By
El Copeland
August 21, 2024
•
20 min read
Business
Tutorials

Have you implemented unique colors for your Ticket Statuses in HaloPSA?
Coloring these Statuses adds a great Quality of Life to your Agents working tickets. Often, it is treated as a nice-to-have or “let’s just make it look pretty,” which are fine if it works for you. However, we invite you to imagine instead with us: what if you could leverage symbolic colors that guide an Agent through your defined ticket process. What if you could implement that in a reasonable way?
So, to help lessen that decision fatigue for you since we know you’re busy customizing every other setting in HaloPSA as well, here is the framework that Rising Tide uses to approach customizing these settings to help you quickly and sensibly label your Ticket Statuses. In a future article, we’ll tackle Ticket Action color codes; however, the concepts will generally remain the same.
Before we jump into coloring statuses, let’s start by defining a ticket’s lifecycle according to how your Agents need to allocate their attention to those tickets, whether that is dictated by standard professionalism or ensuring SLAs are kept. For the sake of this conversation, we are going to address these ticket attention phases with the segments: Normal Attention, Elevated Attention, or Inert Attention.
Ideally, your Agents receive a ticket and all things are “Go,” they have everything they need to start working, and then Close the ticket when they've successfully completed the task and can rest on their laurels (or move on to the next ticket!).
We recommend all Normal Attention tickets to be assigned “cool colors” like greens, blues, and purples. (And not cool because we think they’re rad, cool as opposed to warm colors, more information here on color theory) Statuses like New and In Progress generally belong here. We have the ticket, everything is going as planned. What a perfect, serene world. Peaceful, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, that’s not the reality in most of our businesses! What happens when tickets require extra attention or action to ensure their timely completion?
Here in Elevated Attention is where we see statuses like Escalated, Pending Approval, or Reopened: tickets that we need to be actively thinking about and revisiting, especially ones that are keeping our SLA clock running. To inspire action and increase visibility, we’re using warm, fiery colors like Orange, Red, and Yellow.
What if there is a ticket where we cannot take immediate action, or it doesn’t warrant it? That’s our last category: Inert Attention.
There will be times when our tickets are active but there is literally nothing we can do but wait. The SLA clock isn’t running, so we don’t need to worry about taking action on these just yet: statuses like Waiting on Client or Waiting on Vendor. We recommend using greys to signify these statuses’ inactive character.
In general, we recommend you set up HaloPSA to do most of the status setting and remembering to move tasks in and out of statuses, especially Inert-type statuses. Specifically, when setting up these Inert Attention statuses in HaloPSA, be sure to build those Ticket Statuses, Ticket Type Settings, and your related Workflows so when a ticket enters or exits an Inert status, it automatically puts the ticket on or removes it from SLA hold. You can see examples of these settings in the screen captures below.
Some examples of this recommendation in action could be:


With all of these ideas in mind, we suggest as you approach customizing each ticket status, you ask:
What type of Attention do I expect of my team at this status: Normal, Elevated, or Inert?
When you have that answer, choose a color from the suggested family. Remember that color for other statuses you may have for other Ticket Types so it stays consistent regardless of what Area your Agent is operating from!
Here are some examples for what we specifically recommend to Rising Tide Customers. You will likely not need all of them, depending on your MSP’s needs:
As with most rules, there are going to be times when items cross between phases, or you may operate differently and not define a ticket status the same way we did here.
Maybe you have some color-blind technicians on staff and decide to use completely different colors completely or none at all. (If you do want to create a color-blind friendly palette, here’s a great resource.)
Maybe you want to choose different values (light or dark) within a certain family than what Halo provides.
Good! Break our rules. They're just here to help you decide what you do or don't actually want.
Our main recommendation is that you use your best judgement on what is right for your team and just be consistent which sometimes means keeping it simple. And let us know what you ended up doing, you may help someone else. Happy customizing!

Episode 21 of By the [run]Book dives into the tail end of HaloPSA v2.214 and the first round of v2.216 updates, with Mendy and Connor unpacking practical MSP use cases, hidden configuration gotchas, and workflow improvements. Highlights include forecasting enhancements, category group restrictions, Datto RMM multi-tenancy, auditing improvements, ticket timer widgets, and advanced email handling settings that can dramatically impact service desk operations. This episode is especially useful for Halo administrators refining automation, billing accuracy, integrations, and technician workflows.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 21
For easier tracking, check out haloreleases.remmy.dev to filter and search HaloPSA updates by ID, version, and keyword.
Forecasting in HaloPSA received a major usability improvement by automatically calculating forecasted hours from estimated project task time.
Category restrictions can now be controlled using Category Groups instead of manually configuring every category individually.
Agent Roles now support assigning cost values directly at the role level.
HaloPSA can now ignore “Unknown” scan status networks during Auvik imports.
X-Auto-Response-Suppress header to emails” can now be overridden using Action level configuration to enforce the headers when the global setting is not enabled | v2.216 #1085470 | 49:41Halo now allows email suppression headers to be configured at the Action level rather than only globally.
This setting keeps tickets selected after completing a bulk edit, allowing technicians to chain multiple bulk updates together without re-selecting tickets.
Mail Campaigns can now be grouped for organizational purposes.
Halo will now match imported Intune software records using software names instead of IDs.
Multiple Datto RMM integrations can now coexist within HaloPSA.
Halo can now automatically assign the mailbox used during outbound communication as the ticket’s default mailbox.
Snow imports now support dynamic asset type assignment.
Services can now have a separate portal-facing display name.
Asset booking functionality received multiple improvements.
The ticket timer can now be displayed as a dedicated widget on the ticket screen.
Agent Roles now support a cost field.
Ticket cloning can now be restricted to administrators.
Halo’s newer SSO framework continues to evolve.
Category restrictions can now be managed through Category Groups.
Forecasting received major usability improvements.
Audit tracking now includes Quotes and Purchase Orders.
Reporting Datasources can now display which reports rely on them.
HaloPSA now supports integration with Kaseya VSA X.
HaloPSA now integrates with SailPoint IdentityIQ.
Auvik imports can now exclude unknown scan results.
Changes to Customer Trading Names are now tracked in audit history.
Cost update logic now also supports markup calculations.
Quote approvals now support customizable messaging before signatures.
Time entry edits can now automatically rebalance contract and billed hours.
Halo introduced a safer device ID generation method.
bulkresponse=true can now be used when POSTs are made to the /fieldinfo endpoint to return a separate response for each object | v2.216 #1085574 | 47:46The /fieldinfo endpoint now supports bulk response handling.
Additional JWT validation can now be enforced for API authentication.
ConnectWise Automate alert closures can now map to configurable statuses.
X-Auto-Response-Suppress header to emails” can now be overridden using Action level configuration to enforce the headers when the global setting is not enabled | v2.216 #1085470 | 49:41Halo now supports overriding email suppression headers at the Action level.

