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Working with Service Desk Tickets
A core feature of Web Tracks is a comprehensive Service Desk system. This allows you to assign tasks and tickets to your technicians. Many different reports can be generated from this information including how many hours you are working for different departments, what types of problems you spend most of your time solving, weekly work reports, etc. You can set different priority levels for the tickets and assign them to the appropriate technician. Since the service desk is integrated with other Web Tracks modules, you will be familiar with the user and equipment before approaching the problem. You can also track service desk tickets issues to computers, peripherals and software assets. This will allow you to maintain a problem history for your inventory.
All user accounts which are setup will have basic privileges in which they can manage their personal ticket requests. To access Service Desk Features with 'Technician' privileges a user account must be given Help Desk Permissions.
Defining Ticket Types
From the Admin Menu, choose Lookup Tables -- Ticket Types. When defining Ticket Types, you can define email addresses for the Ticket Type. If adding more than one email address to Ticket Type, be sure to separate the addresses with semicolons. You may also assign a default Tech Group for a specific Ticket Type. Therefore, software problems could be assigned to 'Bob' while hardware problems are assigned to technician 'Mary'.
Ticket types can also be marked as "end-user may select". If this option is checked then end-users will see this items in the list of types when creating new tickets. If it is not selected then only technicians may choose these types.
Defining Tech Groups
From the Admin Menu, choose Lookup Tables -- Technician Groups. Technician Groups are the means by which tickets are assigned to technicians. This offers flexibility by allowing tickets to be assigned to one or more technicians. At a minimum, it is recommended to have a personal tech group for each technician so that tickets can be assigned to an individual tech. In addition to personal tech groups you may also choose to create groups that contain more than one technician.
For example, let's say you have three technicians named Bob, Mary, and Joe. Your tech groups may look as follows...
Tech Group: Bob's Tickets (Bob is the only member) - personal tech group
Tech Group: Mary's Tickets (Mary is the only member) - personal tech group
Tech Group: Joe's Tickets (Joe is the only member) - personal tech group
Tech Group: Account Group (Bob and Mary are members)
Tech Group: Hardware Group (Mary and Joe are members)
Tech Group: All Technicians (Bob, Mary, and Joe are members)
By default there is a group named 'All Technicians'. When technicians are added to Web Tracks they should be assigned to this group. The default group is used when end-users select a ticket type that does not have an associated Tech Group.
Be aware that if you clear your Default tech group there could be tickets created that are not assigned. These would not be viewable by technicians under their default view (filtered to 'My Tickets'). To view these tickets they would need to select 'Viewing All Tickets' or 'Not My Tickets' in their help desk list view.
A 'Personal Tech Group' is simply a tech group to which exactly one technician is assigned. This is used for suggesting the tech group when a technician is creating a new ticket. Personal groups are also used by the Email-To-Ticket converter (when processing a new ticket email from a tech) when the rule's Tech Group Assigned is not specified and a tech group is not associated for the Ticket Type.
Tips:
Consider creating a group named 'Not Assigned' (all techs are members) and setting this as the default group. Whoever first works on the ticket should then change the tech group to the appropriate tech group. Doing this would allow you to differentiate between tickets that are actually assigned to All Techs and tickets that have not been looked at yet.
The Ticket Type chosen by your end-users can determine the initial tech group to which the ticket is assigned.
Tech Groups can also be assigned to technicians by editing their user record. Open Admin--Lookup Tables--User List and edit a technician to see which groups they are assigned.
Defining Ticket Statuses
From the Admin Menu, choose Lookup Tables -- Ticket Statuses. Ticket Statuses in Web Tracks can be of type 'Open', 'Closed', or 'Pending'. You can create different statuses and then assign them on of these values. For example you could have a 'Waiting' or 'Frozen' status that would be assigned the value of 'Pending'. You could also have a 'Canceled' or 'Denied' status that would have the value of 'Closed'.
