When a user creates a new ticket they must select what "Category" the ticket is for. Categories are tied to departments. You can manage your Departments and Categories from Settings | Departments
Most companies might only have one department in TicketSlate, like for IT. But you can also have other departments in your organization use the help desk as well. Examples include, maintenance requests, billing, HR and so on.
When you have multiple departments, the "New Ticket" screen displays all departments to the end-user. When they pick a department, a list of that department's categories appear, and picking one of those categories creates a new ticket. If you choose to only have one department though, the "New Ticket" screen is simplified for users, only showing a list of categories.
Departments
Departments can have a name, ticket number prefix, and settings for auto closing, and reminders. Each department has separate timeout settings.
Ticket Prefix
The ticket prefix is optional and will be prepended to the incremental ticket number when displaying ticket numbers. For example, if you choose to have a ticket prefix of "IT-", ticket numbers will appear as IT-000445 and IT-015943. This is only for visual references and can be helpful to easily pick out ticket types if you have multiple departments.
Reminder Timeout
The reminder timeout, if greater than zero, will cause an email to be sent to the submitter(s) of all tickets with the status "Waiting on Customer", without replies from the end-user, in X amount of days. The email reminds the submitter(s) that the ticket is waiting for their response. This check happens daily at night.
Auto-Close Timeout
The auto-close timeout, if greater than zero, will cause all tickets with the status "Waiting on Customer" ,without replies from the end-user, in X amount of days, to be closed automatically. When this happens, an email will be sent to the submitter(s) and owner(s) notifying them the ticket was automatically closed. This check happens daily at night.
NOTE: When a ticket submitter response to a ticket, the status automatically changes to "End User Responded" IF the ticket status is "New" or "Waiting on Customer". Also, when a ticket owner responds, the status automatically changes to "Waiting on Customer" if the ticket status is "New" or "End User Responded"