> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ravenna.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Priorities

> Use Ravenna's four ticket priority levels to organize work by urgency, prioritize the queue, and surface the right requests for your team first.

Priorities help your team organize and manage tickets based on their urgency and importance. Use four priority levels to ensure the right tickets get attention at the right time.

## Mental model

Priority is a built-in ticket property with a fixed set of five levels: none, low, medium, high, urgent. Every ticket has exactly one priority. The default is medium unless a form specifies a different default.

Priority is distinct from categories and tags:

* **Priority** is a single fixed-enum property on every ticket. It represents urgency/importance.
* **Categories** are AI-assigned topic labels (one per ticket).
* **Tags** are freeform multi-labels for supplementary metadata.

Priority is also distinct from SLAs. SLAs define response and resolution time targets, which can be configured per priority level, but they are separate features.

***

## Priority assignment patterns

| Method            | When to use                                                                                                                                                    |
| ----------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Form defaults** | Set per-form defaults so tickets from specific forms start at the right priority (e.g., "Incident Report" defaults to high, "Feature Request" defaults to low) |
| **Agent rules**   | Have the agent assess urgency from conversation context and set priority accordingly                                                                           |
| **Workflows**     | Auto-set priority based on ticket properties (e.g., set to urgent when a specific category is assigned, escalate priority after SLA breach)                    |
| **Manual**        | User or agent sets priority during or after ticket creation                                                                                                    |

For most workspaces, form defaults handle the majority of cases. Agent rules and workflows handle the exceptions and escalations.

***

## Using priority in automation

**Agent rules:** The agent can set priority based on conversation analysis. Common patterns:

* "If the user reports a system outage affecting multiple people, set priority to urgent."
* "For password reset requests, set priority to medium."
* "If the user mentions they are blocked from working, set priority to high."

**Workflow triggers:** Priority changes can trigger workflows. The "Ticket Updated" trigger with a priority filter lets you build escalation automations.

**Workflow conditions:** Use priority as a branching condition in workflows. For example: if priority is urgent, notify the on-call channel and assign to the team lead. If priority is low, add to the backlog queue.

**Escalation pattern:** Combine priority with time-based triggers. If a high-priority ticket is not resolved within a set time, a workflow can escalate it to urgent, reassign it, or notify management.

***

## Constraints and gotchas

* Priority levels are fixed (none, low, medium, high, urgent). You cannot add, remove, or rename priority levels.
* Priority is a required field. Every ticket has a priority, even if it is "none" (which represents unset).
* The system-wide default priority is medium. This can be overridden per form but not globally.
* Priority does not automatically affect SLA targets. SLAs can be configured to vary by priority, but changing a ticket's priority does not retroactively adjust SLA deadlines already set.
* Priority does not sync bidirectionally with external integrations. If a ticket is replicated to Jira, the priority in Ravenna and the priority in Jira are independent unless a workflow explicitly maps them.