Managing Default Categories

[Adrian Simpkins]

Hi All

I was hoping someone could clarify for me some details around 'Manage Default Categories' - I am trying to set a default for the Request Update category for an Incident and a Service Request - when I set a the default within an incident this changes Request update to Incident Management, then when I set this on a Service Request this changes the default from Incident to Service Request.

However, I want to be able to set a default Category for Incidents and Service Requests but they appear to share this field? Is there a way to set a default by Request type at all? Or am I misunderstanding the purpose of the Default Categories screen in this scenario?

Many thanks as always !

[AlexTumber]

@Adrian Simpkins thanks for your post.

It appears that they share the same field. Correct me if I'm wrong but what I think what you are looking for here is for separate default categories for 'Incident >> Request Update' and 'Service Request >> Request Update'.

We plan on making significant changes to the way categories are defined and managed in future Timesheet Manager updates so I will feed this back to our development and product teams to make sure your requirement is met.

Alex

[Adrian Simpkins]

Hi Alex

Indeed I was looking at separate default categories for each request type rather than the requests all sharing the one Manage Default Categories, ideally to be able to set the full suite offered but by request type would be ideal.

Do you know if this current setup could potentially cause any issues when our analysts move from a service request to incident and want to record for example, time spent on the Resolve action? We will hopefully be moving towards our live date later this month, so I wanted to make sure I can address this issue when someone raises it (which I am sure they will )

Many thanks

[AlexTumber]

@Adrian Simpkins Yes I believe it will cause issues. Let me speak with our development team and see if we can add the required default categories so that you can set them for each request type accordingly. I can see the value for other customers in having this as well and also going forward I know this won't compromise the changes we are planning on making to timesheet categories.

Alex

[Adrian Simpkins]

Hi Alex

Thanks for the confirmation, this will let me address any issues raised, and I look forward to any update to remedy this in the future !

Many thanks

[Martyn Houghton]

+1 for having the ability to set different default TM Categories for different Request Types.

Cheers

Martyn

[Adrian Simpkins]

Hi Alex, just playing around with the updated Timesheet Manager functions, and liking the changes. However, it does appear that this issue still exists when trying to set default categories for Incident, Service Request etc. Any news on this tweak, or have I missed a trick with this update that allows the setting of multiple request type default categories?

Thanks

[AlexTumber]

Hi @Adrian Simpkins,

Thanks for your post and I'm glad you're liking the changes :-)

So after several discussions with the different teams at Hornbill, including Service and Project Manager, we've decided to take a slightly different approach with Default Timesheet Categories...

This sort of problem/discussion has come up a few times internally at Hornbill recently (as we add more applications to our platform) and the main question usually circles back to which app owns the data. 

In this case, it's quite obvious that Timesheet Manager owns the actual timesheet categories (they would not exist if timesheet manager did not exist), but the idea of setting default categories is not necessarily the responsibility of Timesheet Manager. As we've found with different apps, they all appear to have different requirements. To that extent, and due to the fact so much was changing with this most recent update, we took the decision to leave default timesheet categories as they are for now, with the view that each app that wants to plug into Timesheet Manager now has the task of working out how they want to offer this configuration. The result of this will be multiple different interfaces for default categories that are configured differently per app and within each app. I don't know for sure, and until I see the technical spec but I would imagine that Service Manager would not only look to offer default categories based on request type, but also by service as well. So for example, as a service owner, you configure which default categories you want for your service and for each request type. As a Project Manager, maybe you want to configure different default categories for the different roles that the project members have in your project.

As with all new Hornbill functionality, with our continuous deployment methodology, you'll receive the updates to each application that contains the new default timesheet category configuration just as soon as the functionality is ready.

Alex

[Adrian Simpkins]

Thanks for the update Alex. I will review again to see how we can use it with the current configuration setup

Many thanks as always