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Tech Assignments and Request Types for Ticket Routing

timmeers over 9 years ago

I’m working on a new deployment of WHD and I’m trying to find the “best practice” for how to correctly route tickets. The org has multiple locations with multiple layers of staff (technicians, helpdesk, networking et. al). We are not going to be assigning directly to a Tech by hand. But all ticket will be assigned to a Tech Group based on the Request Type.

However the need is to have the ability to change the assigned Tech Group depending on the level it’s going to. The idea currently as follow.

Client submits ticket to Request Type: Hardware -> TV. This would route to the Helpdesk. If the helpdesk is unable to correct the issue, they would need to send this to a technician on site. As it currently sits, the helpdesk staff has no way of doing this without changing the Request Type.

Solution: For all types of service that involve multiple layers of support, add additional Request Types for each layer of service. So the type of:

Hardware -> TV

Would also have additional types of:

-> Helpdesk
-> Technician

The two layers would then be able to switch back and forth with ease. The down side is now reporting is messy with additional lines because of the additional Request Types.

Another solution is to create a rule. The rule would match on a tech note of “Escalate to: Technician”. There would be a corresponding rule for other sub layers as well.

The issue: Doing this sets an error on the ticket for the request type, basically saying it’s a mismatch and to resolve it. Also this rule will fire every time you click save. And with each click it will escalate the ticket from the Level 1, to the Level 2, or manager when there is no level 2. Because of this I had to abandon this idea and disable the rule.

Has anyone else dealt with this issue? How do you have your assignments configured?

Top Replies

rodegard over 9 years ago +1

Have you looked at adding additional levels to the tech group? So if Helpdesk needed to assign to on-site, an escalation to Level 2 (Technician) would occur.

0 rodegard over 9 years ago

Have you looked at adding additional levels to the tech group? So if Helpdesk needed to assign to on-site, an escalation to Level 2 (Technician) would occur.
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0 timmeers over 9 years ago in reply to rodegard

The issue with that is for some Request Types, there can be 3 or more different groups the ticket could be assigned to: Helpdesk, Technician, Sever. So hitting the escalate button would send it to the next group, possibly incorrectly. It would also send the escalation email to them.
How to you manage events like this? Or do you not have an environment with this type of issue?
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0 qpalmer over 9 years ago in reply to timmeers

The way we have it set up is that the Tech Groups are based upon the request type.
With each Tech Group the Level 1 would have the staff of the Help Desk listed, Level 2 would be the Technician Staff...Level 3 Engineer Staff etc
The staff of each level that is assigned is also based upon their roll within that request type. For example:
So even though we have 6 techs only 3 of them would be assigned to that specific request type because they have been assigned the roll or area of responsibility.
With each Level you can set the auto-assign tickets to "A level tech" and based upon how responsibilities are laid out you can select the assignment algorithm to "Load Balance" (the staff member with the least open tickets of that Level receives the ticket) OR "Round Robin."
So to site your example:
Hardware -> TV Tech Group
     ->Level 1:
          Helpdesk staff Member A   \
          Helpdesk Staff Member B     > (Load Balance)
          Helpdesk Staff Member C   /
     ->Level 2:
          Technician Staff Member A   \
          Technician Staff Member C     > (Round Robin)
          Technician Staff Member F   /
     -> Level 3
          Engineer Staff Member B
So as long as the request type is the same you can continue to escalate or de-escalate depending on the work flow you use.
Hope that helps or at least gives you some ideas on how you can make it work for you and your organization.
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0 timmeers over 9 years ago in reply to qpalmer

So in this model there's still no way of pinning it to just a Tech Group and not a an individual person? It seems like the ability to do this should be there where I know it exists in other platforms.
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0 timmeers over 9 years ago

It looks like what I want is still just a pipe dream. But it looks like the ability to change Tech Groups is a feature request of at least a couple people:
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0 rodegard over 9 years ago in reply to timmeers

Our setup is similar to what qpalmer described. We try to get our Help Desk to work on all requests and escalate if the instructions provided them do not solve the issue or resolve the request.
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0 billypilgrim over 9 years ago in reply to timmeers

Our set up is again the same as qpalmer has posted- like yourself I was sort of surprised this was not possible but I guess this is because WHD is built around the auto-assigning feature.
Once I got my head around it and got the request types nailed I actually think it has taken a lot of guess work out of assigning tickets to the appropriate 2nd/ 3rd line and would be especially good for new staff on the servicedesk.
For your example you could have a further subcategory under Hardware> TV which would assign the ticket to your Technician Tech group or you could have an action rule linked to a custom field (for instance a check box for "Technician required") which would reassign the ticket?
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