Service Desk Workflows: Introducing Custom Statuses

In the world of enterprise service management, flexibility reigns. That's why we're thrilled to announce one of our most requested features: Custom Statuses for tickets in Ravenna. As service desk professionals know, the journey of a ticket isn't always as simple as "open" to "closed." Different organizations have unique workflows that require specific tracking states. Our new custom statuses feature allows you to tailor your ticket management process to match your team's exact needs, right within the powerful AI-powered helpdesk you already love.

How It Works

Custom statuses in Ravenna give you the power to define your own ticket workflow states beyond our standard options. Here's how this powerful new feature functions:

Customizable Status Groups

The standard Ravenna platform comes with five status groups out of the box:

• Open

• In Progress

• Waiting

• Done

• Closed

Now, within each of these groups, you can create custom statuses that align with your team's specific workflow. For instance, within the "Waiting" group, you might add statuses like "Waiting on Customer" or "Waiting on Review" to provide more granular tracking.

Easy Configuration

Setting up custom statuses is straightforward:

1. Navigate to Settings in your Ravenna dashboard

2. Select the new "Statuses" option

3. Choose which group you want to customize

4. Add your custom status names

Once configured, these custom statuses immediately appear in your Kanban board view, allowing you to drag and drop tickets between columns for intuitive workflow management.

Slack Integration

What makes this feature even more powerful is its seamless integration with Slack. When an employee raises a ticket through Slack, your support team can update the ticket status directly within the platform, choosing from all your custom statuses in the dropdown menu. The status changes sync instantly between Slack and the Ravenna dashboard, maintaining consistency across platforms.

Request Type-Specific Workflows

For even more customization, we've added the ability to define unique statuses for specific request types. This means your password reset process can have different workflow states than your onboarding requests or hardware orders. This level of granularity allows you to optimize each process independently while maintaining a cohesive system.

Why This Matters for Internal Ops Leaders

As an operations leader, you understand that the reality of service management is complex. Your team doesn't just open and close tickets—they navigate a sophisticated process of escalations, handoffs, approvals, and follow-ups.

Enhanced Visibility

Custom statuses provide unprecedented visibility into where bottlenecks occur in your process. Rather than seeing a generic "In Progress" status for weeks, you can now track if a ticket is "Awaiting Vendor Response," "Pending Approval," or "In Development," allowing you to identify and address delays more effectively.

Process Standardization

By defining explicit status workflows, you create standardized processes that your entire team can follow. This consistency improves quality of service, makes training new team members easier, and ensures that nothing falls through the cracks during handoffs between departments.

Better Reporting

With more granular status tracking comes more insightful reporting. Now you can analyze how long tickets spend in each specific stage of your process, helping you identify opportunities for optimization. Perhaps tickets are spending too long "Awaiting Manager Approval"—this insight could prompt you to revise your escalation process.

Employee Experience

From the employee perspective, custom statuses provide transparency into exactly where their request stands. Instead of the black box of "In Progress," they can see meaningful updates that match how your team actually works. This transparency builds trust and reduces follow-up inquiries about ticket status.

What makes Ravenna different?

While other helpdesk solutions might offer basic status customization, Ravenna's implementation stands apart for several reasons:

First, we've built this feature with a deep understanding that modern support teams work primarily in messaging platforms like Slack. Your custom statuses aren't just labels in a dashboard—they're fully integrated into the conversational interface where your team already works.

Second, our approach doesn't force you to rebuild your entire workflow from scratch. We provide sensible groupings as a starting point, allowing you to refine and extend them to match your processes rather than starting with a blank slate.

Finally, by allowing request type-specific workflows, we acknowledge that different types of requests have fundamentally different lifecycles. One size doesn't fit all when it comes to service management.

Wrapping up

Custom statuses represent another step in our mission to completely reimagine enterprise service management for the modern workplace. We believe that support tools should adapt to how your team actually works, not force you into rigid, outdated processes.

As the gap between employee expectations and traditional ticketing systems continues to widen, features like custom statuses help bridge that divide by bringing flexibility and transparency to both support teams and employees.

Ready to transform your service desk workflow with custom statuses? Contact us at Ravenna today to see how our AI-powered helpdesk can revolutionize your support operations. We're excited to help you build a workflow that perfectly matches your team's unique processes while reducing ticket volume and improving employee satisfaction.