Helpdesk Configuration Issues

Good Day Friends, we are using Service Desk Plus 8.1.0 Build 8127 and seeing a major issue that is affecting our regular day to day

operations.

This is currently the process:

1. User logs a ticket

2. notification goes to the group of technicians assigned to deal with that category

3. a Technician assigns the ticket to himself and this does not offsets the "Pickup Time"

4. the user is sent an email from helpdesk stating who is the technician assigned and when to expect their to be resolved by (based on the SLA)

5. the technician now updates the ticket at the "Resolution tab" and puts the ticket "On-Hold" while he works on it.

6. the system generates another email to the user when this happens, again notifying them who is the technician working on the ticket

7. the technician has to reply to the user from helpdesk using the "reply" feature in order to offset the "First Response" violation

8. the technician when resolves the ticket places it in the resolved state and the user can choose to close it if they are satisfied.

Problem 1: When the user reply's to the ticket from their Mailbox it does not offset any of the timelines set out in helpdesk.

Question: How can we configure helpdesk to recognize if a technician responds to a ticket using his mailbox to automatically assign the ticket to the user (offsetting the "Pickup Time" and/or "First response time")

Problem 2: The user have to use the "reply" feature in helpdesk in order to offset the "First Response" violation after doing 2 previous tasks.

Question: Is there anyway we can setup helpdesk to recognize the Pickup and assignment of the ticket count as a "First Response" or can we disable the "First Response" option.

Problem 3: After the ticket is set to Resolved, we do not know whether or not the user closed the ticket.

Question: Is there a way we can configure helpdesk to email the user and copy the technician every hour or so to remind them to close the ticket.