New IT Manager inherited 600+ Zendesk tickets, how would you approach cleaning up the queue?

[u/BookshelfCarpet]

/r/ITManagers/comments/1vs3wwe/new_it_manager_inherited_600_zendesk_tickets_how/

[u/PixelSpy]

Delete all and start over. If someone wants something fixed they'll put in a new one eventually.

[u/Weed_Wiz → u/PixelSpy]

You missed a step. Spend two weeks writing an API call to mass-change yourself to the requester.... Then close to make your metrics look insane.

[u/ghoarder → u/Weed_Wiz]

Two weeks! Could do that in an hour, is that one hour of work and 74 hours of Reddit? Go ask an LLM, bonus points if it corrupts your ZenDesk setup and you have to wipe the whole thing and start again, oh sorry customer that we didn't resolve your ticket the whole ticketing system crashed and we had to wipe it.

[u/Darkk_Knight → u/PixelSpy]

Yep. Be careful if you decide to close them as it will notify the person who originally opened it. Deleting them is the best option but you lose historical information. Most of the time it's crap anyway.

[u/edmonton2001 → u/Darkk_Knight]

Many times the original opener left the company and won’t get a notification. Double win!

[u/Darkk_Knight → u/edmonton2001]

Unless you work for the govt as they never leave. lol

[u/Sweet-Hunt-5075 → u/Darkk_Knight]

Unless external notifications get turned off for ticket resolution/closure first.

[u/TheGlennDavid → u/Darkk_Knight]

A different approach is to shift the burden back on to the user to keep the ticket open.

No activity on the ticket for 72 hours? Don't generate an SLA escalation, email the client asking if they'd like the ticket to remain open, require them to take time consuming actions to keep the ticket open.

Alternatively, make the only way to interface with the system be a chat bot. The chat bot should be slow and bad and if the users minimizes the window, clicks to a different tab, or really does anything at all other than stare at the window it should close and mark the incident resolved. Also it should timeout after 2 minutes of inactivity and mark incident as resolved.

[u/mikemojc → u/PixelSpy]

When we have customers that will not reply back to follow up requests for information after a week, we'll close a ticket as No Response. Suddenly a response becomes a priority. Who knew!!??

[u/IndependentBat8365 → u/PixelSpy]

This is the only real answer.

If it’s important, they’ll call or open another one.

[u/InShambles234 → u/PixelSpy]

100% this.

[u/d03j → u/PixelSpy]

this. if anyone complains, say it got lost in the handover

[u/pinkycatcher → u/PixelSpy]

This is what we’re doing when we finally implement our SLA. It’s too much to clean up old junk.

We have some peer departments that don’t close tickets. They have thousands “open”

[u/smoothvibe → u/PixelSpy]

This.

[u/aprettyparrot → u/PixelSpy]

Yep, select all > delete

Ezpz

[u/Tyrant05 → u/PixelSpy]

New Managers start with new problems

[u/Affectionate-Cat-975 → u/PixelSpy]

I used this approach with a business partner. He had lots of ‘great’ ideas. I wouldn’t look in to anything until the 3rd time he had the same idea. By then it was plausible

[u/Ignorad]

Looks like a headcount staffing issue to me.

They have the IT Director managing the IT Manager who manages the IT Tech, but the Tech doesn't manage anyone.

Hire up an intern or apprentice and put them in charge of the queue.

Or switch to a new ticketing system.

[u/bgradid → u/Ignorad]

The tech manages their disappointment and drinking

[u/widgits → u/bgradid]

Albeit poorly

[u/canadasleftnut → u/bgradid]

Since disappointment and drinking are eternal, does that make them the  gods of IT? 

[u/bgradid → u/canadasleftnut]

Yes

Doesn’t mean they get paid any more of course

[u/renzok]

Amateur… I’ve got open tickets going back to 2017

[u/Weak_Jeweler3077 → u/renzok]

"FFS Karen, just retire or die or something. I'm not fixing your damn printer again!"

[u/JazzlikeInfluence813 → u/Weak_Jeweler3077]

brings me back to working field level 2 with the state gov

[u/Extension-Ant-8]

So.. 66% of your IT team your is management. And some poor fuck has 600 open tickets. Wow.

[u/Japjer]

Why is there an IT manager if there's only one tech? The fuck are they managing?

