LibAnswers is a ticketing system created by SpringShare. It is one of their suite of products. Learn more about SpringShare and their products. We use SpringShare products across the libraries including LibCal for our calendars and LibGuides for guides like this one. LibAnswers is their platform for answering reference and other types of questions using ticketing queues, a chat client and FAQs to share information more broadly.
Ticket: when a question is sent to a queue, it becomes a ticket. It has a time stamp and an ID number and other metadata.
Queue: a question channel. Think of this like an inbox. People are assigned to specific queues.
FAQ: a collection of questions with their answers that can be shared publicly. Organized into groups.
Claim a ticket: clicking on a question title will 'claim' the question and add your name to the ticket.
Preview a ticket: You can look at a ticket without 'claiming' it by using the eyeball icon next to a question 
Create a Reply tab: sends email to the original 'questioner'. You can also reply to a question using Outlook but it is preferred to use the LibAnswers interface to respond to tickets.
Users and Patrons: In the Dashboard, there is a column called "Last Message From" that shows who sent the most recent message on the ticket. User means users of LibAnswers or Library employees. Patron means our users or people asking the questions.
Internal Note tab: USE WITH CAUTION! notes visible to all with LibAnswers queue access. Internal notes don't appear in patron's email when replying from LibAnswers system. Internal notes DO appear in patron's email when replying from Outlook!
Assign/Transfer tab: assign/transfer tickets to LibAnswers users or queues
CC Answer to: add relevant email addresses/shared mailboxes to include
Analytics: when closing a ticket, select appropriate queue to record analytics
Tags: tags are short phrases or keywords that describe a ticket. We are developing a taxonomy of tags and further guidance on how to use them.
FAQ groups: FAQs are collections of questions and answers. LibAnswers can have multiple FAQs. A current example, is our COVID FAQ.
Submission options when you 'take action' on a ticket: when you 'submit' your response by 'creating a reply', sending an 'internal note' or assigning a ticket to someone else, you must choose a ticket status. A ticket's status also displays on the Dashboard. Below are the definitions of each status.