Working a ticket
Once a ticket lands in the queue, this is what the coordinator does with it — set status, work the discussion thread, watch the timeline, and link the work it spawns back to the original record.
#Why this exists
A ticket gives everyone who works one problem the same record. Tickets and Ticket intake show how a problem gets into Gearflow. This article starts where intake stops: the office person who works the ticket, usually a Fulfiller or an Admin in Settings > Users, uses it to see who is on the problem, what was promised, what was done and what work the ticket made.
Most fleet teams have no one place for that picture today. A status column on a spreadsheet belongs to one person. A text thread belongs to a second person, and an email chain to a third. That unowned space between the field people who report a need and the office people who source it is the coordination gap, the problem Gearflow exists to solve. A ticket closes the gap for one problem at a time: one record, one discussion, one timeline, and the requests it made linked back to it.
The field person who files the ticket is often a Ticketer, the free field seat in Settings > Users. The four tiers there are Ticketer, Requester, Fulfiller and Admin, and each person also has a job title. A Ticketer can file and discuss a ticket but cannot create requests, so the cards the AI drafts for them wait for someone who can. Some job titles let a Ticketer create one type, such as maintenance. See Approve a Ticketer's drafts.
#What you're looking at
A ticket opens from the Tickets list as a canvas in a panel on the right. For the list itself, its tabs and its filters, see The tickets list. For the top bar and the ⋯ menu, see What's on a ticket.
Below the title and its chips, the canvas shows its sections in this order:
- Summary: the AI's short read of the ticket.
- Requests: the draft cards, the requests made from this ticket and the Find request bar. See Linking to existing work.
- Discussion: the team's messages, the subscribers and the phone icon for Call with Gearflow. See The discussion thread.
- Timeline: the current status and the newest event, with View timeline for the rest. See The timeline.
- Details: the customer, units, job, location, business unit, Owner and shop.
The composer sits at the bottom of the panel. On a saved ticket it says "Message the team, @mention someone, or drop in a document". What you type or say there goes to the Discussion, and the AI reads it.
#Lifecycle
Open is the initial state — the ticket has been filed but no follow-up action has started. In Progress is the working state — usually entered automatically the moment the ticket spawns its first request (an equipment request, a maintenance, a mobilization, or a parts request), but a coordinator can also push it there manually from the status dropdown. The terminal states are Done (nothing is left pending on the ticket) and Canceled (the ticket was dropped — duplicate, false alarm, no longer relevant). On screen, Done reads Complete.
As of November 2026, a ticket closes itself. When every request linked to it reaches its finish point, the ticket moves to Done and its timeline says "Every request on this ticket is handled." The finish point for each type:
| Request type | The request has met the need at |
|---|---|
| Equipment | On rent, checked in, called off, or canceled |
| Mobilization | Received, or canceled |
| Maintenance | Completed, or canceled |
| Parts | Fulfilled, or canceled |
A canceled request counts as finished, so a ticket whose only request was canceled still goes to Done, not Canceled. Gearflow never cancels a ticket by itself; only a person does. If a finished request opens again (for example, a canceled parts request is re-ordered), a Done ticket goes back to In Progress. A ticket with no linked requests closes by itself only when it asked to change existing requests and every change is made. Otherwise, a person closes it.
#Changing status
Status changes happen from the dropdown on the ticket detail. Click the current-status pill at the top of the panel and the four options appear.
Three rules of thumb for the manual status change:
- Open → In Progress happens automatically when the ticket spawns its first request. Use the dropdown if you're working a ticket that won't have any spawned requests (a documentation-only "drop this off at the yard" ticket, say) and you want it to show up under In Progress.
- In Progress → Done is normally automatic: the ticket closes when its last request finishes. A coordinator can pick Done by hand only when no request on the ticket is open. While a request is open, Gearflow refuses the change and says: "This ticket has an open request. It closes by itself when the request is done. To close it now, finish or cancel the request first." Pick Done by hand for a ticket that has no requests.
