Tickets

A ticket represents a record of your organization's response to a specific service request. Every communication and action taken on behalf of the service request can be recorded in the ticket record.

When a new ticket is created it is associated with a service desk definition. The service desk definition determines the sequence of organizational steps—called stages—for resolving the service request. Service desk definitions also provide other ways of classifying a ticket such as status, priority, severity, category and who the ticket is currently assigned to.

Tickets Table

All tickets you are authorized to see are displayed as a list of rows in a table. The following actions are provided to manage tickets. In some cases you have to select one or more rows before you click one of these action buttons.

New - Creates a new ticket.
View - Displays a ticket without allowing any edit changes. Selected users may only have access to view a ticket using this option. You can select multiple tickets and page from one ticket to the next in View mode.
Edit - Edits a selected ticket.
Delete - Deletes selected tickets.
Read - Marks selected unviewed tickets as having been previously viewed.
Unread - Unmarks selected viewed tickets as having not yet been viewed.
Stop Notification - Pending email notification of selected tickets can be stopped using Stop Notification in Tickets. This option is used in conjunction with Email Send Delay in Preferences by Role and Preferences by User. For example, if Email Send Delay is set to 5 minutes for the role you are using, then you have 5 minutes to cancel any emails that are pending for a ticket using Stop Notification. Applies to ticket rows displaying a icon in the icon column of the ticket table. Stop Notification only stops currently pending email.
Archive - Archives selected tickets. See Archived Tickets to review archived tickets or to unarchive tickets.
Group Updates - Updates multiple tickets at the same time. For example, you can set a group of tickets to Closed. All tickets must be members of the same service desk.
Merge - Merges multiple tickets into a single ticket. Use Search All to select and merge tickets from different service desks.
Copy - Copies a selected item to a target service desk or knowledge base desk. Options include linking source and target items, changing field values and either including notes or converting notes into a consolidated description in the target desk.
Link - Links two or more selected items. Linked items display in the Related Tickets tab of a ticket or KB articles. Use Search All to select and link items from different desks.
Unlock - Unlocks selected items. An item locks each time you edit it, preventing other users from editing it at the same time. If a user has left an item open and you need to maintain it, you can unlock the item to gain access to it. Doing so prevents the user who originally opened the item from saving his or her changes. Tickets locked by expired or non-existent sessions are automatically unlocked when reapply schema runs.
Export - Exports selected tickets, including attachments, to an XML file. If more than five tickets are selected for export, the export is performed in the background and an Inbox message is generated. The inbox message contains a link you can click to download the generated XML file. All tickets must be members of the same service desk.
Import - Imports tickets from another service desk, as an XML file.
Statistics - Displays Service Desk statistics, by service desk definition and date range. This link is only visible to users with user roles assigned the Service Desk Administrators or Master role types.

Color Coding of Ticket Rows

Ticket rows are color-coded by their age, from a selected type of date. Colors are assigned to:

Tickets older than a specified number of days from the selected type of date.
Tickets younger than a specified number of days from the selected type of date.
Tickets in between these two age groups.

Color coding is defined using Preferences by Role and Preferences by User. Preferences by User has precedence over Preferences by Role.

Filtering

There are multiple methods for filtering the rows displayed in the Tickets table, Knowledge Base table, or Search All table. All methods of filtering can be combined at any time. Clicking Reset removes all filtering.

