Statuses

Statuses track where tickets are in your workflow. Create custom statuses that match how your team works.

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Understanding Statuses

Every ticket has a status that indicates its current state. Statuses are organized into four categories, and can be completely customized to fit your company’s needs. You can create multiple custom statuses within each category. For example, “In Progress” might include:

• Investigating
• Waiting on Customer
• Waiting on Vendor
• In Review

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Creating Statuses

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Default Status

Every team must have a default status in the “To Do” category. New tickets are automatically assigned this status. To change the default:

1. Go to Team Settings → Statuses
2. Find the status you want as default
3. Click the … menu and select Set as Default

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AI Status Assignment

Serval’s AI can automatically assign statuses based on ticket content and conversation:

• New tickets - AI assigns initial status based on the request
• Updates - AI may suggest status changes based on conversation (e.g., moving to “Waiting on Customer” after asking a question)

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Enabling AI Assignment

Toggle AI status assignment in team settings:

1. Go to Team Settings → Statuses
2. Enable AI status assignment
3. Provide detailed status descriptions for best results

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Status Transitions

Change ticket status from list view, detail view, or chat. See Updating Ticket Properties for detailed instructions.

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Automatic Transitions

Configure automatic status changes:

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Transition rules

By default, a ticket can move from any status to any other. To constrain the allowed moves for a ticket type (Request, Task, Incident, or Problem), open it under Team Settings → Ticket types and click Enable transitions. Serval seeds a starter state machine so no ticket is ever stranded; edit it to set which statuses can move to which, optionally gating a transition on built-in or custom fields. Once on, transitions are enforced everywhere a status changes: Serval’s AI proposes only valid next statuses, pickers gray out disallowed moves, and rule-breaking manual updates are blocked (Serval won’t let you remove a transition that would strand live tickets). Click Turn off transitions to lift the constraints. Change models keep their built-in ITIL lifecycle regardless.

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Overriding transitions

Team members with the Agent role or above can move a ticket to a status outside the transition graph. When transitions are enforced, the status picker adds an Other statuses section that reveals the other statuses in the ticket’s lifecycle, each marked with an Override badge. Only people can override: Serval’s AI and workflows always stay within the graph.

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Locking statuses

Mark a Done or Canceled status as locked to stop a ticket accepting new requester replies once it reaches that status. Open Team Settings → Statuses, find a status in the Done or Canceled category, and turn on Locked. Only those two categories can be locked. While a ticket sits in a locked status:

• Requesters can’t reply. The web reply composer becomes a closed-ticket notice, and replies sent from Slack or Microsoft Teams are dropped with a notice that the ticket is no longer accepting replies.
• Team members can still add internal notes, and Serval’s AI stops suggesting status changes and won’t move the ticket out of a locked status on its own.
• Moving the ticket to an unlocked status (manually) reopens it to replies.

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Status Best Practices

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Example Status Configurations

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Editing and Deleting Statuses

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Edit a Status

1. Click the … menu on the status
2. Select Edit
3. Update name, category, or description
4. Save changes

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Delete a Status

1. Click the … menu on the status
2. Select Delete
3. Choose a replacement status for existing tickets
4. Confirm deletion

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