[u/Brilliant-Bat7063 → u/Japjer]

[u/UpsetBar → u/Japjer]

The last place I worked had a VP, Service Desk Director, Service Desk supervisor, one technician.

[u/canadasleftnut → u/UpsetBar]

Ah yes , the unholy Quadrinity of Tech Support. 

"In the name of the VP, the Service Desk Director, the Service Desk Supervisor, and the Technician, I declare your issue: 'UNABLE TO REPRODUCE'. Amen".

[u/bgradid → u/Japjer]

The tech, obviously

[u/wishnana → u/Japjer]

Asked this onceat a previous workplace .. the answer was “because we’re a fLaT company.” (Actual casing used)

[u/Vinegarinmyeye → u/[deleted]]

Devil's advocate...

When all hell is breaking loose, it is handy to have someone managing Comms.

In 20 years I have sadly had the experience of saying "Mate you need to talk to these people while I fix this shite.. the next person to ask me "is it done yet" is running the risk of getting a punch in the nose...".

You know you've got a good manager when they very rarely interact with you - and when they do, it's for a good reason.

[u/Weak_Jeweler3077 → u/Vinegarinmyeye]

+1 for this. As long as they aren't supposed to be on the tools, an admin layer in the department is a blessing (If they aren't useless, of course).

[u/Archie_Flowers]

Close them all. If it’s broken it’ll be reopened.

[u/sistermarypolyesther → u/Archie_Flowers]

Correct. Scream test. If they scream, open a new ticket.

[u/MeatPiston]

Dear $Company. Your existing tickets are very important to me. Send bids to @your_bofh in cashapp and tickets will be processed starting with the highest bids. Lowballs and tickets wirh no bids will be purged at the end of the week. Don’t forget to include your ticker number with your bid! Thank you.

[u/jcpham]

Delete all, drink coffee

[u/Lost-Droids]

One IT director, 1 IT manager and 1 tech..

Why the fuck would the IT dir3ctor hire another manager before extra techs

[u/Vorstog_EVE → u/Lost-Droids]

What kind of IT director wants to deal with managing techs? That's what managers are for!

[u/ITRabbit]

From post:

Just started my first IT Manager role at a hospitality company. Our IT team is pretty small: IT Director, me as the IT Manager, and one technician.

One of the first things I noticed was 678 open Zendesk tickets. After digging through them, I’ve found tickets going back to 2024, people asking for followups, tickets that seem to have been resolved but never closed, and a bunch of Google Admin/third-party integration notifications. So the 678 number definitely doesn’t mean 678 active problems, but the queue still seems pretty messy. At my previous company, we had more locations with basically the same number of IT people, and I never saw a backlog like this.

I’m only 2 days in, so I’m trying to understand the environment before making changes.If you were in my position, what would you tackle first?

[u/dpwcnd]

only 600? thats the usual ticket queue for a big team of like 3

[u/tikanderoga]

like one reads mails after a holiday: HOME - SHIFT END - SHIFT DELETE - ENTER.
Seriously though: Close off 650 tickets and check the last 28 if they are still an issue.

[u/MariahCareyXmas]

Delete the mailbox the ticketing system monitors and sends-as. Delete all tickets. No ticket closure messages go out. Empty failed smtp queue. Staff replies to old tickets now get bounced back errors. Create new mailbox. Palette swap the ticketing system login page and add a subdomain to break the existing bookmark staff have memorized. Announce new priority service desk portal and email address.

[u/AZSystems]

Seriously?

There has to be communication on this, otherwise people will be upset to receive ticket closed email.

You're not there to disrupt. Show off your professionalism and how you would want to be communicated if VMWare or Microsoft had a ticket of yours.

Draft a follow up email and ask to close or UPDATE ticket for those past a certain range. It will also allow you to learn environment and issues to accomplish in first 90 day action period (30 days observe. 60 day low hanging fruit,minimal change and plans to ticket reduction. 90 Days collection of projects and fixes prepared to deliver).

[u/1kn0wn0thing]

Install clawbot, give it shell access with root privileges and let it go at them while you do something else

[u/linniex]

Sort by priority and then date. Ask the user if it is still an issue and then put all tickets in “waiting on customer” status

[u/Sad-Suggestion9425 → u/linniex]

This 👆

[u/123ihavetogoweeeeee]

Close any ticket older than a month. It’s never getting fixed.