Episode 20 of By the [run]Book dives into HaloPSA v2.214 with a mix of practical improvements and some quirky additions. Connor and Mendy walk through everything from new dollar variables and asset controls to Avalara fixes and portal enhancements—highlighting what actually matters for day-to-day MSP operations. This episode is especially useful for MSPs refining workflows, automation, and reporting accuracy in Halo.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 20
For easier tracking, check out haloreleases.remmy.dev to filter and search HaloPSA updates by ID, version, and keyword.
Mendy and Connor noted this was very useful.
Highlighted during the user action demo as a practical workflow improvement.
Called out as a genuinely useful UI improvement.
Allows more flexibility in how incoming emails are matched to tickets.
Enables automation of asset configuration through API usage.
Introduces a new variable to output custom fields in Q&A format.
Improves visibility into asset changes over time.
Returns the email address of the user associated with a purchase order.
Enhances usability and visibility of search results in the portal.
Provides control over configuration synchronization.
Ensures correct popup behavior when multiple rules trigger.
Makes ticket source available for reporting and filtering.
Adds safeguards when configuring email matching tags.
Allows distribution lists to target all email addresses tied to a user.
Improves clarity in Avalara transaction records.
Adds control over visibility of user actions in the portal.
Improves flexibility when using Accounts and Prospects.
Enables dynamic fields based on asset lifecycle status.
Ensures asset tagging consistency during stock processes.
Adds control over Avalara synchronization scope.
Allows a predefined score for surveys.
Improves visibility when prorating billing items.
Automatically generates a ticket alongside sales orders.
Allows column width customization in list views.
Changes ordering of lists in the team view.
Adds asset status as a usable variable in buttons.
Improves flexibility when viewing lists.
Allows visual customization of buttons.
Enables distribution lists based on ticket criteria.
Adds control over forecast data ranges.
Enhances performance of Azure/Entra sync.
Improves visibility of ticket closure information.
Optimizes webhook performance and payload handling.
Refines permissions for asset management.

Episode 19 walks through HaloPSA v2.212 and v2.214, covering a wide range of quality-of-life improvements, admin controls, and workflow enhancements. Connor and Robbie highlight updates around ticket forms, invoicing, templates, and automation, making this especially useful for MSPs looking to tighten processes and improve day-to-day efficiency.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 19
For easier tracking, check out haloreleases.remmy.dev to filter and search HaloPSA updates by ID, version, and keyword.
Allows assets to be linked directly to a client instead of only via a site.
Improves tracking of report usage across dashboards.
Adds control over end-user assignment in templates.
Prevents actions on tickets for stopped clients or sites.
Allows updating custom fields directly via actions.
Prevents approval of expired quotes.
Adds variables for original customer addresses.
Ensures hidden fields do not retain values.
Adds advanced relative date filtering.
Adds preview functionality for templates.
Allows editing of existing meter readings.
Improves grouping of invoice items.
Enables merging duplicate assets.
Displays number of related tickets.
Enhances monitoring integration mapping.
Adds more control to purchase order lifecycle.
Enables workflows triggered by agent emails.
Adds mapping and geolocation features.
Introduces guided project setup.
Allows updating ticket fields post-creation in chat.
Prevents deletion of populated top-level structures.
Improves timesheet usability.
Fixes inconsistent quote PDF behavior.
Aligns quote email behavior with configuration.
Adds access to billing profiles from invoice screen.
Allows use of quote data in actions.
Adds new automation trigger.
Adds rich text support for asset fields.
Prevents closure when tasks remain open.
Adds approvals to activity feed.
Removes agent login option from portal.
Adds ordering control to lookup codes.
Adds planning field to releases.
Enables guided onboarding tools.
Adds note field to consignment lines.
Expands team visibility.
Extends accessibility tools to main app.
Displays previous invoice values.
Exposes billing data to API.
Adds search to selection fields.
Aligns call screen logic with ticket settings.
Links credit lines to original sales orders.
Improves invoice ID handling.
Introduces role-based API identity.