Getting started

Ticket Lab is a support-ticket bot for Discord by Buildable Labs. Members pick a ticket type on a panel, a private channel opens for them, your team handles it, and a transcript is saved when it closes. Five minutes from invite to first ticket.

Set it up in four steps

1. Invite the bot

   Use ticketlab.buildablelabs.dev/invite. It asks for exactly what tickets need: manage channels, view and send messages, manage messages, embed links, attach files, read history and mention roles. It does not ask for Manage Roles or Administrator. The same screen signs you in, so after Add you land on the dashboard for the server you just added, and the bot adds you to the Buildable Labs community, where support and updates live. You also get a short DM with the next step.

2. Run /setup

   A five-step wizard in Discord: staff role → ticket category → transcript channel → your first ticket type → post the panel. Every choice saves the moment you click it. Running /setup again later opens the config editor instead of the wizard.

3. Open the dashboard

   Sign in with Discord at /dashboard and pick your server. Everything the wizard did is there, plus everything it didn’t ask about. You need Manage Server on the server, or a role listed under Dashboard roles.

4. Post the panel

   Type /ticketpanel in the channel where members should open tickets. Edit the panel later under Panels and post it again — panels bake at post time, so a repost is how changes reach Discord.

What you get for free

Ticket Lab’s free tier is deliberately generous. The things other ticket bots charge for — DM transcripts, per-type routing, forms, custom messages, custom commands, threads, backups — are free here, with no ticket limit and no panel watermark you can’t change.

Dashboard tour

The dashboard is a settings app for your server. A sidebar on the left, one page per topic, and cards of settings that save together. It reads and writes the same configuration /setup does, live for the next ticket.

The pages

How saving works

• Each card has its own Save button. Rows inside it save together; other cards are untouched.
• Ticket types and panels save per item — Save type, Save panel.
• Changes apply to the next ticket. Open tickets keep the settings they were created with, except messages and buttons, which render live.
• Panels are the exception: edits reach Discord only when you post the panel again.

Who can use it

Anyone with Manage Server on that Discord server, plus anyone holding a role you list under Configuration → Dashboard roles. The dashboard signs you in with Discord and only ever shows servers you are actually in.

Configuration

The server-wide settings. Ticket types can override some of them (staff role, category, mode); everything else applies to every ticket.

Roles & access

Categories

Ticket category is where new tickets are created. Closed category is where they move when closed (two-step mode). Overflow categories take over when the main one hits Discord’s 50-channel cap — list a few and Ticket Lab fills them in order. Transcript channel receives the transcript when a ticket closes.

Lifecycle

Limits

Four counters, all 0 = no limit: open tickets per member (across all types), open per server, closed tickets kept per member, closed kept per server. Bypass roles ignore them.

Naming

Templates for channel names. Variables render first, then the name is lowercased and cleaned for Discord.

Logging

One line per event into the Log channel — open, claim, unclaim, close, reopen, delete, transcript, transfer, rename, add and remove. Toggle each event on or off. Leave the channel empty to log into the transcript channel.

Advanced

• Command prefix — for text commands like $close. Default $.
• Transcript format — HTML (rich, readable in the browser) or plain text.
• Ticket mode — Channels (one channel per ticket) or Private threads under a Thread parent channel. Types can override this.
• Bloxlink API key Pro — unlocks the {roblox.*} variables and the optional Roblox embed on tickets.

Backup & restore

A key or a JSON file carries the whole setup — configuration, types, panels and custom commands. Never tickets or transcripts. Generate key gives you a 16-character key valid for 30 days; Download JSON gives you a file you keep. Restore from either on any server the bot is in, choosing which sections to bring over.

Ticket types & forms

Where: Dashboard → Panels → pick a panel → Ticket types on this panel. Types belong to a panel; move one from its Panel field.

A type is what a member picks on the panel — “Support”, “Bug report”, “Partnership”. Each has its own emoji, description, team, category and optional form. Up to 25 per server.