- Anything → Canceled is for tickets that were duplicates, false alarms, or no longer relevant. Gearflow never refuses a cancel. It asks first: a "Cancel this ticket?" dialog has an optional box, "Why is this being canceled?". Select Cancel ticket to confirm, or Keep it to go back. A reason you type shows on the ticket's timeline, and the update email to the ticket's recipients quotes it. The discussion thread is still preserved as a record.
#Approve a Ticketer's drafts
A draft that its filer may not create waits on the ticket until an approver submits it. This happens when a Ticketer, or anyone without the right to create that request type, describes a need. The AI still drafts the card, so the approver gets the request already filled in.
What the Ticketer sees:
- The card wears a Needs approval badge and a dashed outline.
- The card has no Submit button. Its line says "Sent for approval. An approver will review and submit it."
- The Requests section shows a count, such as "1 needs approval".
Who approves is anyone who may create that request type and is not a Ticketer. Who is told depends on the ticket's owner:
- On a ticket with an owner, the owner holds the Approve requests task. Gearflow sends no separate notice.
- On a ticket with no owner, Gearflow sends an in-app notice about two minutes after the draft lands. It goes to the job's followers who may create the request and whose ticket notification setting covers the jobs they follow. If the ticket has no job, or no such follower, it goes to the people in the business unit who fulfill that type.
- Gearflow never tells the person who filed the ticket.
To approve:
- On the Tickets list, turn on the Needs approval filter. Only approvers see this chip.
- Open a ticket. Each waiting card wears Needs approval, and its line says "Review it, then submit."
- Check the fields, add what is missing, and click Submit on the card.
Gearflow creates the request and links it to the ticket. To refuse a draft, click its X.
#Linking to existing work
The Find request bar links a request that already exists to the ticket, so no one creates a duplicate. The bar sits at the bottom of the Requests section. Ticket work often touches records that already exist: a unit with an open maintenance, a move already on the schedule, a rental someone asked for before the field call came in.
- Click Find request and type. The results show matching equipment requests, mobilizations and maintenance requests. They also show parts requests on accounts that use Parts inside Gearflow.
- Click a result. Gearflow links it, and its card shows in the Requests section.
If the linked request is still open, an Open ticket moves to In progress. If the request has already met its need, the ticket does not move to In progress. Instead, Gearflow checks whether every request on the ticket is done. For the statuses, see Lifecycle.
The + button beside the bar opens a create form for a new Equipment, Mobilization or Maintenance request from this ticket. On accounts that use Parts Hub Pro, it also has Parts, which opens Parts Hub Pro in a new tab.
Each card in the Requests section shows the request's type, unit and status. Click a card to open the request over the ticket. Its back arrow returns to the ticket.
Two situations where linking matters most:
- One problem, many requests. A broken unit can need a maintenance for the repair, a mobilization to move it to the shop and an equipment rental to bridge the gap. All three show on the ticket, so anyone who opens it sees the whole solution in one place.
- Work that already exists. Someone files a ticket about a unit that already has a scheduled maintenance. Link that maintenance instead of creating a second one. The ticket is the conversation, and the maintenance is the work record.
#The discussion thread
The Discussion is where the people who work the problem talk to each other. It holds the back-and-forth between the office and the field person who filed the ticket, mentions of teammates, photos from the field, decisions and PO numbers. On the canvas it comes after Requests and before the Timeline. Its first message is the ticket's original description, in the filer's own words.
To post, use the composer at the bottom of the panel:
- Type or speak. The mic records a voice note, and the AI reads it as it reads typed text.
- Attach files. Drop a document, photo or video into the composer. Photos show as thumbnails in the message.
- @-mention a teammate. Type
@and pick a person. Gearflow adds them to the ticket and notifies them.
Each of your own messages has a ⋯ menu. Use it to edit the message, delete it or take one file off it.
The avatar stack in the Discussion header is the ticket's subscribers: the people Gearflow tells when a message lands, the status changes or a request changes. Click the stack to add or remove a teammate. Subscribe or Unsubscribe beside it changes your own subscription. If the person is not in Gearflow yet, use Add new… at the bottom of the list. It opens the add-user dialog, which takes an email or a phone number.
