How to Set Up Automatic Ticket Closing and Cleanup

Keep your ticket queue clean by automatically closing inactive tickets, trashing old closed tickets, and permanently deleting stale data. This is a Pro feature.

Overview

The Auto-Close system provides a three-stage automated lifecycle for tickets:

Active Ticket (no customer response)
        |
   X days pass
        |
        v
   Auto-Closed
        |
   X days pass
        |
        v
   Auto-Trashed
        |
   X days pass
        |
        v
   Permanently Deleted

Each stage is independently configurable and can be enabled or disabled separately.

Configuration

Go to Support Genix > Settings > Auto Close.

Stage 1: Auto-Close Inactive Tickets

Automatically close tickets when the customer hasn’t responded for a specified number of days.

How it works:

• The system checks the date of the last customer reply.
• If the customer hasn’t responded in X days, the ticket status changes to Closed.
• Only tickets in Active, In Progress, or Inactive status are affected.
• Already closed, trashed, or deleted tickets are not affected.

Tag Exclusion:

Select tags that should be exempt from auto-closing. This is useful for:

• VIP or priority tickets that should stay open indefinitely.
• Ongoing/recurring issues that don’t have a fixed resolution.
• Tickets tagged as “waiting-on-vendor” or similar.

Stage 2: Auto-Trash Closed Tickets

Automatically move closed tickets to trash after they’ve been closed for a specified number of days.

How it works:

• The system checks how long a ticket has been in the Closed status.
• After X days, the ticket is moved to Trashed status.
• Trashed tickets can still be restored manually.

Stage 3: Auto-Delete Trashed Tickets

Permanently delete trashed tickets after they’ve been in the trash for a specified number of days.

How it works:

• The system checks how long a ticket has been in the Trashed status.
• After X days, the ticket and all associated data (replies, notes, attachments, logs) are permanently removed from the database.
• This action is irreversible.

Example Configurations

Conservative (Keep Data Longer)

Total time before permanent deletion: 330 days (~11 months)

Standard

Total time before permanent deletion: 90 days (~3 months)

Aggressive (Clean Queue Fast)

Total time before permanent deletion: 51 days

Close Only (No Auto-Delete)

Tickets are auto-closed but never automatically trashed or deleted. Manual cleanup required.

Important Notes

• Minimum interval: 1 day for all settings.
• Processing schedule: The cleanup runs periodically via WordPress cron tasks.
• Customer notifications: Customers are not specifically notified about auto-close. However, standard status change email notifications apply if configured.
• Excluded tags: Only apply to the auto-close stage. Auto-trash and auto-delete apply to all closed/trashed tickets regardless of tags.
• Reopening: If a customer replies to an auto-closed ticket (and the setting allows it), the ticket reopens normally and the auto-close timer resets.

Related Docs

• Ticket Status Workflow
• Managing Ticket Tags