Blog | The Ultimate Guide to Using HubSpot Tickets (+ Video Tutorials)

Tickets are an important means for organizations to track and prioritize actions. With a solid ticketing system, organizations can help their service teams track (and adhere to) service level agreements (SLAs). This can be critical for keeping customers happy. The ticketing tools provided in HubSpot are a great resource for marketing, service, and sales teams alike.

What is the HubSpot tickets tool? Who can use tickets in HubSpot? Most importantly, how can you use them to delight customers and keep your operations on track?

What Is the HubSpot Tickets Tool?

The HubSpot tickets tool is a system within the HubSpot platform that, as HubSpot puts it, helps teams “track and prioritize incoming service requests in a shared inbox.” However, that isn’t the only way to use the HubSpot ticketing system—tickets can be used in other ways as well.

Who Can Use the HubSpot Ticketing System?

The HubSpot ticket creation tool is available to all HubSpot subscribers. It’s included in the Free Tools subscription (with some limitations, such as only having one ticket pipeline and not having the ticket tags feature), so any HubSpot account can access the tickets tool.

If you cannot find the tickets tool, contact your HubSpot account admin and verify that you have permission to view, create, and edit tickets in your user profile.

Where to Find the Tickets Index in HubSpot

So, where can you find the HubSpot tickets index page? You can get to it by clicking on the “Service” option in your main HubSpot portal nav menu and then clicking on the “Tickets” option from the dropdown that appears:

Where to find the Tickets Index

What Are the Default Ticket Properties?

By default, HubSpot tracks more than 30 default ticket properties. These properties include:

Business Unit(s). The business unit or units that the ticket is assigned to.
Category. The reason that a customer reached out for help.
Close Date. When the ticket was closed.
Create Date. When the ticket was made.
Created by User ID. The ID of the user who created the ticket in HubSpot.
First Agent Email Response Date. Date of the first response from an agent to the ticket.
HubSpot Team. The name of the team associated with the ticket owner.
Last Activity Date. The last date an activity was logged in HubSpot associated with the ticket.
Last Contacted Date. The last time a call, email, or meeting was logged on the ticket.
Last Customer Reply Date. The date of the last customer response logged to the ticket.
Last Modified Date. The last time any property in the ticket was modified.
Merged Ticket IDs. If two or more tickets have been merged, this will show the record IDs of all the merged tickets in the ticket record.
Next Activity Date. The date of the next activity planned for a ticket.
Number of Associated Companies. The number of companies associated with the ticket in HubSpot.
Number of Sales Activities. The number of sales activities (calls, chat convos, LinkedIn messages, meetings, notes, tasks, etc.) logged for a ticket.
Number of Times Contacted. The total number contacts made through various channels associated with the ticket.
Owner Assigned Date. The most recent date that an owner was assigned to the ticket in HubSpot.
Pipeline. The pipeline that the ticket is contained in.
Priority. The level of urgency assigned to the ticket.
Record ID. The unique identifier for the ticket in the HubSpot ticketing system.
Source. The channel where the ticket was originally submitted.
Ticket Description. The explanation of the ticket issue.
Ticket Name. A short identifier for the ticket that explains what it is for users to easily parse.
Ticket Owner. The “owner” of the ticket in HubSpot who is responsible for addressing it.
Ticket Status. The current pipeline stage of the ticket.
Time to First Response SLA Due Date. The date by which the ticket must have a first response to meet your organization’s SLA guidelines.
Time to First Response SLA Ticket Status. A representation of the ticket’s adherence to the first response SLA—active, due soon, overdue, completed on time, or completed late.
Time to Close. The time between when the ticket was created and when it was closed.
Time to Close SLA Due Date. The date/time the ticket must be closed by to meet your organization’s SLA guidelines.
Time to Close SLA Ticket Status. A representation of the ticket’s adherence to the time to close SLA—active, due soon, overdue, completed on time, or completed late.
Time to First Agent Email Reply. The time between when the ticket was created and an agent first replied to the customer.

Using these default properties, companies can keep track of their customer service tickets, monitor their SLA adherence, and identify what they need to do to improve adherence moving forward.

Can I Customize HubSpot Ticket Properties?

