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Tickets vs. processes

How do ticket-driven workflows operate?

Section titled “How do ticket-driven workflows operate?”
Tangled ticket inbox versus an ordered green Tallyfy process flow

Ticket-driven workflows work like separate conversations started through different channels:

  • Email to a specific address for formal requests
  • Social media for public inquiries
  • Phone calls for urgent matters
  • Chat messages on a website or app for quick help

The shared inbox problem

A shared inbox works like a ticket queue. Teams send requests to it and wait for someone to pick each one up. In practice:

  • Request details end up buried in long email threads.
  • Nobody owns a request, so it’s unclear who’ll reply or when.
  • You can’t tell whether anyone’s working on it.
  • Each person handles requests their own way.
  • The same problems keep coming back, because there’s no process to improve.

Both tickets and shared inboxes open a request and close it, with little structure in between.

The typical ticket workflow follows this sequence:

  1. Managing the queue: An incoming request waits to be processed in order.
  2. Initial check: An agent decides if they can handle it or if it needs a specialist.
  3. Gathering information: Collecting more details if the initial info isn’t enough.
  4. Solving the issue: Responding with a solution and closing the ticket.
  5. Optional root cause check: Looking into underlying problems that might need fixing.
  6. Optional feature consideration: Deciding if the issue suggests product improvements.
  7. Optional help docs update: Checking if documentation needs updating.

Where this model falls short:

  • Teams often skip steps 5-7 due to time constraints or lack of enforcement.
  • Service quality depends on whichever agent handles the ticket.

How do process-driven workflows improve operations?

Section titled “How do process-driven workflows improve operations?”

Each type of request becomes a Tallyfy template. Every new request launches a process from that template, so it follows the same steps, with an owner and a deadline on each one.

  • Structured intake: A kick-off form collects the request details and its category before work starts.
  • Routing before review: An automation assigns each step to the right person or group based on a form answer, such as the request type.
  • Shared answers: Standard replies and help doc links live in snippets that any member can insert. Edit a snippet once and every place that uses it updates.
  • Involving other teams: An automation shows another department’s step only when a form answer calls for it.
  • Linking to improvement processes: When a task is completed, Tallyfy can launch a separate process from another template, such as a product improvement review.

Follow-up, tracking and improvement

Section titled “Follow-up, tracking and improvement”
  • Follow-up: Digest emails remind assignees about tasks that are due soon or overdue. You can also send an instant reminder on any active task.
  • Progress tracking: The tracker view shows every running process and how far along each one is.
  • Customer visibility: You can share a read-only public link to a running process, so a customer can follow its progress without a Tallyfy account.
  • Improvement cycles: People report issues on the task where they happen, and you can filter the tracker for processes with unresolved issues.
  • Help docs: Add a step that asks whether the help docs need an update, so the check happens on every request.
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