There are three built-in Statuses named Open, Closed and Pending that correspond to the Open, Closed and Pending Value. These may not be deleted, however they may be renamed.
Defining Ticket Priorities
From the Admin Menu, choose Lookup Tables -- Ticket Priorities
A ticket priority has an associated 'Priority Order' which determines the sort order of priorities. Web Tracks only uses the priority rank to sort the text value of priority drop down list.
There is also a 'End-user may Select' flag. If checked all users within Web Tracks may select this priority when creating a ticket. If it is not checked then only technicians may choose this priority.
One priority type may be set to 'default'. The default priority is simply the suggested priority when a new ticket is created. Users may still select different a different priority.
Adding Tickets
To add a Service Desk Ticket in Web Tracks, click the 'Add' command from the Help Desk list. Hovering over the Service Desk Menu Item also has a quick link for adding a new ticket.
The Ticket Number is automatically generated by Web Tracks and cannot be changed. Even if you create a new ticket and cancel the record, the ticket number will be incremented to ensure that a unique ticket number is used every time.
Closing Tickets
When you are finished working on a ticket you can close the ticket by changing the Ticket Status to a value that is associated with 'Closed'.
Deleting Tickets
Select the ticket(s) from the Help Desk List and click the Delete Command. Make sure you actually want to delete the ticket (see Closing Tickets above).
Associating a Ticket with Inventory Items
Associating tickets with inventory items is Web Tracks way of tracking service desk requests to computers, peripherals and/or software products. In the 'Related' tab, click the 'Add' button for computers, peripherals, or software. Highlight one or more items in the list and click the 'Select' command. Web Tracks version 9.0 and newer allow you to relate the ticket to more than one item of each type.
The location (tab) on which the association grids appear is customizable in Admin -- Application Settings.
Creating a Knowledge Base Article from a Help Desk Ticket
Web Tracks allows you to create knowledge base articles from service desk tickets. This allows you to quickly create 'How to' articles or publish solutions to common issues. To create a knowledge base article based on a ticket, edit the ticket and then click the knowledge base button (next to the help command). The knowledge base title will default to the first 255 characters of the ticket's description. The description will both default to the current tickets description. The resolution will default to the comments entered in the comments tab. You may modify any of these values before saving the record to the knowledge base.
Web Tracks also keeps track of the tickets that have been turned into knowledge base articles. You will receive an informational message if you try to create more than one knowledge base article for a given ticket.
For further information see Working with Knowledge Base Articles.
E-mailing Tickets
Emails may be triggered automatically when a ticket is created, transferred, or manually when a technician updates a ticket using the 'Save Notify & Close' command. See Configure Email Settings for more information.
Previewing/Printing Tickets
To print a ticket, click on the preview command from the Service Desk Ticket detail form. You may customize this ticket view using the Web Tracks Report Designer.
Attaching Files to Service Desk Tickets
- Switch to the Attachment tab in the Service Desk Detail form
- Click the 'Add' Command
- Browse to the file
- Click the 'Upload' Command
The file is now stored in the database with the associated ticket.
For more information on Attachments see Working with File Attachments.
Merging Tickets
If merging is enabled in Application Settings technicians will see a merge icon on the ticket detail form.
To merge a ticket click on the green merge arrow. A popup window will be displayed showing you a ticket list (you may filter this list). Select the appropriate ticket from this list and then click the merge button.
Merging does the following:
- CC's the requester to the target ticket
- CC's any CC'd users from the original ticket to the target ticket
- Appends information in the Description field to the target ticket's Description
- Moves Comments from merged ticket to target ticket
- Moves Attachments from merged ticket to target ticket
- Moves any Inventory associations to the target ticket
After Merging the ticket itself is then deleted. A marker is created in the database which allows any links that may have referenced the old ticket to automatically reference the "parent" ticket.
Record History
Web Tracks records any changes made to a service desk ticket in the ticket's history tab. |