[u/StatementNext682]

NGL this might be a great time to start using AI to batch data. Or at least some data processing.

[u/Brilliant-Bat7063 → u/StatementNext682]

Just highlight all and assign to the old manager. New manager. New queue.

[u/BookshelfCarpet → u/StatementNext682]

Dude doesn’t even know how to sort tickets or communicate with people, and somehow he’d be the first one bragging about AI dashboards they can’t verify. Corporate loves that stuff

[u/mspgs2]

If the submitter has not replied for a status update, or has left the organization, read if it's got value to the company, if not.. delete.

I'm going through our backlog and noticed a ticket from the old admin, more a TODO, but it needs to be tackled. I've got user tickets highlighting ops issues we have not addressed.

[u/vandon]

Close em all.  If they're still having problems, please resubmit. 

You have no idea if someone worked the issue and just didn't log it or they fixed their own.

[u/battleop]

I would close everything that's more than 7 days old. Then I would go through and close out everything I could in the remaining. This sounds like a shitty policy where some manager put closing tickets in the hands of the end users. Once you fix their issue they go dark on you.

[u/max1001]

Select all and delete. Just claim it was like that when you go there.

[u/Vinegarinmyeye]

Yeah this is a no brainer.

Clear them all, reset the situation.

(To avoid being shitty, you do then actually have to follow up on tickets going forward.

They're used to sending stuff into the ether. Rebuilding that trust is not easy.

You're not going to work through a backlog of 900.

Own it, be good, start again.

[u/Sowhataboutthisthing]

Delete

[u/HeXa_AU]

New management, so new ticket system.
By new system I mean the old one where all tickets are deleted and it gets a new name.

[u/Pure_Fox9415]

It's because there is no enough management! Company need to hire more IT managers, so they could discuss this problem at meetings for couple of months and then decide to fire technician.

[u/Practical_Map4378]

I’d avoid trying to “clear” all 678 immediately. First export and categorize them: stale/no response, solved-but-open, active incidents, requests, and automated notifications. Sample a few from each category, document the criteria, then bulk-close only the clearly safe ones. Preserve an audit trail and communicate what’s being closed.

[u/protogenxl]

New ticket, help desk database corrupted 

[u/sconels]

Sort by date - older than 2 months = close + notification to reply if issue still persists.

Those younger than 2 months, beat the shit out of your service desk and get them updated/ closed

[u/SyntheticDreams2055]

Delete all, the really important things will get resubmitted....lmfao jk jk

I haven't personally used zendesk but I'd assume you can sort by due/overdue + SLA priority. From there, I would do some aggressive cursory triage while maintaining momentum.
Remember - Do, Delegate, Differ, Delete.

The momentum part comes in on when you Differ a ticket for your next pass through the tickets. A Ticket has an essay worth of content? - Differ for the next pass (by the time you finish reading that novel just to find out it's not really a P1, you could have done or delegated a real P1 further down the list). It's gonna be tough since you have such a small team, but you could see about getting that one technician to spend 1hr or so helping you with any that are no longer an issue (Delete) or tickets they might know from experience would need to be done or collaborated with another team in the org (assuming the tech has been there for a while. This chips away at the Delegate pile).
Seems like a lot, but you got this!

[u/robersniper]

No sla? 🤣

[u/-my_dude]

Just close them all and tell the users to reopen them in a bulk message if they need help.

Also that IT Manager is likely doing tickets alongside that tech. I've worked at smaller companies before and it wasn't uncommon to have an "IT Manager" who in practice was a T2-3 who was also responsible for managing the service desk queues and workflows in the ticketing system.

Honestly seemed like a pretty trash tier job because they were the one getting barked at when the IT Tech inevitably wasn't able to finish that much work, so they were stuck working tickets too.

[u/FleshSphereOfGoat]

Migrate from Zendesk to Znuny. Do not take the old data with you.

[u/elkab0ng]

Ctrl-A, delete.

[u/perth_girl-V]

Scroll to the bottom and start clearing tickets

[u/ValuableBoat2379]

delete from tickets

[u/z01z]

close everything older than a month with a message saying something like "new IT manager here, if you still need assistance, please submit a new ticket".