Fields

Forms

Up to five questions asked in a Discord modal before the ticket opens. Each question has a label, a placeholder, required or optional, short or paragraph, and a min/max length (Discord allows up to 1,000 characters). Answers land in the ticket as {form.1} … {form.5} and, with Show answers in the ticket message on, appear as fields on the welcome embed.

Applications

Staff applications that live where your tickets already do. Members answer in a form inside Discord — no DMs to miss, nothing to leave the server for — and every submission lands in a review channel with Accept and Deny. A decision applies roles and DMs the applicant. Pro

How it fits together

1. You build a form: a name, your questions, where submissions land, and which roles a decision grants or removes.
2. You post the apply panel — one button per form.
3. A member presses a button and answers in a modal. Discord shows 5 questions per page, so longer forms run across pages.
4. The submission posts as a review card. Staff press Accept or Deny.
5. Roles are applied, the applicant gets a DM, and the card is stamped with who decided and when.

Building a form

Name is what members see on the panel button. The key is generated from it once and cannot change later — it is baked into the button, so a rename keeps the old key. Description is the one line under the name.

Open for applications is the switch: off hides the form from the panel and refuses new submissions, without deleting anything. Use it to close intake for a week instead of rebuilding the form later.

Questions

Up to 20 questions. Each one has a label, an optional placeholder, and a length range in characters — Discord allows up to 1000 per answer. Mark a question required or leave it optional, and choose short or paragraph.

Discord modals hold five inputs, so a form with more than five questions is split into pages automatically and the applicant presses Continue between them. The editor tells you how many pages a form currently has. An unfinished form is dropped after 20 minutes.

Roles

• Required roles — the member must hold them to apply.
• Blocked roles — holding one stops them applying.
• Accepted roles / Denied roles — granted when the decision is made.
• Removal roles — taken away on accept or on deny. Use this to strip an “Applicant” role once they are through.
• Ping roles — mentioned on every new submission, so your team sees it.

Ticket Lab can only manage roles below its own in the role list. If a grant silently does nothing, that is almost always why.

Rules

Cooldown is how long after a decision the same person may apply again; 0 means no cooldown. One open application per person stops a second submission while one is still pending.

The agreement is a short confirmation shown before the form is submitted. What they agreed to is stored alongside the answers, so you have a record.

Reviewing

Every submission posts a card in the form’s review channel with the answers and your ping roles. Accept decides immediately; Deny opens a box for an optional note, which is included in the applicant’s DM. Only staff can press either button — the same staff roles your tickets use.

Once decided, the card is stamped with the outcome, the reviewer and the time, and the buttons come off. A decision cannot be taken back from the card, and the same submission can never be decided twice.

The Submissions page is the same decision, from the dashboard: newest first, filterable, and deciding here does exactly what the buttons do — roles, DM, and the card updates in Discord.

The apply panel

One panel per server. Tick the forms that should get a button and post it. Disabled forms are skipped, and past ten forms the buttons become a dropdown.

Posting bakes the current forms into the message. After you edit a form, post again to refresh it; Ticket Lab edits the same message rather than leaving a second panel behind.

If something looks wrong

• No review card appeared. The submission is never lost — it is stored and shows on the Submissions page. Check the form has a review channel, and that Ticket Lab can see it and post embeds there.
• A role was not granted. Ticket Lab’s own role must sit above the role it is handing out.
• The applicant got no DM. They have DMs from server members turned off. The decision still stands.
• The button says the form timed out. A part-finished form expires after 20 minutes; press apply again.
• Applications is locked. It needs Pro or Max on that server.

Panels

The panel is the message members open tickets from. One panel per audience: the default panel is what /ticketpanel posts; extra panels post with /ticketpanel <name>.

Styles

• Ticket Lab — the signature look: banner on top, intro, a line per type with its emoji, then the dropdown or buttons. Built on Discord’s newest components.
• Classic embed — a regular embed with title, colour and description, or up to ten custom embeds you build yourself. Banner becomes the embed image.
• Plain text — just the intro and the controls. For minimalists.

