Merging and bulk edits

Enterprise feature (new in 1.19.1, helpdesk). See the Helpdesk overview.

Two desk tools for tidying a queue: merge joins duplicates into one ticket, and bulk edits change many tickets in one go. Both need a desk role capability, Merge tickets or Bulk edit, which Agents, Team leads, Managers and Admins hold out of the box. Both work in the teams you work, like your other team capabilities.

Selecting tickets

When you may bulk edit or merge, each row in the queue has a checkbox.

• Click a row’s checkbox to select it.
• Shift-click a second checkbox to select every row between the two.
• Press x to select or clear the row under focus (with j and k to move).

The bulk bar appears above the list with the number selected and the actions. Its checkbox selects every ticket shown in the list, or clears the selection.

Merging tickets

Merge when two or more tickets are about the same thing: the same person asking twice, or several people reporting one outage.

1. Select two or more tickets in the queue and choose Merge…, or open a ticket and choose Merge into another ticket… from its … menu, then search for the other ticket by number, subject or requester.
2. Under The ticket to keep, pick the ticket that stays. The oldest is chosen first.
3. Read What happens, which lists exactly what will change.
4. Leave Tell the requesters ticked to email them, or untick it.
5. Choose Merge into #1049.

You can merge up to 50 tickets at a time.

What moves and what stays

The ticket you keep keeps its number, its reply targets (SLA) and its assignee. From each ticket merged into it:

• Messages move across with their original times, in time order, each marked from #1051. Internal notes stay internal.
• Attachments, CCs, followers and tags are added to it.
• Logged time and any running timer move to it (see Time tracking).
• Requesters become CCs on it, so they keep getting the public replies.
• Checklists (1.19.2) move to it, except one made from a checklist the kept ticket already has (see Checklists). Merging is never blocked by required items. From 1.19.4 they all move even if that leaves the kept ticket with more than the 10 that can be added; every one counts for solving.
• Assets (1.19.3) linked from Snipe-IT all move to it, each asset once, even if that leaves it with more than the 10 that can be linked by hand. See Assets.
• Chat app links (1.19.4) move to it, so desk replies keep reaching the Teams or Slack chat the merged request came from (see Chat apps).

A ticket linked to a major incident keeps its link when it is merged away. Merging an incident’s own ticket into another ends the incident.

Each merged ticket closes as Merged into #1049, and the kept ticket lists Merged in: #1051, #1052. An email reply to a merged ticket’s thread lands on the ticket it was merged into.

A merged ticket is read-only

A merged ticket stays in the desk to read, but in place of the composer it says “Read-only · This ticket was merged into #1049. Reply and change its status there.”, with Open #1049. Its status can’t be changed, and nobody can reply or add a note on it: not from the desk, a macro, a bulk edit or the Claude connector. Its other fields can still change.

Reports count a merged ticket as created, never as solved: it is left out of Tickets solved, resolution times and resolution SLA, the survey response rate, replies per ticket, one-touch resolution, time per ticket and Solved this week.

Telling the requesters

With Tell the requesters ticked, each requester of a merged ticket gets the Helpdesk: requests joined email: “Your request has been joined with #1049 so one person can help with both”, with a link. In Get help their old request shows the same sentence. Requesters can turn the Requests joined notification off under Account → Notifications. Customer portal customers get the same email, with a link to the kept request in the portal.

When a merge is refused

The dialog lists every ticket it can’t merge, with the reason:

Reason	What to do
“#1051 has a workflow running”	Let the workflow finish, or stop it, then merge.
“#1051 is a task in a workflow”	Workflow tasks can’t be merged.
“#1051 was already merged into #1049”	Nothing to do: it is already joined.
“#1049 is closed”	Keep an open ticket, or reopen it first.
“#1051 has a reply waiting for review”	Approve or return the held reply first.
“#1051 is on legal hold”	A ticket on legal hold merges only into a ticket that is on hold too. Take it off hold, or put the kept ticket on hold first.
“You can’t merge tickets in Facilities”	You don’t hold Merge tickets in that team.
“#1051 was moved to the recycle bin while merging. Try again.”	(1.19.4) Someone deleted it at the same moment. A ticket in the recycle bin can’t be merged.

Bulk edits

Select tickets, then use the bulk bar to change one thing on all of them:

• Status, Priority, Team or Assignee.
• Tags: Add tag adds one to every ticket; Remove tag removes one, and tickets without it are left as they are.

You can change up to 200 tickets at a time.

Each ticket is checked on its own, with the same rules as changing it by hand. Bulk edit lets you use the bar; each change still needs its own capability (Change status, Change priority, Transfer to another team, or the assign capabilities). A workflow task with required hand-off fields isn’t solved by a bulk edit, as it isn’t from the status menu.

From 1.19.4, with Delete tickets, the bar also has a red bin button (Delete…) that moves the selection, up to 200 tickets, to the recycle bin, each ticket checked on its own.

When some tickets couldn’t be changed, the result says how many were skipped. Choose See why for the list, each with its reason (“You can’t change the priority of this ticket”). Tickets that were already as you asked are counted as unchanged.

In the audit log

Action	Shown as
helpdesk.ticket.merged	Merged tickets
helpdesk.ticket.bulk_updated	Bulk edited tickets

Each ticket’s own timeline also records the merge and every change.