Okay, so you’ve acquired the HubSpot ticketing system for your organization, but you don’t see a property to match what you need in the list of default ticket properties outlined above. What can you do? Create a custom ticket property, that’s what!

HubSpot subscribers can create custom properties in the HubSpot platform for contacts, companies, deals, products, and tickets. Here’s how to create a custom property for a ticket:

Go to your HubSpot settings menu (click the gear icon in the upper right of your HubSpot nav menu)
In the left sidebar, go to “Properties” under the “Data Management” header
In the “Properties” tab, click on “Create property”
Click on the “Object type” dropdown that appears in the menu that slides in from the right
Select “Ticket” from the dropdown
Select a group for the property
Create a label for the new custom ticket property to display in form fields
Add a description for the property
Click “Next”
Choose a field type from the dropdown menu—text input, choosing options, values, or other—the specifics of the next step may vary depending on the field type chosen
- Text input, single checkbox, date picker, number, file, rich text, or HubSpot user—confirm that the label explains what information is needed from the contact
- Multiple checkboxes, dropdown select, or radio select—create labels and internal values for each option in your multiple choice, dropdown, or radio select property
- Calculation—build a calculation in the “Build calculation” tool
Click “Next” or “Create” (varies depending on field type chosen)
If “Next,” choose property visibility and validation rules (choices vary based on field type)
- Property visibility rules may include:
  - Whether to show in forms, pop-ups, and bots
  - Whether to show in search results
- Validation rules may include:
  - Requiring unique values
  - Setting minimum or maximum value limits
  - Limiting character counts or decimal places
  - Restricting to numerical values
  - Forbidding special characters
  - Only allowing the selection of specific dates (future dates only, past dates only, specific date ranges, or any date)
  - Only allowing date submissions falling on a weekday (Mon-Fri)
- Click “Create” to finish

Here’s a quick video showing how to create a custom ticket property:

How to Edit or Delete a Custom Ticket Property

Make a mistake when creating a new ticket property? Don’t worry, you can change it or delete and start again from scratch!

To edit a ticket property:

Search for your ticket property in the “Properties” menu in your HubSpot account settings
Click on the name of the ticket property you want to edit
Go through the basic info, field type, and rules tabs of the editor to make your desired changes
Click “Save” to save your changes

If you created a ticket property in error, you can delete it by:

Clicking on the “More” button for the ticket property in your “Properties” menu
Clicking on “Archive” to archive the ticket
Go to the “Archived Properties” tab
Click on the “Delete” button for the custom ticket property or wait 90 days for it to be deleted automatically

This cannot be done to any property that is currently in use. If a property is not in use and you do not get the option to archive the property, wait a few minutes, refresh the page, and try again.

You can see where a property is being used by clicking on the “Used in” tab from the edit property menu. To archive the property, you will need to edit it out of all forms, workflows, and lists that it is currently used in. This is meant to prevent the accidental archival and deletion of important properties that are actively in use by your organization.

Here’s a quick video showing the deletion process:

How to Create a Ticket in HubSpot

So, how can you create a ticket in the HubSpot platform? There are actually several ways to create a new ticket in HubSpot: manually from the tickets index page, from a contact record, from the HubSpot Conversations Inbox, and automatically using a workflow (if you’re on Service Hub Professional or Enterprise).

Creating a Ticket from the Tickets Index Page

Go to the tickets index page
Click on “Create ticket” in the upper right of the page
In the panel, enter the ticket details: Ticket name, pipeline, and status
- Note: you can edit the properties that appear in the creation tool by clicking on “Edit this form”
To associate the ticket with a company or contact, click the dropdown menus for “Company” and “Contact” and search for the company/contact to associate
Click “Create” when finished or “Create and add another” to start another ticket

Creating a Ticket from a Record

Go into the record for which you want to create a ticket
In the right panel of the record in the Tickets section, click “+ Add”
Enter details for the ticket similar to how you would if creating from the ticket index
Click “Create” when finished

Creating a Ticket from a Conversation

There are a couple of ways to create a ticket from conversations in HubSpot:

Using Forms

To do this, you’ll first need to connect a HubSpot form to the Conversations Inbox. The form you create should include ticket properties so that it can create tickets when completed.