Search - Enter a search string in the Search edit box. Only rows containing the search string in the Summary, Description or Notes fields are displayed.
Column Options - This table supports selectable columns, column sorting, column filtering and flexible columns widths.
Service Desk Filtering - For the Tickets table only. Select a service desk to display just the tickets for that service desk. Custom columns are defined by service desk and display only if you select the desk they were defined for. Custom fields can be selected like any other column, sorted on and used to filter items.
- If you have a named filter that specifies a service desk, then the service desk for that filter is selected in the service desk drop-down list.
- If you have a named filter that does not specify a service desk, then the named filter still applies when you switch service desks using the drop-down list.
- If you have a named filter that specifies a service desk, and then you change the service desk in the service desk drop-down list, the other filter criteria for that named filter still apply, but the View combo box shows No Filter.
Named Filters - Named filters are "fixed" combinations of filtering criteria, based on many of the columns you see in the table. They are selected using the View drop-down list. Named filters are created, edited, saved, shared and deleted by users. Additional options include:
- This field can be a column filter - This extra checkbox displays for many of the filter columns shown in the Edit a Filter dialog.
  - If checked, the filter selections you've defined for that column can be changed dynamically within the table, just like any other column not specified by the named filter.
  - If blank, the filter selections you've defined for that column cannot be modified in the table. The column filter option doesn't display for this column in the table, preventing you from making any changes to it. Leaving this checkbox blank reduces confusion, since you can be confident that the named filter settings have not been modified by any additional column filtering you may have performed.
- Similar to/Like - The text entered occurs anywhere within the target cell. Entering wild cards characters is not necessary. For example, filtering a column by text that contains age will display records with the following cells values: age, agent, storage, etc.
- Not Like/Is Not Assigned - The text entered occurs nowhere within the target cell.
- Assignees and Pools - Filtering by assignee includes all pools an assignee is a member of. Filtering by Any Assignee shows all tickets assigned to either an assignee or pool. Filtering by No Assignee shows unassigned tickets.
Sharing - See Sharing User-Owned Objects.

Paging and Table Counters

Page Select - When more rows of data are selected than can be displayed on a single page, click the and buttons to display the previous and next page. The drop-down list alphabetically lists the first record of each page of data using the sort order of the selected column on that page.
Selected - The number of rows selected in the table. Includes selections on multiple pages.
Viewing - The number of rows in the current page and the total number of rows in all pages.

Creating a Knowledge Base Article from an Existing Ticket

The fastest way of creating a KB article is to create it from an existing ticket. In Service Desk > Tickets you can create a KB article using two action buttons:

Copy - Click Copy at the top of the Tickets table to display the Copy Ticket dialog box. This dialog enables you to copy a ticket to a new ticket or a KB article.
Create a KB Article - Click Create a KB Article while editing an existing ticket. This button enable you to copy a ticket only to a KB article.

The two dialogs provide exactly the same options, except the Create a KB Article dialog restricts you to only creating KB articles.

Target Service Desk - Select the target knowledge base definition you want to use.
Target Standard Field Values - Leave the target standard field values unspecified, if the KB article you're creating doesn't have a corresponding standard field value defined. Otherwise you can select a new value to assign to the KB article you're creating.
Copy Notes - You can specify how notes are copied to the KB article as follows:
- Don't Copy Notes - Use this option if the existing description text is all you need to create the KB article.
- Copy Notes - Use this option if you want to add notes to the KB article.
  Note: The Knowledge Base Article.xml editing template doesn't display notes. So only use this option if your KB article uses the the Default Ticket Entry.xml editing template.
- Copy Notes into Description - Use this option if some of the content you want to add to the description of the KB article is contained in the notes of the ticket. You should expect to edit the description in the created KB article to remove irrelevant content copied from the notes.
Link Ticket - If checked, creates related links in both the source ticket and the KB article you're creating. In the KB article, this identifies the originating ticket. In the ticket, the reference to the KB article displays.

Previewing Tickets

To display the details of a ticket in a new window click the new window icon. Hovering the mouse cursor over the icon of a ticket displays a preview window of the latest notes for that ticket. Use this to quickly review tickets in your queue. The number of milliseconds the cursor has to hover can be specified using System > Preferences.

General tab

Click New to display the Create a New Ticket window. To edit an existing ticket you can click a row, then click the Edit button or double-click a row to edit an existing ticket immediately.

Note: The ticket layout described below is for the standard editing template used to create a ticket. You may see a different order and selection of fields if a different editing template is associated with a service desk.

Ticket Editor Action Buttons

Save - Save changes without closing the ticket.
Save and Close - Save and close the ticket.
Copy ticket - Create a KB article by copying the contents of the ticket.
Cancel - Close the ticket without saving any changes.

Note: For user roles associated with the Service Desk Technicians role type, some of the fields below may be hidden or view only, based on settings in Preferences by Role. User roles associated with the Service Desk Administrators role type have visibility of and permission to edit any field in any ticket, regardless of the settings in Preferences by Role.