Dropdown or buttons

Dropdown lists every type on the panel in one select menu with emoji and description — best when you have more than three types. Buttons gives each type its own button, up to five per row; set the row width under Buttons per row.

Banner image

Every panel ships with Ticket Lab’s cosmic banner. To use your own, paste a direct https link to a PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP under Banner image URL. Upload the image to Discord (any channel), copy the link, paste it. A 2:1 image looks best. Turn Banner image off to have no banner at all.

Posting and updating

1. Edit and save

   Change anything in the editor and press Save panel. The live preview on the right shows exactly what Discord will get.

2. Post it

   Run /ticketpanel in the channel (or /ticketpanel name for an extra panel). The old panel message keeps working, so delete it when you are done.

Messages & variables

Every message the bot sends during a ticket is editable. Leave one empty to keep the built-in text. Markdown, embeds and variables all work everywhere.

The messages

Variables

Write them in curly braces anywhere text goes — messages, embeds, channel names, custom commands. The names are compatible with Ticket Tool, so existing templates paste straight in.

Modifiers

Add a modifier after a ? to transform a value.

Buttons

Seven buttons appear during a ticket. Each one has a label, an emoji, a colour, and role rules for who may press it.

The seven buttons

Per button

• Show this button — hide a button entirely (hide Claim if you do not use claiming).
• Label and Emoji — up to 80 characters; unicode or custom emoji.
• Style — Blurple, Grey, Green or Red (Discord’s primary, secondary, success, danger).
• Allowed roles — only these roles may press it. Empty = the defaults above.
• Disabled roles — these roles may never press it, even if they are staff.

Changes render live: the next time the bot sends a message with that button, it uses the new label and colour. Buttons on old messages update when a ticket changes state.

Ticket lifecycle

Open → (claim) → close → closed state → reopen or delete. Every step works from a button, a slash command, a text command and the dashboard, and they all agree on the state.

Opening

A member picks a type on the panel. If the type has a form, the modal appears first. Ticket Lab checks the blacklist, the limits and the schedule, then creates the channel (or private thread) under the right category, names it from the naming template, gives the opener and the team access, and posts the ticket message with a ping to the staff role.

Claiming

Staff press Claim (or /claim). The ticket shows who is on it, the channel can be renamed with the When claimed template, and — under Automations → Claiming — you can lock actions to the claimer, hide the ticket from other staff, move it to a category or allow takeovers. Unclaim reverts all of it.

Closing

With Two-step tickets on (the default), Close moves the ticket into a closed state: the channel is renamed with the When closed template, moved to the closed category, the opener loses Send, a transcript is saved, and staff get three buttons.

Close reasons. /close reason: and $close <reason> attach a reason to the close. It shows in the closed message, in the DM to whoever opened the ticket (with the transcript when one is sent), in the log line, and as {close.reason} in your templates. Turn on Require a close reason under Configuration → Lifecycle and the Close button asks for one in a small form before closing; submitting the form counts as the confirmation.

With Two-step off, Close saves a transcript and deletes the channel straight away.

Threads instead of channels

Set Ticket mode to private threads (server-wide or per type) and tickets open as private threads under the Thread parent channel. Same buttons, same commands, same transcripts — with none of the channel-count pressure.

From the dashboard

The Tickets page lists open and closed tickets with who opened them, their type and age. Each row has Close, Reopen, Transcript and Delete, so the team can tidy up without opening Discord. Actions are logged to the log channel like any other.

Transcripts

Every closed ticket is archived — readable in the browser, forever, free. The opener gets the same link by DM.

Where transcripts go

• Hosted at ticketlab.buildablelabs.dev/t/<token> — a private, unguessable link. Anyone with the link can read it; nobody can list them.
• Transcript channel — the Transcript message plus a .txt attachment (Discord shows HTML as raw code, so the attachment is text on purpose) and the hosted link.
• Opener’s DMs — with DM transcripts on, the same link and file. Skipped quietly if their DMs are closed.
• Dashboard — the Transcripts page, with Open and View.