Using Incoming Emails

You can also use an email sent to your team email account to create a new ticket. Here’s how to enable this option:

Go to the HubSpot Settings menu
Expand the Inbox dropdown under the “Tools” header
Click on “Inboxes”
Under the “HubSpot fallback email” option in the “Channels” tab, click on “Edit”
On the page that you’re redirected to, click on the “Automation” tab under the name of the fallback email
Click on “Treat incoming conversations as support tickets [RECOMMENDED]” so the bar is colored in and the “Edit ticket” option appears
Click on “Edit ticket” to tweak the ticket creation settings (ticket owner, pipeline, priority, and other properties you can manually set—the ticket name, description, and source are not editable since they’re automatically generated)
Click “Save” to finish

Automating Ticket Creation with a Workflow

Finally, you can automate the creation of tickets using a workflow—if you have a Service Hub Professional or Enterprise account subscription.

You can create a ticket-making workflow by:

Going to the Workflows tool in HubSpot
Clicking on “Create workflow”
Selecting enrollment criteria relevant to the ticket you want to automatically create
Choosing the “Create record” action under the CRM actions and choosing the “Ticket” option from the “Type of record to create” dropdown menu
Fill out the Ticket information
Click “Save” in the left menu to finalize the create ticket action
Click on “Review and publish”
Review the settings and suggestions
Click “Turn on” when you’re finished reviewing and making changes

In this example, I set up a workflow to create a simple ticket whenever someone clicks a link in a series of survey emails for the contact owner to follow up on that click. This is just one example of a trigger and goal you could set up in a workflow-based ticket.

How to Customize the Board View for Tickets

Want to change what gets emphasized in your tickets index? Then you’ll want to customize your board view for ticket records! Here’s how:

Go to your HubSpot Settings (click the gear icon in the upper right of the HubSpot nav menu)
Expand the “Objects” dropdown under the “Data Management” header
Click on “Tickets” from the dropdown
Click on the “Pipelines” tab
Select a pipeline from the dropdown menu next to the “Select a pipeline” prompt at the top of the tab’s settings (If applicable)
Under the “Board customization” heading, click on “Customize ticket cards” to add or remove properties for tickets in the chosen pipeline
- Click “Save” when you’re finished adding or removing properties
Click on “Customize ticket tags” to add or remove tags from tickets in the pipeline
- Click “+ Add tag” to open the tag editor
- Give the tag a name, description, and color assignment
- Choose whether to apply the tag to all pipelines or specific pipelines
- Click “Next: Add Filters”
- Click the “+ Add filter” button and choose filter properties
  - When finished, click the “+ add filter” button in the same group to add an AND logic to the filter or create a new group to create an OR filter logic
  - Repeat until your filters are finished
- Click the “Next: Review tag” button to review the tag’s settings
- Click “Save” to finalize the tag
- Under the “Configure” tab of the board customization, click on “Add status” to add new status lanes for a board or delete statuses by clicking on the “delete” button that appears next to the status name when mousing over it
- Rearrange status order by clicking on the handle marker and dragging the status up or down—statuses at the top of the list appear to the left side of the board view and statuses at the bottom appear to the right side of the board view
- Click “Save” when finished

Here’s a quick video showing how to modify the board view for HubSpot tickets in the Settings menu:

This will alter the board view for your tickets—but what about the list view?

Customizing the List View for Tickets

The board view isn’t the only way to look at your ticket pipelines. There’s also the list view! You can switch between the “list view” and the “board view” for the ticket index by clicking on the icons next to the “Tickets” header in the index. Here’s a picture with a highlight:

Tickets Board Or List View Highlighted

To customize the columns in the list view for your tickets:

Go to the list view by clicking the list view button from the tickets index
Click on the “edit columns” button in the upper right of the list table
Search for columns in the left side of the pop-up dialog box and click all that you want to add
Drag selected columns up or down in the “selected columns” section of the dialog box to rearrange the columns in the list view
Click “Apply” when finished

How to Create or Delete HubSpot Ticket Pipelines

If you’re on a HubSpot Service Hub Starter, Professional, or Enterprise subscription, you can create more than one ticket pipeline in your HubSpot portal. Here are the limits:

Free Tools. One ticket pipeline.
Service Hub Starter. Two ticket pipelines.
Service Hub Professional. 15 ticket pipelines.
Service Hub Enterprise. 100 ticket pipelines.

