Issue
An Issue in ERPNext is any incoming support request or service inquiry for a customer, typically arriving through an email or via the contact form on your business site. Issues are the foundation of the customer support process and allow your personnel to track, assign, prioritize, and resolve customer issues efficiently.
ERPNext is designed to automate issue management by integrating email and web channels into the process. As an illustration, if the customer emails a support email which has been reserved (e.g., support@yourcompany.com), ERPNext can be configured to auto-log that email and create a new Issue record, with the sender's information, subject, and message. This way, all that occurs with the customer is followed up and can be responded to.
To see the Issues list, go to
1. Prerequisites
Before creating and managing Issues in ERPNext, have the following prerequisites met:
- Customer: The sender must be associated with a Customer record in ERPNext so it can be traced and have history.
- Email Account: A properly configured incoming Email Account is needed for automatic issue creation through emails.
2. How to Create an Issue
ERPNext offers automatic and manual creation of Issue.
Automatic Issue Creation
When your support mail account is mapped using the Append To feature under Email Account options, any mail that comes to that address is parsed and converted to an Issue automatically. The system converts the mail address to a Customer (if the Customer exists), fills in the subject and description, and places it as an "Open" Issue.
Manual Issue Creation
Manual creation of an Issue:
- Access the list of issues.
- Click New.
- Insert such helpful information as:
- Subject: Very short description or name of the problem.
- Raised By: Contact email of the individual comments upon.
- Description: Full description of the problem or demand.
2.1 Extra Options On the Development of an Issue
Some more fields and options used to treat the life cycle of an issue are added by ERPNext in a better approach:
Status
- Open: Status in which the Issue is created.
- Replied: The customer has been responded to by support team.
- Hold: Issues put on hold or awaiting third party dependencies.
- Solved: The solution has been offered, but not confirmed by the customer.
- Closed: Customer has approved resolution and accepted closure.
Note: If a customer responds to a resolved or closed issue, its status gets automatically updated to Open.
You also close an Issue manually by clicking on the Close button at the top-right of the Issue form.
If SLA (Service Level Agreement) is configured and linked, the completion status is automatically monitored for Resolved and Closed statuses to ensure service level and compliance.
Customer
If the Issue originated from a registered Customer, ERPNext will automatically link the Customer record, thus allowing you to maintain issue history and communication in one place.
Priority
Determine the priority of the Issue. The default priorities are Low, Medium and High which can be adjusted in the Issue Priority master to fit your business requirements (e.g. adding Critical).
Issue Type
Put the Issue under pre-determined groups like Functional, Technical, Hardware etc. Categorizations aid in furthering the issue to the concerned support team and provides better reporting.
Raised By (Email)
The issue has recorded the email ID to which it is raised. Personalizes the communication between support team and the customer with the help of email integration with ERPNext.
Using the Issue feature of the ERPNext properly, an organization is able to automate its flow of giving customer service, improve customer response rates and ensure maximum satisfaction amongst the customers.
3. Features
ERPNext has a plethora of features in the Issue document that help support teams manage, track, and close customer complaints in an open and efficient manner. These aspects are to enhance accountability, track performance and also to make SLAs met in time.
3.1 Details
- Description: This is a field for rich text where elaborate information about the Issue is typed or displayed. The users can type plain text, bullet points, tables, or even place screenshots and images in order to give a clear description of the issue. This allows the support teams to understand the issue completely and take action in time.
Enhanced editor tools available in ERPNext's latest version also support formatting options like font size, headings, colors, and image alignment, which makes it easier to structure and present complex issues clearly.
3.2 Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Definition: Service Level Agreement an SLA is a contractual document or agreement between the service provider (your organization) and the customer outlining the level of support service the customer is expecting- best answers the time in which the problems are processed as well as how quickly they are resolved.
Integration with Issue: In ERPNext, each Issue can be linked to an SLA template by selecting the appropriate SLA from the Service Level Agreement field. This makes response and resolution time frames automatically triggered and tracked by the system.
Key SLA Metrics Tracked:
Time to Respond: There was a time limit within which the support agent was supposed to respond to the Issue.
Time to Resolve: The longest it took to resolve or solve the Issue altogether.
Priority-Based SLA Handling: SLA rules can be configured to vary based on Issue Priority. For instance, a "Critical" Issue can be requested to be solved within 4 hours, and a "Low" priority Issue can be solved within 48 hours.
Escalation via Priority Change If an issue is more time-critical or business-critical, its Priority can be changed at any time. This updates the SLA measurements according to the new priority level.
Resetting SLA: You can reset the SLA calculation on an Issue manually by clicking the Reset Service Level Agreement button. This is especially handy when the issue's scope is significantly changed or when SLA monitoring must be redone after an update.
3.3 Response Metrics
ERPNext automatically monitors major support response metrics on every Issue to offer insight into the effectiveness of your support operations.
Mins to First Response: The metric here is minutes between the time Issue is logged and that at which the support team responded the first time. It states a quick look at how the customer has taken to receive an acknowledgement or assistance.
First Responded On: This field captures the date and time of exactness when the first communication was sent by a support agent to the customer. It gets updated automatically when a response is logged.
Average Response Time: It is determined by the mean of the total response time because every customer contact will be received until an inquiry will be processed by the support personnel. It helps in the identification of the responsiveness of the life of the issue in general.
These response metrics are live-updated as well as used for SLA compliance monitoring. Management teams can leverage these values in reports and dashboards to gauge team performance, SLA compliance, and customer satisfaction trends.
Taking into account such granular capabilities, ERPNext helps to make sure that the operations of the support can be tracked, transparent, and meet the requirements of the standards of the services offered to the organization.