Format

HTML (default) renders messages, embeds, attachments and reactions in a Discord-like page. Plain text is a simple log. Switch under Configuration → Advanced. Transcripts keep the name the ticket had when it was opened.

On demand

Press Transcript on a closed ticket, run /transcript in any ticket, or use the Tickets page. Each saves a fresh snapshot without changing the ticket’s state.

Join & leave Pro

A welcome when a member arrives and a goodbye when they go — dressed like your panels, in their own channel, with their own wording. Part of Pro.

Welcome

Switch on Post a welcome, pick a channel, keep the built-in line or write your own. Bots never trigger it. In the Ticket Lab style the welcome carries your banner (the panel banner by default, or a custom https image), the member’s avatar, your text, a facts line and the Ticket Lab footer.

Message, embed, or both

Under each message box sits the same embed builder the Messages page uses: author (name, link, icon), title and title link, description with Markdown and variables, colour, up to 25 fields, a large image, a thumbnail, a footer with icon, and a timestamp. Add one or more embeds and switch the Style to Classic embed or Plain text; keep text in the box above as well and both go out together — the classic “mention on top, embed underneath”. A preview under the builder shows exactly what posts. The Ticket Lab style is a Components V2 card, so it keeps your text and the Look settings below instead of custom embeds.

And here is that exact build arriving in Discord — the mention on top, the embed underneath:

Goodbye

Same controls, its own channel and its own message. A goodbye never carries the banner — it stays quiet on purpose.

Welcome DM

Optionally send the new member a direct message as well. Skipped silently when their DMs are closed. A good place for “open a ticket if you need a hand”.

Look

• Style — Ticket Lab (the house look, same component system as the panels), Classic embed, or Plain text.
• Title — an optional heading per event, variables included. Accent colour — the stripe on the card or embed. Thumbnail — the member’s avatar, your server icon, a custom image, or none.
• Banner — on or off, with an optional image URL (https, PNG/JPG/GIF; 2:1 works best).
• Member count — “Member #1,204” on the welcome, “1,204 members now” on the goodbye.
• Account age — “Account 3 days old” on the welcome, “Was here 2 months” on the goodbye. A brand-new account stands out at a glance.

Variables

On top of the usual set from Messages & variables, member events add their own:

Good to know

• Pro only. On a Free server the settings still save, nothing posts, and Send a test tells you so.
• Raid-safe. At most twelve posts per minute per event type; a join raid is logged, not broadcast.
• Permissions. The bot needs View Channel, Send Messages, Embed Links and Attach Files in the chosen channel. If something is missing, the owner gets one nudge, not a flood.
• Server Members intent. Join and leave events only reach the bot with Discord’s Server Members intent. If it is ever off, the page shows a banner and the posts simply pause — nothing is lost.
• /joinleave shows the current state with a link straight to this page.

Automations Pro

Things the bot does on its own — inactivity, missing owners, opening hours, roles on events and claiming rules. The bot working while your staff sleep.

Inactivity

When the ticket owner goes quiet. Set After in hours (up to 720; 0 = off), then choose what happens: Warn once and close after another equal wait, Close the ticket, or Delete it. Staff silence never counts. Bypass roles are exempt. The warning text is the Inactivity warning message. The sweep runs every five minutes.

Missing user

When the ticket owner leaves the server: leave the ticket open, close it, or delete it.

Schedule

Opening hours. Pick a timezone, paint the hour grid (presets: Always open, Weekdays 9–17, Every day 8–22, Clear), and decide what happens outside hours: refuse with the Outside-hours message, or open anyway with a notice. Bypass roles skip the schedule.

Direct messages

DM transcripts (the same switch as Configuration), plus the DM on open and DM on close messages. Skipped quietly when the member’s DMs are closed.

