	When on, customers can select this department when opening a ticket. Turn off for internal-only departments.

Changing a slug after the fact can break links and anything that references the department by its slug. Rename the display name freely, but change the slug only when you have a clear reason.

Edit a department

Click Edit on a card to reopen the same form pre-filled with the current values. You can rename the department, rewrite the description, change the icon or colour, and toggle Active or Visible to Clients. Click Update to save.

Assign staff with Admins

Staff only see tickets in departments they belong to, so attaching the right people is essential.

1. Click Admins on the department card to open the Manage Admins window.
2. Pick a person from the Select an admin to add… dropdown and click the + button. Each entry shows the person’s name and email, and Super Admins are labelled in the list.
3. The assigned admins appear below under an Assigned Admins count. Use the trash icon next to a person to remove them (you’ll be asked to confirm).

An admin who is not attached to any department will not see departmental tickets. If a staff member reports they can’t see tickets, check their department membership here first.

Set permissions per department

Permissions decide what assigned staff are allowed to do within this department.

1. Click Permissions on the card to open the Manage Permissions window.
2. Permissions are grouped into categories. Tick individual permissions, or use the checkbox on a category header to select or clear every permission in that group at once. A partially-selected category shows an indeterminate (dash) state.
3. Click Save Permissions to apply.

The exact permissions on offer are drawn from the platform’s current permission set, so the list reflects whatever ticket-handling capabilities your installation supports.

Connect a mailbox (email-to-ticket)

A department can have its own mailbox so that emails customers send become tickets, replies to the same conversation are added to the existing ticket, and staff replies are emailed back to the sender. Click Mailbox on a card to open the Department Mailbox window. When a mailbox is connected and enabled, the Mailbox button turns green.

1. Enter the Email Address customers will write to. Staff replies use this as the Reply-To address.
2. Choose an Authentication method: OAuth 2.0 (recommended) or Password.
3. Fill in the credentials for the method you picked (see the table below).
4. Optionally set the Folder to poll (defaults to INBOX) and a Default Priority for tickets created from this mailbox (Low, Medium, High, or Urgent).
5. Leave Import enabled ticked so the mailbox is polled.
6. Click Test Connection to confirm the settings work, then Save Mailbox.

Once a mailbox is saved, the window also offers Sync Now to pull mail immediately, shows the last sync time and any last error at the top, and provides a trash icon to remove the mailbox.

Mailbox fields reference

Field	Applies to	What it does
Email Address	All	The address customers email; also the Reply-To on staff replies.
OAuth Provider	OAuth 2.0	Choose Gmail / Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 / Outlook.
Client ID / Client Secret	OAuth 2.0	The application credentials you create with your mail provider.
Refresh Token	Google OAuth	The token that lets the platform read the mailbox on an ongoing basis. Shown only for the Google provider.
Directory (tenant) ID	Microsoft OAuth	The directory ID of your Microsoft organisation. Shown only for the Microsoft provider.
Email Provider	Password	Pick a preset — Gmail / Google Workspace, Outlook / Microsoft 365, Yahoo Mail, iCloud Mail, Zoho Mail, Fastmail, GMX, or Other (custom IMAP server). Known presets fill in the server details for you.
IMAP Host / Port / Use SSL/TLS	Password (Custom)	Shown only when the provider is the custom option; enter your own mail server details.
Username / Password	Password	The mailbox login. Some providers require an app-specific password rather than your normal login password.
Folder	All	Which folder to poll for new mail. Defaults to INBOX.
Default Priority	All	Priority assigned to tickets created from this mailbox.
Import enabled	All	Turns polling on or off for this mailbox.

OAuth 2.0 is recommended because Google and Microsoft are phasing out basic mailbox passwords. If you must use Password auth with Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, or Fastmail, generate an app-specific password in your email account’s security settings rather than using your normal login. Secrets such as the password, client secret, and refresh token are write-only: once saved they are not shown back to you, so leave those fields blank to keep the stored value.

Email import polling

Near the top of the Departments page is the Email-to-Ticket Import card. This controls how often all department mailboxes are checked. Use the Check every dropdown to choose an interval (1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes) and tick Enable email import to switch the polling on. Changes here save immediately and apply to every mailbox.

Delete a department

Click the trash icon on a card. If the department has no tickets, you’ll get a short confirmation — click Yes, Delete to remove it. If the department still has tickets, a second window asks what to do with them:

• Move tickets to another department — the tickets are reassigned and preserved. Pick the destination from the Move to department dropdown.
• Delete all tickets — every ticket and message in the department is permanently deleted. Use with care.

Choose an option and click Delete Department to finish.

If you only want to take a department out of rotation, untick Active in Edit instead of deleting. That keeps its history intact while hiding it from new tickets.

Related

Settings: Tickets, Tickets, Admin Signatures.