Summary Information

Service Desk - Can only be changed if the ticket is new. Select a Service Desk definition for the new ticket. The service desk definition populates a new ticket with pre-defined values and determines what values are possible for you to select in standard and custom fields. Automated processing of tickets is determined by the set of procedures linked to that ticket's service desk. You can select a different service desk provided you've been given access to more than one service desk.
Ticket Number - Blank if the ticket is new. The unique identifier for the ticket. This value cannot be changed. Click the magnifier icon to search for another ticket or KB article, then either view it or edit it.
Summary - Enter a one line summary line for the ticket.
Submitter Name - Enter the name of the person submitting the ticket. Usually this is the name of the user calling or emailing about a service issue.
Submitter Email - Enter the email address of the submitter.
Machine ID, Organization, Contact or Phone Number - Associate a ticket using the magnifier icon next to any of these fields. Use the Machine ID magnifier icon in the ticket editor to associate a ticket with either a machine group or a machine ID. Associating a ticket:
- Makes the ticket visible to users if their user role uses the Service Desk Technicians role type and the related machine or related organization is within their scope.
- Can determine the policy assigned to this ticket if the association is created while the ticket is new. See Service Desk > Definitions > Processing > Associated Policies for more information.
Organization ID - Displays the associated organization, if an organization has been associated with the ticket.
Contact Email - Displays a contact email address, if an organization's staff member is associated with the ticket and the email address is defined in the staff member record.
Created - The date/time the ticket was created.
Promised - The date/time the customer has been promised resolution of the ticket. This can be manually changed by the call taker.
Escalation - The date/time an escalation counter was last set for this ticket and the amount of time before the escalation procedure is triggered.
Status - Status codes represent the state a ticket is in, regardless of any other classification.
Priority - Prioritizes service requests.
Stage - The stage the ticket is in.
Assigned to - The VSA user or pool the ticket is assigned to.
Last Edit - The date/time the ticket was last edited.
Closed - The date time the ticket was closed by setting the Status field to Closed.
Due - The due date/time for the ticket. A value only displays in this field if a goal procedure is linked to the service desk definition. The due date can be modified by the Pause Ticket Goal, Resume Ticket Goal and Set Ticket Goal Time service desk procedure commands.
Category and SubCategory - Classifies the type of service requested.
Severity - Classifies how critical a service request is to an organization's operations.
Policy - The policy in effect for this ticket. Policies are assigned by the service desk definition used to create the ticket.
Owner - This field only displays after a ticket is created. The VSA user ultimately responsible for resolving this ticket.
Custom Fields - Additional custom fields may display and are available for data entry, depending on the requirements of your service organization.
Description - Enter a longer description for the ticket. Use the following toolbar buttons to add special formatting to the text:
- - Hyperlink selected text. You may need to reset links copied and pasted from another source.
- - Copy selected text from Microsoft Word and paste into text pane.
- - Insert a table.
- - Insert a horizontal line as a percentage of the width, or set a fixed width in pixels.
- - Indent text.
- - Outdent text.
- - Set selected text to subscript.
- - Set selected text to superscript.
- - Remove formatting of selected text.
- - Insert special characters and symbols.

Notes tab

Add Note

Hours Worked - Enter the number of hours you've worked on this ticket. Typically when you enter hours worked, you also enter a note describing the work you've done. This field is hidden if the Service Desk > Definitions > General > Auto Save Clock checkbox is checked.
Note Template - Append a note template to the Note pane. Note templates are predefined blocks of text. They are maintained using Service Desk > Note Templates.
Add as Hidden - If checked, do not notify the submitter by email and hide the note from machine users viewing the ticket using Live Connect. If unchecked, the added note is public for all users.
Suppress Notification - If checked, suppresses email and message notification, both internal and external, including any other changes included with this note.
Note - Enter text in the note pane. Use the edit toolbar buttons described for the Description field to add special formatting to the text.

Resolution

Resolution - Select a value that classifies how a service request was resolved.
Description - Enter a description of how the service request was resolved. Use the edit toolbar buttons described for the Description field to add special formatting to the text.

(Note History)

Split - Splits the current ticket and move all notes after the selected note's date and all current settings of the current ticket to a new ticket.
Delete - Deletes a selected note.
Hidden - Select a note and check it to mark the note as internal-only, meaning hidden from external users, such as submitters being notified by email, or machine users viewing the ticket using Live Connect. Uncheck the note to make it public to all users. Hidden notes have a yellow background.