> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.nextks.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Q&A Tickets
> Create questions, collect answers from your team, and build a searchable knowledge base — from Slack, Teams, AI agents, or the web dashboard.
## Overview
Q\&A Tickets let your team ask questions and get answers, with the best answers automatically added to a shared knowledge base. The NextKS bot uses this knowledge base to answer future questions without needing to bother anyone.
You can work with tickets from three places:
Full-featured interface at [app.nextks.com](https://app.nextks.com) for creating, managing, and reviewing tickets.
DM the NextKS bot in Slack or Teams to create tickets, submit answers, and add comments conversationally.
Use Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible tool to manage tickets through the [NextKS MCP](/guides/gateway-mcp).
All three interfaces work together — a ticket created in Claude Desktop appears in the web dashboard and the chat bot, and vice versa.
## Creating a ticket
A ticket represents a question or problem your team can help resolve. Each ticket has:
* **Title** — a short summary of the question
* **Description** — the full details
* **Urgency** — normal or urgent (urgent tickets are flagged with a 🚨 in notifications)
* **Assignees** — team members invited to help answer
1. Go to the **Q\&A** page from the sidebar
2. Click **Create Ticket**
3. Fill in the title, description, and optionally toggle **Mark as urgent**
4. Optionally select assignees from the dropdown
5. Click **Create**
DM the NextKS bot and describe your question. The bot will use the **create\_ticket** tool to create it for you.
Example: *"I have an urgent question about the deployment process. Can you create a ticket and assign it to Sarah?"*
Any MCP-compatible tool connected via the [NextKS MCP](/guides/gateway-mcp) can create tickets. The agent discovers Q\&A tools via `gateway_list_services` and calls them through `gateway_tool_call`.
Example prompt in Claude Desktop: *"Create a Q\&A ticket asking the team how to configure the staging environment, and assign it to Sarah."*
Before creating a ticket, the bot or AI agent may search the knowledge base for similar previously-answered questions. If a match is found, you might get an instant answer without needing a new ticket.
## Participants
Every ticket has participants — the people involved in resolving it:
* **Author** — the person who created the ticket
* **Assignees** — team members invited to help
All participants can view the ticket, submit answers, and add comments. You can invite more people at any time from the ticket detail page or through the bot.
### Notifications when someone is assigned
When a new assignee is added to a ticket, they receive a notification with the ticket title, the author's question, and a link to the ticket. If someone other than the author adds the assignee, the author is also notified.
## Answers
Any participant can submit an answer to a ticket. An answer is a proposed solution to the question.
### Submitting an answer
1. Open the ticket from the **Q\&A** page
2. Click **Answer**
3. Write your answer (optionally include a reference image URL)
4. Click **Submit**
Ask the bot to submit an answer to a specific ticket.
Example: *"Please submit an answer to ticket tkt\_abc123: The deployment uses our CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions..."*
An AI agent can submit answers through the NextKS MCP by calling `gateway_tool_call` with the `nextks_qa_submit_answer` tool.
Example prompt: *"Submit an answer to ticket tkt\_abc123 explaining that the deployment uses GitHub Actions."*
### What happens when an answer is submitted
* The **ticket author** receives an interactive notification with the answer text and two buttons:
* **Accept & share** — marks the answer as accepted and adds it to the knowledge base
* **Ignore for now** — dismisses the notification without taking action
* **Other participants** receive a simple notification that a new answer was submitted.
### Accepting an answer
Only the ticket author can accept an answer. Accepting an answer does two things:
1. Marks it as the accepted solution (highlighted in green on the ticket)
2. **Adds it to the knowledge base** — the answer becomes discoverable by everyone in your organization through the NextKS bot
The knowledge base is what makes Q\&A powerful. When someone asks the bot a similar question in the future, it can find and share the accepted answer automatically — without creating a new ticket.
If a different answer is accepted later, the previous one is replaced in the knowledge base.
## Comments
Comments are for discussion — follow-up questions, clarifications, or additional context. Unlike answers, comments are not added to the knowledge base.
### Adding comments
Comments support text and up to 5 image attachments. In the web dashboard, you can paste images directly or use the file picker. Through the bot, you can attach images from your chat message.
All participants (except the commenter) are notified when a new comment is posted.
### Deleting comments
You can delete your own comments. Deleted comments are permanently removed. No notification is sent.
## Urgency
Tickets can be marked as **normal** or **urgent**. Urgency affects how notifications appear:
* **Normal** tickets — standard notifications
* **Urgent** tickets — all notifications are prefixed with 🚨 to draw attention
You can change the urgency at any time by modifying the ticket. When a ticket is escalated from normal to urgent, all participants are notified.
## Discarding and reopening
### Discarding a ticket
The ticket author can discard a ticket when it's no longer needed. Discarding:
* Sets the ticket status to **discarded**
* **Removes the accepted answer from the knowledge base** (if one was accepted)
* Dims the ticket content in the web dashboard
* No notification is sent
### Reopening a ticket
A discarded ticket can be reopened by the author. Reopening:
* Restores the ticket to its previous status
* **Re-adds the accepted answer to the knowledge base** (if one existed)
Discarding and reopening are done from the **web dashboard**. They are **not** available through the chat bot or as NextKS MCP tools — the bot and AI agents focus on creating, answering, and finding tickets (see [Finding tickets with AI agents](#finding-tickets-with-ai-agents)).
## Ticket statuses
| Status | Meaning |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| **Assigned** | The ticket is open and waiting for answers |
| **Answered** | At least one answer has been submitted |
| **Discarded** | The ticket has been closed by the author |
## Filtering and navigation
In the web dashboard, you can filter tickets by:
* **Role** — show tickets where you're the author, assignee, or both
* **Status** — show assigned, answered, discarded, or all
Click any ticket in the list to open its full detail view with all answers, comments, and participant information.
## Finding tickets with AI agents
AI agents — and the NextKS Voice assistant — can find and review your tickets through the [NextKS MCP](/guides/gateway-mcp). These read tools are deliberately compact and voice-friendly: each returns a short shape (`id`, `title`, `question`, `status`, and the current `answer`), so a spoken or chat query gets a scannable result rather than a heavy payload. They are reached like any other MCP tool — via `gateway_tool_call` with the namespaced `nextks_qa_*` name.
| Tool | What it returns |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `search_tickets` | Your own tickets (ones you raised or are assigned to), filtered by date range, free text, and status (`assigned`/`answered`). Discarded tickets are always excluded. |
| `my_open_tickets` | The open tickets **you raised** (status `assigned` or `answered`). For "my open questions". |
| `tickets_assigned_to_me` | Tickets **assigned to you** that still need an answer (status `assigned`). For "what's assigned to me". |
| `activity_report` | A time-ordered digest of what **others** did on your tickets — new tickets, answers, and comments — within a date range (defaults to today). Excludes your own actions and discarded tickets. |
These tools only ever return your own tickets (ones you authored or are a participant on); they never enumerate other people's tickets.
## Summary of notifications
| Event | Who is notified |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| Assignee added | The new assignee; the author (if added by someone else) |
| Urgency changed to urgent | All participants except the person who changed it |
| New answer submitted | Author (interactive buttons); other participants (simple) |
| Answer accepted | The answer's author |
| New comment | All participants except the commenter |
Ticket creation, discarding, reopening, comment deletion, and participant removal are silent — no notifications are sent.