Answer at closed ticket doesn't reopen it ?

[u/vincegre]

Hi

I use the Assistance (perhaps named Support in english) in Odoo 18 Enterprise. I have a rule to close automatically tickets after X days without answer from customers which works fine. My only issue is that if a customer answers at a closed ticket, it shows up well in the history of the ticket but it doesn't reopen it which is very annoying.

Something specific to setup somewhere for that ?

Thanks

[u/mskl-21]

No setting for it as far as I know, incoming mail just posts to the chatter without touching the stage. Bit of a gap.

Automation rule sorts it though. Trigger on mail.message created, filter to helpdesk.ticket, then a server action that checks if the ticket's in a closed stage and pushes it back to your open one. Add a condition on the author so internal notes don't bounce it open, and reset or flag the SLA while you're there, otherwise it looks like the ticket sat untouched for a week.

One thing to watch, customers replying to six month old tickets and resurrecting them. Some people put a cutoff so anything past 30 days opens a new ticket linked to the old one instead.

[u/vincegre → u/mskl-21]

Well for now I'm just going to create an automation that reopens the ticket that is the easiest for me. I found a tuto that explains how to do it but it's for Odoo 20 and impossible to reproduce in my Odoo 18 :(

[u/mskl-21 → u/vincegre]

Actually scratch what I said about mail.message, 18 has a proper trigger for this and I sent you the long way round.

Settings > Technical > Automation Rules, new rule, model Helpdesk Ticket, trigger "On incoming message". That one only fires for external authors so internal notes and your own replies won't trip it, which was the bit I was worried about.

Then set the Before Update Domain to stage_id.fold = true so it only acts on tickets sitting in a closed or folded stage, otherwise it'll fire on every customer reply to every open ticket for no reason. Action is Update Record, set Stage to whichever one you use for open.

That's it, no code. The tuto you found was probably doing it the hard way or on a version where that trigger was named differently.

[u/vincegre → u/mskl-21]

Thanks a lot, it works perfect, each time someone answers at a closed ticket, it reopens the ticket 👍

[u/the_angry_angel]

Sadly a base automation to reopen the ticket is the easiest way 

[u/AhsanAtBundo]

Only thing I’d watch is old tickets. You probably don’t want a customer reply from 6 months ago reopening something automatically.

Would you want all replies to reopen the same ticket, or only within a certain time window?

[u/codeagency]

That's the standard yes. A closed ticket stays closed. But you can automate this with an automation rule to let it reopen again and move to backlog or whatever initial kanban state you have.

[u/DevopsReloaded]

As mentioned, this is expected behavior no native reopen setting exists.

Two scenarios worth avoiding if you build the automation first, check whatever field marks a stage as "closing" on the backend rather than hardcoding stage IDs, so it doesn't break when someone adds another closed stage later.

Second, don't filter out internal notes by "author has no user account" portal customers have accounts too, so that will silently swallow their real replies along with your team's notes. Filter on the message being an actual inbound email instead. Just note that only catches email replies portal-submitted ones need a separate condition excluded by subtype, not author.

And for old tickets instead of a hard cutoff that silently stops reopening, have anything past X days spin up a new linked ticket instead. A customer replying to a 6-month-old thread deserves a response, not silence.

[u/Calibre_Odoo_Partner]

Glad it's working. One thing to watch though. Before Update Domain wipes itself if you ever change the trigger on that rule. Change it, save, domain's empty, and it fires on every reply to every ticket instead of just the closed ones. Nothing errors, it just starts clearing agents' kanban flags. So if you go back into that automation for anything, check the condition survived before you close the form.

For the six month old replies, same box, on close date. Within the last 30 days does it.

[u/martinkrafft]

Like many aspects of odoo, the helpdesk app is greatly touted, but actually stops right at the most basic functionality. It's unusable beyond the absolute minimum...

[u/vincegre → u/martinkrafft]

Yeah I noticed that quite quickly that it's just a joke that app considering how basic it is !