# Use Discourse as a Private Support/Ticket System

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-discourse-as-a-private-support-ticket-system/72268>\
**Category:** Administrators\
**Tags:** how-to\
**Created:** [October 17, 2017, 12:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-discourse-as-a-private-support-ticket-system/72268 "2017-10-17T12:35:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 17

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tknospdr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/tknospdr/32/529762_2.png) [@tknospdr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tknospdr)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2025, 6:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-discourse-as-a-private-support-ticket-system/72268/17 "2025-05-09T18:03:39Z")

</div>

> [@Walker\_Blackwell](#):
>
> The problem comes after I’ve invited the user to become a member of the forum. When they are anything OTHER than anonymous or staged they suddenly can’t sent a support request email to [help@test.com](mailto:help@test.com). The email gets rejected because the category is restricted to admins only for see/replying/posting AND to anon/staged (0-level) users for posting.
> 
> There is no way to allow for a level 1,2,3 user to POST/EMAIL to the category without actually seeing the category and all the other topics available correct? At least I don’t see how to fix this.

I know this is a very old question, but I didn’t see anyone else answer it and I think I have the solution. At least it’s working for me. I don’t know if there’s any unintended consequences of doing this because I’m just getting started, but here you go.

I liked the idea of categories vs groups so I was following this setup guide, but I also wanted to have an open forum and I ran into the same issue stated above.

If you do a search for `email settings in` in admin you’ll find the page below. It shows a trust level of 2 needed for users to create posts via email.

Staged users bypass that requirement, but once they become full users they’re still trust level 0 and e-mail breaks. So just remove TL2 and add TL0 and you’re golden.

I did this along with using the **Private Topics Plugin** linked above so users can request support directly on the website too and I’m almost done.

I just need to neatly integrate priority and status tags and I think we’ll be set.

 ![The image shows a settings page for configuring email capabilties, with options like "Show signup form email instructions" and "Email allowed groups" for management of new topic postings via email. (Captioned by AI)](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/8/6/4/86446e126776374ef21fbf0a766c1d8bec9da829.png)

---

_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-discourse-as-a-private-support-ticket-system/72268)._