Support Tab

From WHMCS Documentation


The Support tab allows you to configure settings for the support ticket system and its related features.

You can access this tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings.

Support Module

Select a third-party support system if one is installed.

Support Ticket Mask Format

Enter a customized support ticket number format for new tickets. Entering the following codes will set the format of the ticket number:

  • %A — Uppercase letter.
  • %a — Lowercase letter.
  • %n — Number.
  • %y — Year.
  • %m — Month.
  • %d — Day.
  • %i — Ticket ID.

For example, entering %A%A%A - %n%n%n%n - %y would result in AAA - 111 - 2013, where %A is any random uppercase letter and %n is any random number between 0-9.

Ticket masks can contain up to 15 characters.

Ticket Reply List Order

Select the order in which to display support ticket messages when viewing a support ticket in the Admin Area.

Ticket Reply Email Limit

Specify the maximum number of emails you want to receive in your support system from an individual email address within a 15 minute period.

This is useful if a client opens a ticket and uses an autoresponder, which could create an infinite loop of sending and responding to email. By default, WHMCS will prevent import of the 10th email and all subsequent messages.

Show Client Only Departments

By default, support departments with Clients Only enabled are hidden from visitors on the ticket submission page. Select this setting will make these departments visible to visitors and allow them to submit tickets to them.

Client Tickets Require Login

Select this setting to prompt clients to log in before they can view a support ticket. This will not prevent unregistered users from viewing their tickets.

Knowledgebase Suggestions

Select this setting to display the title and first line of knowledgebase articles that are relevant to the currently-displayed support ticket when a customer is entering their inquiry or reply.

This displays between the ticket body and the submit button. You must have at least five articles in your knowledgebase that each contain 30 words or more in order to use this feature.

Attachment Thumbnail Previews

Select this setting to display a thumbnail-sized preview of attached images when viewing support tickets.

Support Ticket Rating

Select this setting to display a rating system below each staff reply in support tickets.

  • Customers can rate each response on a scale of 1-5.
  • The Support Ticket Ratings Reviewer report displays these results at Reports > Reports.

Auto Add Carbon Copy Recipients

Select this setting to add the addresses in the CC field of incoming emails to the associated support tickets that your clients opened via email.

Prevent Email Reopening

Select this setting to prevent email replies from reopening a closed ticket. When a user attempts to reply to a closed ticket via email, they will receive an email that uses the Closed Ticket Bounce Message email template and WHMCS will not add the reply to the ticket.

This does not prevent users from replying to and reopening closed tickets from the Client Area.

For registered users, the email message explains that they can reopen the ticket in the Client Area. Unregistered users must open a new ticket.

Update Last Reply Timestamp

Select an option for when WHMCS will update the Last Reply timestamp for a support ticket:

  • Every time a reply is made causes WHMCS to reset the Last Reply timestamp every time that the client replies to the support ticket. With this option, a user making additional replies to a ticket in order to gain attention may actually delay staff response since it would move the ticket back to the bottom of the queue.
  • Every time for staff replies, only on a change of status for clients resets the Last Reply timestamp when a member of staff replies or when the ticket status changes. This avoids the issue described above.

Disable Reply Email Logging

Select this setting to prevent recording of support ticket responses in the Email Message Log at Configuration () > System Logs or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Utilities > Logs. The system also logs this data in the support ticket itself, so selecting this setting can save disk space.

Allowed File Attachment Types

Enter the file extensions that customers are permitted to attach to support tickets. For example, .jpg,.gif,.jpeg,.png.

By default, the allowed file types are:

  • .jpg
  • .gif
  • .jpeg
  • .png
  • .pdf
  • .zip

WHMCS cannot accept .php attachments due to security reasons: they can potentially allow malicious uploads.

Unnamed Files and Missing Extensions
Prior to WHMCS 8.3, the system ignored attachments that did not have a filename or extension. WHMCS 8.3 and later handles these files according to this logic:

  • The system converts filenames that contain special characters or are otherwise unsafe to a safe name.
  • If there is not a filename, the filename will become attachment_*, incrementing * for each attachment. For example, attachment_1 and attachment_2.
  • If there is no extension, the system will attempt to determine a file type.
    • If this fails, the system assigns .unknown as the extension.
    • If the system-determined extension is not in this list of extensions, the system will ignore the file.

Service Status Require Login

Select this setting to require authentication before users can view the server status and network issues pages in the Client Area.

Include Product Downloads

Select this setting to display downloads that are associated with a product on the Downloads page as well as on the product's product details page. Users must still own the relevant product in order to view and download the file.

Allow Insecure Imports

We added this setting in WHMCS 8.3.

Select this setting to allow WHMCS to import email replies from any sender into existing support tickets. This will import email replies even if the sender is unregistered, is not a CC recipient, or is not associated with the support ticket's client account.

Reopen Existing Tickets on Failed Import

We added this setting in WHMCS 8.3.

You must disable Prevent Email Reopening in order to use this setting.

Select this setting to allow the reopening of closed support tickets if WHMCS receives an unimported reply. If this occurs, the support ticket will move to the Customer-Reply status and you will be able to view and import replies manually.