[otrs] Creating new tickets and merging tickets

Hi all, I've recently installed OTRS and absolutely have fallen in love with it. It took a bit of time getting it to work across two su_exec domains, but it's finally operating and handling a good deal of our e-mail traffic. I do have two questions though. Is it possible to create a new ticket and send an e-mail to a user without them e-mailing or submitting a ticket first in such a way that when they reply it will be added to that newly created ticket? I don't see this functionality. Is there something I'm missing? Also, occasionally we have more than one ticket that need to be merged. Is this possible? Many thanks for such a great project! Best wishes, Paul