Read the queue
The Tickets console combines chat and email. Recent activity, status, ownership, and customer details help the team decide which conversation needs attention without opening every thread.
The four tabs across the top are Active, Waiting, Done and All, and a line under them says what the one you are on contains. The numbers are not meant to add up: a ticket waiting on a customer is still unsolved, so it is counted in Waiting and in Active. All is the only tab that counts every ticket once.
On a very busy desk the list holds as much as it can rather than everything. When that happens it tells you so above the tabs, and Search will still find the older tickets it is not showing.
Narrow the list to what you want
Above the list are four dropdowns: Owner, Priority, Source and Tag. Use them to cut a long queue down to the work you mean to do, such as every urgent ticket, everything that arrived by email, or everything tagged billing. You can set more than one at once, and the list then shows only the tickets that match all of them.
The counts on the Active, Waiting, Done and All tabs always describe the tickets left after your dropdowns are applied, so they move as you filter. When anything is set, the word Filtered appears with a Clear filters button that puts the whole queue back.
Your choices are kept in the page address, so you can reload without losing them, bookmark a list you use every morning, or paste the address to a colleague and have them see exactly the same list. The Tag dropdown only offers tags that are actually in use, and it is hidden if your team does not use tags at all.
Choose deliberately
Start with urgent or unassigned work that matches your responsibility. Open the thread, read earlier messages, and check whether another teammate is already replying before you claim it.
Work the list from the keyboard
Press j and k to move down and up the list, Enter to open the highlighted ticket, e to resolve the ticket that is open, c to claim it, and / to open Search. Nothing happens while you are typing in a box. The keys are listed in small print under the list's tabs.
Change several tickets at once
Each row has a tick box. Tick the tickets you want, holding Shift to tick a run of them, and a bar appears above the list. From there you can assign them all to yourself, mark them all solved, set a priority, or add a tag. The bar then says how many tickets changed. A ticket you cannot see is never changed.
Keep the list useful
Assign work that needs a named owner and move waiting conversations to the appropriate status. See Ticket statuses for a consistent team workflow.