Requests Assigned to Third Parties

[Michael Sharp]

Is there a way to report or filter all queries that have been referred to third parties?  We want to be able to run a report or filter on requests so an overview of their service levels can be monitored and also reviewed at account meetings.  An idea we had was to create a user and assign them to a ticket however as you can appreciate we don't want to pay for a non-collaborative user that will not update our systems - the updates will be added by the internal team here.  Perhaps a virtual user type could be created to service this unless you could suggest another way?

Regards,

Mike.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your post. 

Users, which include both standard users and basic users, are really for people that are internal to your business.  A Basic User does not require a license and it does allow you to assign requests, however, being that they are still classed as an internal user, I wouldn't recommend using these to represent a 3rd Party.

By default, Hornbill does provide Organisations and Contacts which are directed at entities that are external to your business.  You can create an organisation for your 3rd Party and add one or more contacts to that third party.

After adding an organisation and at least one contact you could consider some of the following

• Add a custom field to the organisation to flag it as a 3rd Party
• Using the Connections feature, you can add a new connection type called "3rd Party" and add contacts belonging to your 3rd Party organisation as a connection to the request
• As a contact, someone from the 3rd Party could access the customer portal to see the outstanding requests
• On the organisation form for the 3rd Party you can add links to their published Service Levels if they provide them to you via a URL
• Add a custom field on a request to allow a support person to flag it as a 3rd Party issue.
• Use the Category tree to categorize a request as being a 3rd Party issue

I would suggest starting with defining what you need in your report and work backwards to help determine which of these settings work best for you.

I hope that helps,

Regards,

James

[Michael Sharp]

15 hours ago, James Ainsworth said:

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your post. 

Users, which include both standard users and basic users, are really for people that are internal to your business.  A Basic User does not require a license and it does allow you to assign requests, however, being that they are still classed as an internal user, I wouldn't recommend using these to represent a 3rd Party.

By default, Hornbill does provide Organisations and Contacts which are directed at entities that are external to your business.  You can create an organisation for your 3rd Party and add one or more contacts to that third party.

After adding an organisation and at least one contact you could consider some of the following

• Add a custom field to the organisation to flag it as a 3rd Party
• Using the Connections feature, you can add a new connection type called "3rd Party" and add contacts belonging to your 3rd Party organisation as a connection to the request
• As a contact, someone from the 3rd Party could access the customer portal to see the outstanding requests
• On the organisation form for the 3rd Party you can add links to their published Service Levels if they provide them to you via a URL
• Add a custom field on a request to allow a support person to flag it as a 3rd Party issue.
• Use the Category tree to categorize a request as being a 3rd Party issue

I would suggest starting with defining what you need in your report and work backwards to help determine which of these settings work best for you.

I hope that helps,

Regards,

James

Hi James,
Thanks very much for these suggestions - I hadn't appreciated there were other ways to service this.  In regards to the contact and connections feature, that sounds like something that fits our purpose.  I'm not sure how they are able to log into our system to see the updates however?  Further to this, ideally we want to filter the requests (rather than run the report) for a particular third party however there isn't a "connections" filter on the view?  If we have to run a report to get this information then that will have to do.

Further to this, I'm not sure how to implement or find options 1, 5 or 6?  I have found custom statuses however can't see an option from within the request to set a custom status as an analyst?

Regards,

Mike.

 

[Michael Sharp]

Hi James,

We managed to service this by inputting an external reference number and pre fix where third parties are involved on requests.  This seems to service our requirements so we will go with this I think.  Thanks very much for your input however - it would still be useful to know how contacts can access tickets as a connection however?

Regards,

Mike.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Mike,

That's great news that you have found a way to manage this.  I had forgotten about the external reference.

As for the Contacts, they can be configured to access the customer portal in the same way that internal users access the service portal.  The URL for contacts is https://customer.hornbill.com/<yourInstancName> and this can be set up in Administration under System->Manage Portals