Escalation lets your staff hand a ticket to another team without opening a new one. The ticket keeps its id, its participants and its transcript; the customer keeps talking in the same place. What changes is who handles it: the ticket takes on the target tier's category, moves to that tier's forum if it is a different one, and the new team is told it has arrived.
You decide which teams exist (tiers), who is allowed to move tickets between them (mode), how often a ticket may travel (budgets), and what the receiving team and the customer get to see.
How it works
A supporter picks a target tier
From the Escalate button on the ticket's staff card, the /escalate command inside the ticket, or Escalate… in the dashboard's ticket list. They see only the tiers their roles are allowed to reach, and whether a reason is needed.
Clarify checks the rules
The mode decides whether the mover may send the ticket there. The budgets decide whether the ticket may travel again right now. Every rule is re-checked against live roles immediately before the move.
The ticket changes hands
Same forum: the post is re-tagged with the target category. Different forum: a new post opens in the target forum with an arrival card, and the old post is sealed, archived and locked with a pointer to the new home.
The new team is told
The tier's notify roles are pinged (or DMed), and if the tier auto-assigns, a supporter from that team is picked straight away. The customer is not told unless you say so.
Every tier is a ticket category. Two tiers in the same forum re-tag the post; a tier in a different forum moves the ticket there. The reason a mover gives is staff-confidential: it appears on the arrival card and in the ticket's routing trail, never on anything the customer sees.
Who may move tickets?
The permission mode is the one decision everything else follows from. Start with Anarchy; switch to a ladder or to intake rules when your teams need them.
- Anarchy — Any supporter can move a ticket to any tier. Ranks are ignored, so the hop budget and the ladder-only switches below have no effect; cooldown and undo window still apply.
- Hierarchy — A ladder: tickets climb one rung at a time, and only staff at or above the ticket's rung may move it. Your rank is the highest rank among the tiers whose staff roles you hold.
- Custom — Each receiving team states who may send work to it, and from which tiers. Ranks still decide whether a move counts as up or down.
Your tiers
A tier is a team: one ticket category (and therefore one forum), the roles that staff it, and how it wants to be notified. Escalation needs at least two tiers.
- Name — shown to movers in the tier picker and on the arrival card. Up to 80 characters.
- Ticket category — the category this tier works in. Same forum as the current tier re-tags the post; a different forum moves the ticket. Every category should belong to one tier only; if two tiers share one, routing picks the first match.
- Rank (Hierarchy only) — the ladder position, a whole number from 0 to 100. Equal ranks are peer teams. Outside Hierarchy the ranks follow the list order.
- Staff roles — who staffs this tier. Required in Hierarchy, where an empty list would freeze the ladder; in the other modes they are the fallback for notifications.
- Notify roles — pinged in the new home when a ticket arrives. Empty means the staff roles.
- On arrival — No notification, Ping the roles, or Ping + DM the team (the ping plus a direct message to up to ten members of the staff roles).
- Customers can open tickets here — off makes the category internal-only: the panel refuses it with a short notice, so tickets only arrive by escalation.
- Auto-assign on arrival — hand the ticket to a supporter of the target category using that category's distribution strategy. Previous assignees are released only when a new one is found.
- Who may send tickets here (Custom only) — the roles allowed to escalate into this tier. Empty means any support role.
- Accepts tickets from (Custom only) — Any tier, or a list of source tiers.
Rules & budgets
Limits and cooldowns against mis-routes. Forum visibility stays your Discord setup — Clarify never writes channel permissions.
- Never ask — Moves happen without a stated reason.
- Optional — A reason field is offered, never enforced.
- Required when moving down — Handing a ticket back down always carries a reason.
- Always required — Every move carries a reason.
Arrival & the customer
What the receiving team sees when a ticket arrives, and what the customer is told.
- Link back only — The arrival card links to the previous thread.
- Link + digest — Additionally quote the last messages into the arrival card, one line per message.
- Refuse — Tickets without an internal thread cannot escalate.
- Move routing only — There is no thread to move, so only the team and the permissions change. The new team is told by direct message, and no arrival card is posted into the customer's ticket.
Moving a ticket
Three ways to start a move, all governed by the same rules:
| Where | How |
|---|---|
| In the ticket's staff thread | The Escalate button on the ticket card. Tickets created before the module was set up have no button yet — use the command. |
| Anywhere inside the ticket | /escalate — the only way for tickets without an internal thread. |
| Dashboard → Tickets | Escalate… in a ticket's action menu. The dashboard shows every route with the reason a denied one is denied. |
If a move is refused, the mover sees why:
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Only support members can move tickets. | The mover has no support role. |
| You are a participant of this ticket — someone else has to move it. | Participants never move their own ticket. |
| The ticket is already handled here — use Claim instead. | Same tier as today. |
| This ticket sits above your tier. | Hierarchy: the ticket's rank is above the mover's rank. |
| Your roles may not send tickets to this team. | Custom: the mover's roles are not in the target's intake rules. |
| This ticket has reached its escalation limit. | The up-hop budget is spent. |
| This ticket was just moved — try again in a moment. | Inside the cooldown. |
| This ticket has already travelled this path twice. | The bounce guard. |
The cards
The messages Clarify posts around a move are blueprints you can edit under Blueprints in the dashboard:
- Escalation arrival (staff) — the starter message of the new post. Variables:
%escalation_from%,%escalation_to%,%escalation_by%,%escalation_reason%,%user_mention%,%ticket_id%,%ticket_name%. - Escalation pointer (staff) — posted into the vacated post before it is locked, pointing at the new home (
%escalation_to%,%channel_mention%). - Escalation notice (customer) — the neutral card the customer receives when Notify the customer is on. The reason is not available here.
Related
Feedback
Ask customers to rate their support right in Discord after a ticket closes — stars, thumbs or emoji, with or without a comment — and see the results on your dashboard.
Opening hours
Tell members when your team is around — per ticket category — and decide whether a ticket opened outside those hours is created with a notice, blocked, or opened after a warning.