Performing action on multiple calls

[nasimg]

We have just started to use Service Manager (moving from Supportworks) and I've noticed you can't highlight calls and update, resolve etc to them. You have to open each call and then action them.

I think the only thing you can do (in bulk) is assign the tickets

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Nasim,

Thanks for your post. There are two actions that you can currently do when you select multiple requests in the request list. These are assign and add to a board.

We have considered adding more multi-select options in the request list. Resolving multiple requests is an interesting challenge. If you had 10 requests selected in the request list, each of these may be running different workflows or be in different stages of the same workflow. Some requests may be waiting for more information, or there are outstanding activities that need to be done. We would need to make sure that the resolving of a request from the list does not override the desired process or workflow. As a result, of the 10 requests selected, you may find only some of them are in a position to be resolved.

I'm interested to hear more about this requirement, in particular the ability to resolve multiple requests at the same time. Are there concerns with overriding process?

[nasimg]

We wouldn't have a problem resolving multiple tickets as we haven't added any complicated workflows - so for us it would be a nice option to have (like we had in Supportworks).

[nasimg]

Still interested in knowing if we could have the option of resolving multiple calls, I think most analyst would understand where to use this (eg. internet outage, server down, etc). Its basically where you have a major incident/problem and need to resolve lots of identical calls. Its very tedious to ask analyst to repeat the same action over and over, when you should be able to do it once.

I appreciate you may have customers that have complicated workflow so providing this functionality as an on/off option would be great.

 

[Dan Munns]

+1 for this.

Creating parent calls for incidents (print server failure for example) which will generate a lot of child calls and allowing the parent call to close all child calls with it would be a very useful option to have.

Even of the option would be added to the 'Raise New' tab as 'Parent Call'. That way you know that when you close it, all attached calls (regardless of current state) will be closed also.

I have tended to use functions like this for on going know issues where we have a work around in place but a permanent solution is not yet available. Once the perm solution is in place we can close the parent and all child calls in one.

It also makes it easy to see how many incidents have been raised against a parent call.

[gwynne]

I think this is where problem comes in I like Dan's idea however the other way round from the parent problem ticket or  from email you are able to create child objects to said problem ticket. which when closing the problem cascades down all attached tickets. 

The ticket would have the basics such a customer login and a copy of the parent summary and the option to update individual tickets. However the parent can send a blanket message to all tickets

Emails then could provide personal Incident ref and problem ticket 

 

 

 

[Steven Boardman]

Whilst the option to auto close child Incidents of a Problem is not currently available, there is an option you can use in your Problem Business Process to update all the Child Incidents during their lifecycle and on resolution.

In the example of doing this on resolution, in the BPM you can include the Requests > Linked Requests > Update Linked Requests node after the resolution of the Problem - this can be set to update related Incidents, and in the Content Option you can use the Variable Picker to do something like:

A permeant solution has been identified: &[global["flowcode"]["resolution"]]

This can update and post the actual problem resolution to the linked Incidents timeline.  The Incident owners would still need to accept that the problem resolution actually fixes their customers issue, but if it does they can then close their Incident. 

it is also already possible for any workaround to automatically be available to any linked Incidents from a Problem or Known Error, as a possible Solution.

In my example Problem Process below, I have included two other nodes.

1. Get Problem Resolution - Simply the Get Request Information node, ensuring I have loaded the resolution before using the update linked requests node where I need to call the resolution variable

2. Notify Impacted Customers of Resolution - This node is configured to send an email to all customers who are added as any defined Connection type of your choice - in my example those marked as IMPACTED , which could of been added automatically from the portals using the Me Too option if you publish the known issue out and allow customers to associate themselves directly to the problem / known issue without the need to raise repeat Incidents. 

This option allows me to communicate automatically the resolution to both linked Incidents and directly linked customers.

Whilst this does not resolve the auto closing of child requests, which we are continuing to review, there are some options available now which may help with automating the cascading down of information. 

Hope this helps

Steve

 

[Everton1878]

We've just gone live on Service Manager and one of the teams has just raised the issue of not being able to action multiple calls at once

Sometimes we will get different people raising the same issue, I know there are better ways of handling this in Service Manager with new calls but that team still has a lot of old calls they'd like to clean up

It would also be useful when there has been an issue with one of our systems and there are multiple calls to close at once with the same resolution

[Everton1878]

It would also be helpful to be able to put multiple calls on hold within a queue

[nasimg]

When trying to select multiple requests the assign button often disappears stopping us being able to assign multiple tickets, has anyone else had this issue?

[Ryan]

The assign button is only available if you have selected the same request types, that have the same Service.

As assignment can be determined by Service - limited to teams supporting that service - assigning requests for different services is not allowed.

Is that perhaps what you are encountering?

Ryan

[nasimg]

OK this may be the issue - I check and confirm. If this is the case it will be a problem as we have multiple services and request types supported by the same analysts. As they are part of the same team, issue probably is around the services.

[nasimg]

Tested and yes - different services and request types stops the multiple assigning of tickets. I'd like to know the thinking behind this restriction as the lack of being able to preform multiple actions will reduce the ability of my analyst to bulk deal with requests.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi @nasimg

I'm afraid that I will have to look into this.  I am not entirely sure why it was restricted to the services having to be the same.  My thought is that if you select multiple requests in your list when it comes to selecting the team, the list of teams would be limited to those that support all of the services for the selected requests.  There may be an underlying technical reason why it wasn't done this way.  

Regards,

James 

[Everton1878]

I was sure that I used to be able to do it, I was thinking it was just me

[James Ainsworth]

Hi @Everton1878

You are correct that you would have been able to do this.  There was a scenario that we had to prevent where using the multi-select you could assign a request to a team that did not support the service that it belonged to.  This could have resulted in two issues.  One being that the teams that manage the service would lose sight of the request that is reassigned to another team that sits outside the service.  The other is that it could allow for requests containing sensitive data to be assigned to teams outside of the service.

We will look to improve the multi-select options going forward and have them working in a similar way as before while maintaining the security. 

James

[James Ainsworth]

I just wanted to come back to this post to let you know that there is now an experimental option for resolving multiple requests from the request list.  The information on this setting can be found here.  As this is an experimental feature we would like to hear back with how this is working so we can continue to improve and get to a point where we can have it as a standard feature.  

We have also provided some options for resolving linked requests. from the BPM or manually from a request.  More information about the BPM options can be found here. Information on how to enable the option to manually resolve linked requests can be found here