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How Stages Work

Stages are designed to model the flow of work a business performs to process service requests. They are defined by service desk definition. At least one stage is defined as a Begin stage and at least one stage is defined as an End stage. There are usually several Middle stages.

Stages are sequenced by selecting one or more "to" stages. The sequence of stages is user-defined. It depends on the policies defined by the service organization and the judgements of individual users using the system. A sequence of stages is graphically represented by the View tab within a service desk definition.

Event procedures run as soon as a ticket transitions from one stage to the next. Scheduled procedures, such as escalation procedures, are triggered to run based on how long a ticket remains in a stage. In a sense, escalation procedures are run when a system event does not occur within a specified time period.

When a service desk definition is created, stage sequences are populated by the template used to create the service desk definition. Once a service desk definition is created based on a template, these default stages can be modified to suit your business requirements.

Example - The Stages of the Standard Service Desk

The description of each stage below assumes the VSA users discussed are not Service Desk administrators, and so have their views of tickets limited by their user role and scope.

Note: See the Setup topic for instructions on how to create this and other predefined service desks automatically.

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Identified - A newly created ticket in the Standard service desk starts out in the Identified stage.

  • A Standard Enters Identified stage entry procedure runs a sub-procedure that sets the category and sub-category of the ticket, based on keywords in the summary line of the ticket.
  • A second sub-procedure sets the priority of the ticket, based on the severity and urgency of the ticket. Severity is a standard field in all service desks. Urgency is a custom field defined for the Standard service desk.
  • The ticket is assigned to a Tier1Pool of users. VSA users see any tickets assigned to them, plus any tickets assigned to pool they belong to. Members of the Tier1Pool are notified by email and by VSA inbox that a new ticket has been created.
  • The person who submitted the ticket is also notified that a ticket has been created, and is provided the ticket number for later reference.
  • An escalation procedure is linked to this stage. If the ticket has not been moved out of the Identified stage within 15 minutes, the escalation procedure runs. The escalation procedure notifies the Tier1Pool of users again, along with a SupportManager pool of users. The intent of the escalation procedure is to ensure that all newly created tickets are reviewed immediately.
  • A one hour goal procedure is also linked to this stage. The goal procedure has no procedure steps defined and can be customized. A stage goal time can be used to set the color coding of tickets using Preferences by Role or Preferences by User.

Two other factors can automate the behavior of tickets at any stage:

  • Automatic Ticket Assignment from a Pool - The first time the ticket is opened by any member of the Tier1Pool, that member is assigned the ticket. Other members of the Tier1Pool no longer see the ticket in their view of tickets.
  • Standard is Changed - This not a stage, but a Ticket Change procedure. The same Standard is Changed procedure is run each time the ticket is saved, even if a minor change to the ticket does not include switching the stage. One of the tasks Standard is Changed performs is to determine if the ticket is new by looking at the New status. If true, the ticket is immediately moved to the Tier1 stage.

Tier1 - The assignee of the ticket is now tasked with working with the ticket in the Tier1 stage.

  • The Standard Enters Tier1 stage entry procedure adds a predefined note that indicates the stage is in Tier1.
  • The assignee also becomes the "owner" of the ticket. An owner of a ticket typically continues to be responsible for a ticket, even if the ticket is assigned to a series of different assignees over the course of its life cycle. Ticket views can be filtered by owner, enabling owners to manage tickets that may have been forgotten about by their current assignees.
  • An escalation procedure and goal procedure are also linked to this stage.
  • A ticket can be manually assigned to either the Tier2 stage or the Closed stage, as indicated by the two red arrows coming out of the Tier1 bubble in the graphic above.

Tier2 - Moving a ticket the Tier2 stage typically means the ticket requires a person with more experience to resolve it, perhaps providing a special area of expertise.

  • A Standard Enters Tier2 stage entry procedure automatically assigns the ticket to a Tier2Pool of users, so that Tier1 personnel don't have to guess who to assign it to.
  • An escalation procedure and goal procedure are also linked to this stage.

Closed - Resolved tickets are set to the Closed stage.

  • The Standard Enters Closed stage entry procedure notifies the submitter of the ticket that the ticket is closed.