Sometimes there is a need to create merged cases. The most common cases are the following:
To solve a customer's problem, you need help from third parties: partners, suppliers, or third-party performers. They don't have access to Deskie as agents, but forwarding isn't appropriate either, since they don't have to see the correspondence with the customer;
You often have to change the channel of communication with the customer from correspondence by email to communication by phone and vice versa. For example, a customer writes that there is a problem with the equipment and asks for help over the phone. Or the customer calls and asks for documents to be sent by mail.
Child cases are excellent for solving such problems. Let's look at examples of how they work.
Child cases to third parties
1. You receive a case from a customer and in order to help them you need to involve your partners.
2. When you are in the original case, click on the create case icon (in the upper right corner) and select the "Child case" option in the modal window that appears.
3. Create a new (child) case for the partner.
Note a few things:
a) At the top of the child case there is a link to the parent case;
b) The main parameters of the case are inherited from the parent case;
c) You can leave a note in a new case initiated by an agent only after it has been created.
4. A block with a link to the parent case is displayed at the beginning of the child case.
5. In the parent case, a block with a link to the child case is placed among the responses — at the time it was created.
6. In the all cases list there is no visual difference between parent and child cases. There is an additional standard filter for this — "Parent and child cases", so by selecting it you can see all the related cases. The parent case is displayed first, and child cases are located underneath — you can recognize them by a gray background.
Child case upon change of communication channel
If you need to create a child case for the same customer, but based on a different communication channel, there is a more convenient way that allows you to automatically enter the necessary data.
Click on the email or phone number in the user data in the right sidebar, and a modal window will appear to select the desired case type.
When you click on the email address, a modal window opens with the ability to choose whether you want to create a new or a child case. If you select a child case, the customer's email is automatically added to it.
When you click on the phone number, if you have connected integration with the telephony service, a modal window opens with the ability to select the case type to create:
New case — call (normal outgoing call through the telephony service);
Child case — call (an outgoing call through the telephony service, with a new page being open for creating a call-based case + connection with the parent case is established);
New case — without call (new case by call, where the field "User" is filled in automatically);
Child case — without a call (a new call-based call with the field "User" filled in + the connection with the parent case is established).
If you do not have integration with telephony, then when you click on the user's phone number, you can choose between a new or a child case through the "Calls" channel, while the "User" field in both cases is filled in automatically.
You can also create a child case through the plus icon in the header of the agent's account, but using this method you have to enter the user's email or phone number yourself.
Additional points
Parent and child cases can be created only for the "Calls" and "Email" channels. In all other scenarios a click on the plus icon in the top bar or on the email/phone number in the user data creates a new case;
All created cases open in a new tab;
Linked cases can have different assignees, different groups and can be closed separately;
A child case can be detached from a parent one. In order to do this you need to hover over the information block about the related cases and click on the icon of detaching;
If you do not have linked cases, the filter "Parent and child cases" is not displayed in the list;
The speed of the first answer in child cases is not counted in the statistics, because the case is created by an agent, not a user. The child cases are considered in the index of "received cases" for the agent who created them and not in the "cases with first response" index.