This idea originated from a discussion in our community and then a feature request thread. That request received over 100 votes, and in WHMCS 8.11, we are pleased to have been able to deliver it.
The example provided originally was that the requestor wanted a way to prevent clients from closing tickets that had been opened internally by an abuse department. This is because they often require action by the client, and are not resolved until such action has occurred.
Another commenter shared that they would like to use it for billing related scenarios, for example for things such as requesting of additional documents for verification, or to follow up on disputes or other payment related issues.
There are other scenarios too, such as for service based requests where there is work your team must complete to fulfill a request. Or any time a specific ticket requires follow-up or attention from you or your team in any way. And it can be useful to prevent both accidental as well as intentional closures by an end user.
Introducing: Ticket Closure Controls
If you do not want your clients to close support tickets, you can enable Prevent Client Closure for individual support tickets or for all new tickets within a specific support department. When Prevent Client Closure is enabled, the system does not display the Close button for affected tickets in the Client Area and prevents clients from changing the ticket status to Closed. To answer this request and provide maximum flexiblitiy and utility for admin operators, we have taken a 2 step approach:
Department Level Ticket Closure Control
Catering specifically to the use cases described above, where certain departments often warrant specific controls around ticket closure, we've expanded the department level settings with a new option called "Prevent Client Closure". The default behaviour remains the same, where ticket submitters (both guests and clients) can close tickets on-demand. But when the new setting is enabled, new tickets opened within these departments, whether by an admin or end user, will default to not allowing closure of the tickets by the end user.
Per Ticket Closure Control
In addition to the above, we've also added an a new setting control at the individual ticket level. This is accessed via the Options tab when viewing a support ticket within the admin area, and can be toggled on to restrict closure by end users. This also allows the closure prevention to be turned off for selected tickets that are opened within a department where the Prevent Client Closure option is enabled by default, should it be desired.
To learn more, we have the following documentation resources available:
- https://docs.whmcs.com/releases/8-11/8-11-release-highlights/#prevent-clients-from-closing-tickets
- https://docs.whmcs.com/support/support-tutorials/disable-client-ticket-closure/