Roles on events

Add or remove roles when a ticket is opened, closed or claimed — for example a “Has open ticket” role, or a “Customer” role after the first close. This is the one feature that needs the bot to have Manage Roles, and its role must sit above the roles it hands out.

Claiming

• Only the claimer can unclaim.
• Claiming locks actions — only the claimer and the ticket owner may close, reopen, delete or transcript.
• Claims can be taken over — claiming an already-claimed ticket takes it over instead of failing.
• Hide from other staff while claimed — others keep View but lose Send until unclaimed.
• Move on claim — move the ticket to a category when claimed.

The Claim button itself is switched on and off under Configuration → Lifecycle.

Custom commands

Your own commands, answered by the bot. Each works as /cc <name> everywhere, and can also match plain messages where the bot can read them.

Triggers

Arguments after the trigger are split by the Args separator (default ,) into {argument.1}, {argument.2}… Inside a ticket, ticket variables like {ticket.user} work too.

Testing

The Test box at the bottom of the editor takes a message “the way a member would type it” and shows whether it matches and what the bot would answer — before you save.

AutoMod

Seven protection packs installed as native Discord AutoMod rules. They run inside Discord, not inside the bot — protection your server owns, not a bot you have to trust.

The packs

Installing

Toggle packs on the AutoMod page or run /automod. Installing rules needs the bot to have Manage Server, which the standard invite does not include — re-invite with /invite?automod=1 once. Rules appear under Server Settings → AutoMod like any other, and you can edit or delete them there; removing the bot keeps them.

Alerts

Every pack also posts Discord’s own AutoMod alert when it blocks something: who, in which channel, the matched keyword and the blocked text, with a jump link. Alerts go to your AutoMod alert channel; if you have not set one, the ticket log channel is used, then the transcript channel. The bot must be able to see and post in that channel, otherwise the alert is left off. Your staff role is exempt from every pack.

Blocked members see “Blocked by Ticket Lab AutoMod. Think this is a mistake? Open a ticket and tell the team.” — so a false positive turns into a ticket, not a lost member.

Updates

When we improve a pack’s patterns, the change is pushed into the rules already installed on your server, not just new installs. Rules you edited by hand under Server Settings → AutoMod are refreshed too, so keep custom additions in your own rules rather than inside a Ticket Lab one.

Statistics Pro

How your support is doing, over the last 7, 30 or 90 days.

Numbers

Charts

• Opened vs closed — a line per day.
• By type — which types carry the load.
• By staff — claimed and closed per team member.

Statistics are computed from Ticket Lab’s own ticket log, so they are complete from the day the bot joined — no message scanning involved.

Pro Workspace & Billing

Pro is per server, in euros, tax included. Cancel any time and keep it until the paid period ends. The free tier never loses features.

What Pro adds

Plans

Billing

1. Pick a plan

   On the server you want to upgrade, open Billing and press Get Pro or Get Max. Checkout is Stripe’s — cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, SEPA where available. VAT is included in the price; add a VAT ID at checkout for a business invoice.

2. Pro turns on

   Within seconds of payment the server is Pro: locked pages unlock, extra panels post, the bot identity applies. You land back on the Pro Workspace.

3. Manage it

   Your subscriptions lists every plan you pay for. Cancel keeps Pro until the period ends and shows the date; Resume undoes a cancel before then. Manage billing opens the Stripe portal for invoices, receipts and cards. Servers on this plan lists the servers a subscription covers: tick more to add them, untick to remove. Each server is billed; the total updates as you tick, and adding one charges only the difference for the rest of the period (removing one credits it). At least one server stays on a plan — cancel the plan if you want none.

Several servers, one invoice. You don’t need a separate plan per server: subscribe once, then add your other servers under Servers on this plan.

If a payment fails, Stripe retries and Ticket Lab DMs you. The server keeps Pro for a 7-day grace period; after that it returns to Free until the invoice is paid. Nothing is deleted — your settings wait for you.

