For External Helpdesk

Learn how to effectively utilize the triage channel to support customers on Slack.

Key functionalities of the triage channel for External Helpdesk

• Serves as a single source of truth for consolidating requests from all customer channels.

• Allows responders to respond to customer queries and edit request properties.

• Facilitates internal communication between responders and allows sharing the request to an engineering integration such as Jira, GitHub, Linear, etc...

Note: All responses to the request thread on the Triage will be propagated and posted on the same thread in the request channel.

• All requests from request channels in a Collection will be propagated to their corresponding Triage.

• If you are working predominantly from triage channels, we suggest you mute all request channels (and preferably leave those channels)

Triage channel

Whenever a customer starts a new conversation in a customer channel, it will be synced into the triage channel as shown below:

New request from customer channel syncs into triage

• You can reply in the triage channel thread, and the responses will be synced to the customer channel.

• Edit button allows you to manage the request's Assignee, Status, Priority, and custom fields (if any).

• Clicking on view in #channel takes you to the customer channel where the request was started.

• Use Not a request to mark the conversation as not a request and optionally, remove it from the triage channel.
• Use internal comments (prefix messages with 🔒emoji) to collaborate internally.
• Use More Actions for filing a task to an external tool like Jira, GitHub, Linear, etc...
• Mark as Solved allows you to resolve the request.

  • Mark as Closed allows you to permanently close the request.

Lifecycle of a request from the triage channel

Triage Properties

Not a Request

Marking a request as Not a request

ClearFeed allows marking conversations as "Not a Request" to exclude them from reports and SLAs.

• This can be done for Open/Pending requests with a dedicated button or via "More Actions" for In-progress/On-hold ones.

• Clicking "Not a Request" offers two options:

  • Remove: Deletes the conversation entirely.

  • Archive: Hides the conversation but reopens on further messages.

Not a Request action on the triage channel

Note: When responder messages exist in the triage channel, using Remove marks the message as "Not a Request" instead of deleting it. Follow-up messages from the requester will not reopen the request.

Internal Comments

Using Internal Comments on the triage channel

• ClearFeed allows private conversations with your team members on requests using the 🔒emoji.
• Messages (and any attachments) with the 🔒 stay hidden from the customer.

Using internal comments on the triage channel

Triage More Actions

Enable responders on the triage channel to convert requests to tickets or link tasks in downstream task management systems with More actions.

Clicking More Actions shows the customer's email and the ClearFeed Collection to which the channel belongs at the bottom.

File a ticket and establish a two-way sync

• If you use Freshdesk, Salesforce, Zendesk, Hubspot, or JSM for ticketing, convert Slack requests to tickets with the "File a ticket" option in "More Actions."

• All responses and attachments flow smoothly between Slack and your ticketing system.

• Agent responses from the triage channel are visible in both the request channel and the external ticketing system.

• Your team can continue working on requests in the triage channel even after converting them to tickets.

File tasks or link existing tasks from engineering integrations

• Use ClearFeed to create tasks in engineering systems (like Jira, GitHub, and Linear) and link them to requests for better tracking.

• Comments from the triage channel thread are synced into the linked task for better visibility.

• ClearFeed can automatically update the triage channel thread when the linked tasks are completed in the engineering system.

Using Internal Comments on the triage channel

• ClearFeed allows private conversations with your team members on requests using the 🔒emoji.
• Messages (and any attachments) with the 🔒 stay hidden from the customer.

How are consecutive messages treated?

ClearFeed merges consecutive direct messages by the same author on a channel if these messages are made within 5 minutes.

This is done to ensure unthreaded replies are also captured in the request. When this is done, you will see the following message in the triage channel:

Message in a new thread added to the same request

If the customer has talked about 2 different issues and 2 different requests should be created for it, follow the below steps:

• Click on "Split" button

• A pop-up would show all the messages from the subsequent threads

• Click on "Confirm"

This would create a new request in the Triage Channel and you can reply to it as you would to any new request.

If you need to create multiple requests, you can follow these steps repeatedly.

• To adjust the interval, go to Advanced Collection Settings.

• Modify the CONSECUTIVE_MESSAGES_BY_SAME_AUTHOR_INTERVAL setting (default: 5 minutes).

• Set to 0 to disable the interval.

Learn more about the same here.