topic Re: Help Desk Set Up in Ask Me Anything and Panel Discussions

[Closed] Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

CJuliano — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 20:43:48 GMT

That's the end of our Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA. Thanks for joining me on another great conversation - chat soon!

Hi everyone,

I'm Caitlin, Product Marketing Manager on the Service Hub team at HubSpot. I spend my days noodling on how Help Desk actually fits into real operations, not just how it's supposed to work in theory.

In January, we ran an Admin HUG where Rose, Abiola, Jenn, Marc, and I walked through Help Desk features, from workspace organization to AI handoffs to reporting. We got a ton of great questions (seriously, over 50)—and while we answered most of them in our follow up blog post , I know there's more to dig into.

This week, we're here to go deeper on Help Desk setup, features, and how teams are actually using it day-to-day. Whether you're just getting started, actively migrating, or trying to get more out of what you've already built, we want to hear what's working, what's confusing, and what you wish worked differently.

You can ask us anything about:

Setting up spaces and views for your team structure
Getting SLAs, routing, and assignment rules right
Using macros and automation without overcomplicating things
Making AI features (reply recommendations, Customer Agent handoffs) actually useful
Building reports and dashboards that support your team instead of just tracking numbers
Migration planning and post-migration fixes

We'll be answering questions from February 9-13. Drop your questions below and share as much context as you're comfortable with, the more specific you are, the more helpful we can be.

Looking forward to this, Caitlin

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

HDelaloye — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 08:56:45 GMT

It does not appear to be possible at present to configure the system so that “every new response, even those originating from a transfer and therefore not from the main sender contact” is returned to the “backlog” Status.
Is this planned for the near future, as it is a very disruptive gap in our request processing procedures?

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

Torry — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:25:00 GMT

Hi Caitlin,

Thank you for the Admin Hub and the upcoming AMA. Are there any plans to associate Line Items to Tickets? It would be very helpful to us. Our Orders tend to have a lot of Line Items (Products). I see that Line Items can now be associated to Custom Objects (which is great) but we'd prefer to be able to use Tickets and Help Desk to handle service requests such as RMAs, Labor Claims, and shipping issues that always require the problematic Line Items on the Order to be identified, addressed, and available to use in reports.

Thank you

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

SMatthews9 — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:05:35 GMT

I have opened up permissions for my support team but the 'delete tickets' is still greyed out. I can't find out why.

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

CJuliano — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:53:23 GMT

Hi @SMatthews9!

In order to delete a ticket the user needs delete ticket permissions. Have you assigned them that specific permission? Here’s how you can do that

Settings > under Account Management go to Users & Teams
Find the user you want to edit and hover over them > Click Edit Permissions
In the CRM objects section find Tickets > Delete
Allow the user the specific delete permissions

Let me know if that works for you!

Re: Help Desk Set Up

SMatthews9 — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:55:23 GMT

Yes. All good. Thank you.

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

CJuliano — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:54:45 GMT

Great question! It sounds like you're looking to automatically move tickets back to a "backlog" status whenever a new response comes in, including responses that come from transferred conversations.

HubSpot does support ticket status automation based on incoming replies. You can configure this in Settings > Objects > Tickets > Pipelines > Automation tab. There, you'll find options to update ticket statuses when new replies come in from contacts.

There are some exceptions to this automation, and transferred/forwarded emails may fall into that category depending on how they're being routed. Here's the knowledge base article on pipeline automations that outlines the current capabilities and limitations.

If you're still running into issues could you share a bit more detail about your specific setup? For example:

How are these transfers happening? (Internal team transfers, forwarded emails, etc.)
What ticket status behavior are you currently seeing versus what you need?

That additional context will help us confirm whether this is a settings configuration issue or something that might need a feature request/product feedback.

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

CJuliano — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:59:19 GMT

Hi @Torry! Glad you could join us for the events! Great question and you’re absolutely not alone in wanting this.