Bot identity

On a Pro server, the bot wears your server’s identity: a nickname, an avatar and a banner that show only in that server. Set them under Pro Workspace → Bot identity (PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP, up to 512 KB each). It is the same bot — a different face per paying server. If the plan lapses the identity reverts to Ticket Lab’s own.

Watermark

Every panel, ticket embed and DM the bot sends ends with Ticketing by Buildable Labs — buildablelabs.dev. On a Pro server, Pro Workspace → Watermark has a switch: turn on Use my own footer, type up to 80 characters (your server name, a slogan, a link) and save. Tickets and DMs use it straight away; panels are posted messages, so re-post yours from Panels to refresh the line. Switch it off and the Buildable Labs line comes back. If the plan lapses the line reverts on its own.

Running /setup on a Pro server also shows the plan in the config editor — the title reads Ticket Lab config editor · Pro with the renewal date.

Commands reference

Nineteen slash commands. Admin commands need Manage Server; ticket commands work inside a ticket for staff (and some for the ticket owner).

Setup

Inside a ticket

Anywhere

Text commands

For teams that prefer typing: $close, $open, $reopen, $delete, $transcript, $claim, $unclaim, $rename, $add, $remove, $transfer, $new, $tickets, $ca (close all) and $closerequest. The prefix is yours to change under Configuration → Advanced. Text commands read message content, so they are off unless enabled for the bot.

FAQ & support

Short answers to the questions we get most. Everything else: the support server.

The panel did not update

Panels bake when posted. After editing types, the intro, the banner or the style, run /ticketpanel again and delete the old message.

A custom emoji shows as text

Use the full code <:name:id> (type \:name: in Discord to get it) and make sure the emoji belongs to a server the bot is in. Ticket Lab validates emoji on save: the dashboard refuses anything that is not an emoji, and a type added through /setup with an invalid emoji simply shows without one. A panel never fails to post because of an emoji.

The bot cannot create channels

Ticket Lab checks its own permissions before every ticket and every panel post, and the reply names exactly what is missing and where (for example “missing Manage Channels in the category Tickets”). /setup shows the same warning on the hub and on the category step. Fix it under the category’s permissions for the bot’s role, or re-invite with the standard link to restore the defaults. The category also needs room (50 channels); add overflow categories if you run hot.

Discord only lets a bot grant, inside a ticket, permissions it holds itself. If your category denies the bot Attach Files or Manage Messages, tickets still open — staff and the opener simply do not get that permission in the ticket until you grant it to the bot.

Transcripts are not showing up in the transcript channel

The bot needs View Channel, Send Messages, Embed Links and Attach Files in that channel. Since 7 September the close, delete and transcript replies say so when a transcript could not be posted (“Transcript not saved to the transcript channel: missing Attach Files in #transcripts”), and /setup shows the same warning on the transcript step. The opener still receives their DM copy either way. If the channel was deleted, pick a new one.

Roles on events do nothing

That feature needs Manage Roles, which the standard invite leaves out on purpose. Grant it to the bot’s role and move that role above the roles it should hand out.

The opener did not get a DM

Their DMs are closed for this server, or they blocked the bot. Ticket Lab skips DMs quietly and never fails a close because of it.

Closing did not rename the channel

Discord allows two channel renames per ten minutes. When rate-limited, Ticket Lab skips the rename and carries on; the ticket is still closed.

Who can see the dashboard?

Members with Manage Server, and any roles under Configuration → Dashboard roles. The dashboard only lists servers you are in, and every request is checked server-side against your Discord membership.

Data and privacy

Ticket Lab stores your configuration, ticket metadata and transcripts, and nothing else. Transcripts are yours: delete them from the dashboard any time. Billing is handled by Stripe; Ticket Lab never sees card numbers. /un-setup erases the server’s configuration.

Support

Join the Buildable Labs community on Discord — discord.gg/HSJQyGbnwa. The people who build Ticket Lab are in there. Pro and Max servers get priority.