How to work a ticket#

Audience: both — this is the daily loop for MSP staff; admins run it too and see it from the settings side.

Working a ticket in Marula happens on one screen so you don't lose your place switching between notes, your stopwatch, and client documentation. You pick a ticket from your queue, start the timer on the bottom work bar, write your customer reply or internal tech note, and stop the timer to log the time entry automatically.

Prerequisites#

• A signed-in session. If you are practicing on a fresh install, see Your first ticket to sign in to the demo org (owner@demo.local / demo-password-123).
• Membership on the ticket board you want to work from (Service Desk, Field Service, etc.).
• Optional: if your admin has granted your role AI assistance, the right-hand Assistant panel will show suggested next steps. If not, the ticket workbench runs cleanly without it.

1. Pick your next ticket#

You have two ways to grab work:

• Today (/today): Your morning dashboard showing summary counters (Overdue, Due today, and Approvals) above the active ticket queue with P1–P4 priority badges, assigned tech initials, board columns, and SLA status pills.
• Tickets (/tickets): The full searchable ticket ledger with stage tabs (Open, In progress, Waiting, Closed, and All) when you need to filter across the whole desk.

2. Read the three-pane ticket workbench#

Click a ticket row to open the workbench:

• Left pane — Ticket Context: Client name, site, board, current status, live SLA countdown ring, and linked Knowledge Base articles that match the ticket.
• Center pane — Activity: The chronological timeline of emails, internal notes, parts used, and time entries, with the reply composer at the top. You can also switch tabs along the top of the feed (Activity, Details, Related, Time Entries, Files, and Notes).
• Right pane — Assistant: Relevant documentation sources and suggested next steps (when AI assistance is enabled for your role).

In the top header you can change the status column, check the SLA ring, click Close, Escalate, or Link, pop the ticket into its own window (⧉), or flip the Classic toggle if you prefer the multi-pod layout (Tickets, Detail, and Timeline pods with custom pod arrangement).

3. Write a client reply or an internal note#

Click into the composer at the top of Activity:

• Replying to the customer: Leave the mode on Client reply. What you send goes out by email (when outbound email is enabled) and appears on the client's portal request page.
• Writing a private note for your team: Flip the selector to Internal note before posting. Internal notes are highlighted with an internal tint and are never visible to the client in emails or on the portal.
• Speeding up common replies: Use Attach to add screenshots or logs, Template / Snippets to insert a canned response, Dictate for voice transcription (if enabled), or AI Assist to draft a summary.

4. Run the timer to record your hours#

Look at the dark work bar along the bottom of your window:

1. Click Start timer on the ticket (or on the work bar). Only one timer can run for you at a time across the entire organization.
2. Do the work and write your notes.
3. Click Stop on the work bar when you finish or switch tasks.

Stopping the timer opens the wrap-up prompt with the elapsed minutes and work category prefilled. Confirm it, and your time entry lands directly on the ticket's Time Entries tab and in your daily time log.

5. Send your hours for approval and billing#

Submitted time entries move to Approvals (/approvals), where a service lead or manager reviews them. Once approved, those hours flow into the next billing verification and invoice run (see Your first invoice). Once an entry is billed on an issued invoice, it locks permanently.

What you learned#

• Everything for a ticket lives in one three-pane view: Ticket Context on the left, Activity and composer in the center, and Assistant on the right, with the active timer pinned in the bottom work bar.
• Switching the composer to Internal note keeps technical notes strictly inside your team.
• Stopping the timer creates the billable time entry right on the ticket.