Set up a ticket system in Discord: support with panels, categories and transcripts

When questions, applications and reports end up in public channels or in DMs to individual moderators, things get lost. A Discord ticket system gives every request its own private space that the whole team can see and nobody handles twice.

This guide sets up a ticket system with Lizbot, from categories and the panel to transcripts and browser replies. By the end, members click a button, answer a few questions and land in a private ticket your team claims and closes with a transcript.

How a ticket works in Discord

Discord has no built-in ticket system. A bot builds one from regular building blocks: each ticket gets either its own text channel or a private thread. Channel permissions make sure only the person who opened the ticket and your team can see its content.

Both options have pros and cons:

For small and medium servers, a separate channel is easier to keep track of. With very many tickets, threads are often the better choice.

1. Turn on the Tickets module

Open your server in the dashboard and go to Tickets. In the General tab, turn on Ticket system enabled and set the basics:

• Ticket log channel: opened and closed tickets are logged here, with the transcript as a file. Pick a channel only your team can see.
• Staff roles (global): these roles can see every ticket, whatever the category. Moderator and Support are typical.
• Max. open tickets per user: the default is 1. It stops people from opening five tickets about the same problem.
• Channel name: the default is ticket-{number}. With {user} and {category} you can see what a ticket is about right in the channel list.

Ping staff on new ticket is on from the start. Ask for a reason when closing helps when you look things up later.

2. Create categories

In the Categories & panels tab you create your categories. Each category becomes a button or an entry in the dropdown, for example:

• General question
• Application
• Report a bug
• Partnership

For each category you set:

• Mode: Separate channel per ticket with the Discord category where the channels are created, or Private thread with the channel the threads hang off.
• Support roles: see and handle only tickets in this category, on top of the global staff roles. That way applications go to team leads and bug reports to your developers.
• Questions when opening: up to five questions, short or long, optionally required. Your team gets all the information right away.
• Welcome message in the ticket with placeholders such as {user.mention}.
• SLA: first reply within a number of minutes (Pro and up). If the time runs out, Lizbot pings the responsible roles in the ticket.

For a quick start there is Panel from template, with templates for general support, applications, bug reports, partnerships or appealing a punishment, among others. Adjust the templates afterwards.

The Free plan includes one panel and five categories, Pro and up are unlimited.

3. Create and post the panel

The panel is the message members use to open a ticket. Create a panel in the same tab, choose the Channel, for example #support, the Layout Buttons or Dropdown, title, color and description, plus the categories it should offer. With Save and post it appears in Discord. Lizbot updates it automatically whenever you save changes later.

Buttons work well for up to four categories. With more categories the dropdown is tidier, and it also shows each category's description.

Make sure Lizbot is allowed to create channels and set permissions in the chosen Discord category. Otherwise it cannot create ticket channels. The guide on missing bot permissions explains the usual causes.

4. Work on tickets

Inside the ticket your team sees the buttons Claim and Close. Whoever claims a ticket is responsible for it. How to organize claiming, SLAs and priorities in your team is covered in the guide on running a support team in the ticket system. More tools are available with /ticket right inside the ticket:

• /ticket add and /ticket remove bring more people in or remove them
• /ticket rename renames the ticket channel
• /ticket priority sets the priority from low to urgent
• /ticket tag adds tags such as "payment" or "bug"
• /ticket note writes an internal note only the team can see
• /ticket reopen reopens a closed thread ticket

For questions that keep coming up, create templates in the Canned replies tab. In Discord you insert them with /reply, and Lizbot fills in placeholders such as {user.mention} or {ticket.number} automatically. If such questions can be answered before a ticket is even opened, automatic replies to common questions help right in the chat.

You don't even have to be in Discord. The Ticket inbox in the dashboard lists every ticket, filtered by status and category, and you reply directly; the reply lands in the Discord channel. Internal notes, priorities and tags work there too, and you see at once when an SLA deadline was missed.

Who on your team may see the inbox, reply or close tickets is set per role under Team. Roles you enter as staff or support roles get the ticket permissions automatically.

5. Transcripts and closing

With Create transcripts turned on, Lizbot saves the conversation as an HTML file when a ticket closes and posts it to the ticket log channel. With Send the transcript to the creator by DM, the person who opened the ticket gets a copy too. In the dashboard you find all transcripts under Transcripts and can search them by name, subject, number or content.

How long transcripts are kept depends on your plan: 30 days on Free, 90 days on Pro, unlimited on Studio. If you need a transcript for longer, keep the file from the ticket log channel. With /ticket transcript you can get the transcript of a running ticket as a file at any time.

Two settings make sure nothing is left lying around: Close automatically after inactivity closes tickets after the number of hours you set, and with Warn before closing Lizbot reminds the ticket owner beforehand. In the Survey tab you turn on Rating enabled: after closing, Lizbot asks for a rating from 1 to 5 stars by DM. You see the results in the Ratings tab, and satisfaction together with the time to first reply also under Analytics in the Team & Support tab.

6. Support without Discord (Pro)

If you have customers or members who aren't on Discord, turn on Portal enabled in the Support portal tab. It's a public page where tickets are created in the browser. Visitors sign in with an email link or with Discord. Your team keeps working in the ticket channel as usual: replies from the portal show up there, and anyone who signed in by email also gets your replies by email. You choose which categories the portal offers and can maintain title and intro separately for German, English, French and Spanish.

On the Studio plan, an AI summarizes long tickets in the inbox and suggests replies.

Checklist

• a ticket log channel is set and visible to the team only
• global staff roles are entered
• every category has suitable support roles and at least one question
• the panel is posted in the right channel
• Lizbot may create channels in the ticket category
• transcripts are turned on
• canned replies for the most common questions exist

Common mistakes

• Too many categories: three to five are almost always enough. With too many options, members pick the wrong one.
• No questions when opening: then every ticket starts with "What is this about?". A good question saves several messages.
• Public log channel: transcripts contain private content. The log channel belongs to the team only, not least for GDPR and data protection.
• Tickets stay open forever: without automatic closing, forgotten tickets pile up.

How to plan roles and permissions for your team is covered in the guide on building a moderation team.