If you haven’t hit the pipeline limit yet, you can create a new ticket pipeline by:

Navigating to your HubSpot settings menu (gear icon)
Opening the “Objects” dropdown in the left nav under the “Data Management” heading
Clicking on “Tickets” from the dropdown
Clicking on the “Pipelines” tab
Clicking on the “Select a pipeline” dropdown
Clicking on “Create pipeline”
Enter a name for your new pipeline
Click the “Create pipeline” button

Here’s a quick video showing the process:

At the end of the video, I show how you can also reach this menu from the tickets index by clicking on the “edit pipelines” option under the pipeline selection dropdown menu.

Assigning Access to Tickets Based on Team Membership

Normally, to edit a user’s access to tickets, you would set a blanket access level to the tickets tool by changing that specific user’s access privileges. All HubSpot accounts can do this. However, if you have a Professional or Enterprise-tier HubSpot subscription, you can customize ticket access so that users can only access tickets assigned to them or team members without revoking their access to all tickets.

Here's how:

Go to your HubSpot settings (gear icon)
Go to “Users & Teams” under the “Account Setup” header

Users & Teams Menu Highlight

Click on the name of the user on the team you want to edit ticket access for (or use the checkboxes to edit multiple user permissions at once) to be taken to their user profile
Click on the “Access” tab of their profile:

User profile screen with strikethroughs

Under the “Permissions” header, select “CRM permissions” from the “Current view” dropdown
Click “Edit permissions”

User Permissions menu screen cap

Go to the CRM tab in the dialog menu that appears
In the Tickets row, set the user’s view, edit, and/or delete permissions to “Tickets their team owns” or “Tickets they own”
Click “Save”

Example Uses for HubSpot Tickets

Okay, now that you know how to create tickets and how to control access to the HubSpot ticketing system in your portal, what are some uses for those tickets? Here are some ways that your teams can use HubSpot tickets:

Service Uses for Tickets

The most obvious use—and the one that the default HubSpot ticket properties support out of the gate—is to use the ticketing system for your customer support team. Some ways that your service team can use HubSpot tickets include:

Recording and Resolving Issues with Products and Services. If you set up a support email as your email to auto-generate tickets, your support team could use the tickets made through emailed support requests to log issues with the product or service and attempt to resolve them.
Upholding Service/Support Team SLAs. Service team leads can use the HubSpot ticketing system to help enforce service team SLAs by assigning due dates to tickets or creating custom ticket tags that align with the organization’s service level agreement targets.
Modifying SLAs for the Service Team. Are service/support team members struggling to adhere to the SLA times for tickets? That could be an indication that the organization’s SLAs need to be revised (or that more service team members need to be added to match demand).
Identifying Frequent Issues to Troubleshoot. Is there a specific type of service/support request made in tickets? If scores of customers are experiencing the same issue, it might be a good idea to modify a product/service, the marketing around that product/service, or create an FAQ entry to address that issue.

Potential Sales Team Uses for Tickets

Can sales use the HubSpot tickets system? Yes, they can! Normally, sales reps would use the conversations inbox or the sequences tool to manage interactions with hot prospects who are on the cusp of becoming customers. However, what if a prospect has a question or concern that the sales rep can’t resolve on their own?

They could create a ticket from the contact’s record and assign it to a support/service team member to respond to the prospect to provide a detailed answer to the question.

Alternatively, say that there’s a frequently-requested support item that could easily be resolved using a complimentary product or service that isn’t included in the product/service the customer is currently using. Sales reps could use that information to help crate upsell messages to future customers to encourage package deal purchases.

Potential Marketing Use for Tickets

One way that marketers could use the tickets tool is to look at what kind of tickets are being created frequently and generate new marketing content around those tickets.

For example, if there are frequent troubleshooting requests for a basic issue that arises from user error, the marketing team could write an FAQ entry based on service team responses to that issue and post it on the FAQs page, create an entire blog around the topic, or work an answer to that question into future marketing materials.

Get Help Managing Your HubSpot Tools

Need help managing ticket properties, pipelines, and workflows in your HubSpot portal? Reach out to Bluleadz to get started! From setup to training and support, we have the expertise in the HubSpot platform you need to make the most out of your HubSpot subscription!