Right now, line items can’t be directly associated to tickets in HubSpot. They can be associated to objects like deals and now custom objects. The product team is actively reviewing requests to expand where line items can associate, but it’s not something we’ve committed to a specific timeline for yet.

If you haven’t already, it’s also worth adding your specific scenarios to this Community Idea so the product team can see how you’d use it in practice: Associate Line Items to Tickets. I’ll also send along your feedback to the product team!

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

HDelaloye — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 13:00:29 GMT

Thank you for your reply. I have already configured everything that can be configured, and it seems that it is precisely the limited elements that are causing me problems.
Are there any plans to expand these limits?
The impact in this specific case would be minimal (returning to backlog regardless of who responds to the email, even if the contact is not initially linked to the ticket).

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

STierney — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:31:36 GMT

Hey Team!

I really appreciate this topic, and I'd love to tag in some of our top contributors to see if they have any valuable questions or insights that will engage this conversation further!

@danmoyle, @Josh, and @Ben_M - anything you can add to this conversation?

Shane, Senior Community Moderatoer

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

NickBuete — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:40:46 GMT

I have 2 initial questions. Actually 3.
1) I'm focussing on ticket data integrity and I am unable to find a way to ensure that all tickets in the helpdesk have at least a contact associated, but ideally a company also. This is important for discussions about possible fee-for-service model. are there any current automations or exit criteria I am missing?

2) we have SLA that pauses when a ticket is at 'waiting on customer' and tickets move to this stage when we have emailed them. If we send an email and there is a certain type of response like a 'thank you for contacting... ' as an automated reply from our customer, is there a way to prevent these tickets from moving back to 'waiting on us'?

3) when we receive a ticket the customer agent suggests a response based on its retrieval of our externally held knowledge base. When we email the client back, this suggested response is lost. But it good data for where we can improve our knowledge base. Is there any way to be able to save the reponse against the ticket so we can refine our blogs and documentation?

thanks !

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

CJuliano — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 14:16:11 GMT

hanks for this additional information, @HDelaloye. We have plans to improve ticket status automation, but for more specific guidance on the limit you're seeing I'd recommend you call support so they can get on a screenshare and diagnose the behavior you're seeing vs. the expected behavior.

Linked is how you can reach the Support team.

Re: Help Desk Set Up & Features AMA: Ask Us Anything | February 9-13

CJuliano — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 20:17:07 GMT

Hi @Nick! Thanks for these questions. Let's take them in order.

Data integrity is huge, and it makes sense you’re looking into this. The best way you can check that your current tickets have an associated contact or company in the Help Desk is adding the Ticket --> Contacts & Ticket --> Company columns in the table view. I noticed there isn’t an option to filter for when these fields are blank or null and I've passed feedback to the team!

2. Right now, we don’t have a way to distinguish between automatic replies for OOO vs. a manual response. The product team recently released this update for tickets reopening. A variation of this might work for you here!

3. This is super interesting! We don’t have a way to save or store the provided reply recommendations. Our product team is working on better feedback loops for reply recommendations but we don’t have a timeline currently.

Re: Help Desk Set Up

NickBuete — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 21:50:23 GMT

Thanks for your reply.

On the matter of a missing association it would be good if this could be
added as a required property for the ticket to move forward or be closed.
Rather than just a filter on a table view. This way I can mandate that a
team member must complete.

I’ll check out the reopening criteria and see if it applies, in this case
the tickets remain open, it’s just the unnecessary moving of a ticket to
‘waiting on us’ for auto response or if the customer just says ‘ok I’ll
try’ etc.

I think for now we’ll save the reply in the notes (we have this beta), so
we can review it later to improve the recommendations by updating
references and asking the same question in the sandbox.

Thanks for your help!

Re: Help Desk Set Up

CJuliano — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 15:06:03 GMT

Of course!

There isn't a way currently for the system to check associations as a required property to close a ticket. Not the ideal scenario, but there is a workaround in the community that could work for your use case.