The phone icon in the Discussion header opens Call with Gearflow. See Call with Gearflow.
#Call with Gearflow
Call with Gearflow places a recorded call from the ticket and posts its summary back to the Discussion. Open it from the phone icon in the Discussion header, or from Call with Gearflow in the ⋯ menu. Equipment, mobilization, maintenance and parts requests have the same call page.
- Under People on this ticket, click Call beside a person. Only people with a phone number show there.
- Or, under Call any number, type a number and click Call.
- Gearflow calls your phone first, then connects you.
Your own phone number must be verified on your profile first. If it is not, the page says so and links to your profile. The page also says "Calls are recorded and posted to the ticket discussion." After the call, click Done. A summary and the recording post to the Discussion a few minutes later.
#Customer thread and Text the customer
A dealer account's ticket can hold a text and email conversation with its customer. Only dealer and other sell-side accounts see this, because only they have customers on a ticket.
There are two ways to open the customer thread:
- Text the customer in the ticket's ⋯ menu.
- Message customer beside the customer in the ticket's Details.
Both show only when the ticket has a customer, and only to people who may create requests. A Ticketer does not see them.
The customer thread is separate from the Discussion. The customer reads it; the Discussion stays internal. In the composer, each recipient chip has a Send by picker: Text, Email or Both. The picker greys out a channel the customer cannot receive, for example text for a customer who replied STOP. The customer's replies by text or email land in the same thread. A request made from the ticket keeps the same thread with that customer.
#The timeline
The Timeline is what people and Gearflow did on the ticket. The Discussion is what people said. Collapsed, the Timeline shows the current status and the newest event. Click View timeline to see every event, and Hide timeline to close it.
The Timeline records these kinds of events:
| The ticket itself | Created, fields edited, status changed, units changed, shop changed, marked urgent or cleared. |
|---|---|
| People | Owner set, changed or cleared, a subscriber added, and who Gearflow notified and why. |
| Requests | A request created from the ticket, an existing request linked or unlinked, and a request created for a different unit or job than the ticket names. |
| Gearflow AI | The AI's read of the ticket, fields it filled or suggested, a text it read that changed nothing, a change it made or drafted on a linked request, and a draft that waits for approval. |
| Messages and files | Messages in the Discussion, and a file from an emailed reply that Gearflow refused. |
The Timeline also shows the events of the requests linked to the ticket, in the same order. So a ticket with a rental and a move shows the rental's status changes and the move's status changes in one list, beside the ticket's own events.
#Not right?
Not right? lets a person correct who Gearflow AI picked. Only accounts with AI routing turned on see it; ask Gearflow to turn it on.
On those accounts, Gearflow AI can set a new ticket's owner and choose who hears about it. Its Timeline rows say why, and each reason ends in Not right?. Click it to open a small dialog:
- On an owner row, the dialog asks Who should own this? Pick a person. Save changes the owner.
- On a notified row, the dialog asks Who else should hear about this? Pick a person or a team. Save adds them to the ticket, and Gearflow notifies them.
Both dialogs take an optional Why?. Gearflow AI reads the account's recent corrections as examples, so the next pick is better. After Save, the page says "Thanks. Gearflow AI will learn from this."
#The customer's own ticket page
A customer who texts, calls or emails a dealer gets a link to a read-only page for their ticket. The link comes in the confirmation Gearflow sends. It needs no login and opens only that one ticket.
The page shows:
- The ticket's title, status and details, under What you told us.
- The Requests the ticket made, with their status.
- The lines of each parts request.
- Your other tickets: the customer's own other tickets with the same dealer.
The page never shows the dealer's ticket list, other customers' tickets, the internal Discussion or the dealer's people, and it has no actions. The link lasts 30 days. After that, or if the ticket moves away, the page says "This link no longer works" and tells the customer to text or call again for a fresh link.