3.4 Reference
ERPNext allows linking support Issues with several records within the system to maintain them completely traceable and enable contextual analysis. Such linked fields may be used for filtering and reporting purposes so it is more convenient to track issues by origin or related entities.
The below fields can be linked with every Issue:
Lead: Link the Issue to a Lead in the CRM module so that pre-sales support queries or prospect problems can be tracked.
Contact: Link a specific Contact person with whom the issue is concerned, so that support personnel can clearly know whom they should follow up on.
Email Account: This indicates which email account configured (e.g., "support@yourcompany.com") received the inquiry. It is helpful for support teams managing multiple support mailboxes.
Project: In case the Issue is connected to a particular project, this is the place to connect it to categorize all the questions and updates on the project.
Company: In multi-company setups, this helps identify which company the issue is related to, so accounting, SLAs, and ownership are in order.
Such references also facilitate the filtering and reporting such as viewing all the issues raised against a specific customer project or issues raised by a specific lead.
3.5 Resolution
To track the resolution of any Issue, ERPNext uses a strong tracking mechanism within each Issue so that service can be tracked as well as customer satisfaction.
Opening Date: This field automatically records the date on which the issue was created. It is utilized as the reference point for SLA calculations and solution tracking.
Opening Time: Captures the exact issue creation date down to the minute, particularly useful in time-critical service organizations.
Resolution Date: In case the Issue is marked as Closed or Resolved, ERPNext updates this field with the resolution date and time. This completes the cycle of support for that ticket.
Resolution Details: A rich-text area into which the support staff or user may record the final actions taken to get to a solution to the problem. This may be terms that may be referred to as descriptive text, screen shots, error logs or condensed tables of the solution. Maintaining the field well documentation helps one refer to the field and pass the information along.
Resolution Time: This measurement calculates the total time taken from the creation of the Issue to its resolution automatically. It is a metric of the effectiveness of the support process as a whole.
User Resolution Time: To provide a reasonable metric of support team performance, ERPNext subtracts any time the agent takes in waiting for customer reply from the total Resolution Time. It gives the actual working time the agent spent on the issue.
Formula: User Resolution Time = Resolution Time – Total Wait Time for Customer Response
This gives productivity analysis of real support effort rather than customer-caused delay.
- Auto Reset on Reopen: The value of Resolution Time and User Resolution Time is reset automatically in case the Issue is reopened or split into one more Issue. This facilitates the capability to appropriately trace in every resolution period.
Through Customer Portal
ERPNext automatically ticks the "Via Customer Portal" checkbox: in case the Issue is posted by the Web site User (i.e., a user that does not have desk/module privilege access) via the Customer Portal.
This enables your support team to merely know if the ticket is created by an internal user or an external customer and can accordingly provide responses or escalation routines.
The Customer Portal also allows customers to track the status of their issues, view SLA deadlines, and read prior communications—further opening the door to transparency and customer interaction.
4. After Saving
After the creation and saving of an Issue in ERPNext, certain facilities are at hand to assist in smooth communication, delegation of the responsibility and prompt closure.
4.1 Add Comments
After logging an Issue, support agent users can use the Comments field to leave internal comments or notes regarding the issue. These are not for external collaboration and are never visible to customers. This proves very useful in forwarding the issue to another support agent or forwarding contextual data in multi-agent service.
Each comment is timestamped and attributed to the user who made it, which makes it suitable for audit trails or internal decision-making intelligence.
4.2 New Email
ERPNext has the ability to be integrated with established Email Accounts by which support agents are able to respond to the directly to the Issue. The New Email action creates a compose window where the support agents could type responses to the customer who has opened the Issue.
- All messages sent from here are monitored and shown in the Issue's email thread.
- Templates, signatures, and attachments can be added to the beginning to save typing.
- All responses from the customer (if the subject has the issue ticket number) are automatically fetched and appended to the thread.
This gives a full and uniform history of conversation within one Issue record.
4.3 Discussion Thread
Every Issue in ERPNext maintains a full discussion thread through email, with full access to the conversation between customer and support staff.
Highlights of the Discussion Thread:
- All sent and received emails on the Issue are maintained here.
- ERPNext sends auto email notifications when it receives a new email, with the Support Ticket Number included in the subject line.
- Customers may reply with follow-up questions or add more information, and their responses are added to the same thread.
- Attachments, screenshots, and error logs within the emails are retained with the thread for quick reference.
This unified view allows teams to easily get up to speed with the background of the Issue, particularly when it's being handed off between agents or escalated.
4.4 Assigning Issues to Users
Simple ownership is required for effective resolution of Issues. ERPNext provides a variety of ways to allocate Issues:
Manual Assignment: Use the "Assign" button on the left sidebar to manually assign the Issue to a specific user. It creates a To Do task on the assignee dashboard and notifies them via system notifications or email.
Automatic Assignment (Assignment Rule): You may define Assignment Rules that will automatically direct issues based on criteria like Issue Type, Priority, or Customer. To give an example, anything of the format of Technical could be forwarded to the IT support team, and anything which is a Critical could be forwarded to senior engineers.
Such measures improve workload distribution and ensure that no issue remains unattended.
4.5 Closing
By the time the customer is satisfied with the issue, he/she can be able to close it manually by clicking the 'Close' button on the toolbar.
ERPNext also has option of Auto-close due to inactivity:
- In the event that, the customer will not respond within 7 days the system will automatically close the Issue.
- In the event that SLA tracking is set, closing the Issue will also SLA status and metrics.
This reduces the support queue clutter and the support team would be able to work on active open issues.
On these post-save functionality, ERPNext makes sure that Issue management is proactive, transparent and collaborative and that their support processes are in line with their company SLAs and customer satisfaction aims.