Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
|---|---|---|
| A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
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Two or more words in the same topic |
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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What is a Service Desk interaction?
Each time a user contacts the Service Desk, the Service Desk Agent uses Service Manager to create an interaction record. The Service Desk Agent records the user name, the name of the component about which the user is calling, and a description of the user request. After the Service Desk Agent collects this information, the Service Desk Agent performs the actions that are required to resolve the user request.
- If the service request can be resolved without escalating it to an incident, the Service Desk Agent can close the interaction record.
- If the service request cannot be resolved without escalating it to an incident, the Service Desk Agent searches for existing incidents
that affect the same component or one of the parent assets of that component.
- If an existing incident is found, the Service Desk Agent can associate the current interaction with the existing incident record.
- If an existing incident record is not found, the Service Desk Agent can register a new incident based on the Service Desk interaction. Service Manager copies information from the interaction record into the newly created incident record.
For example, if a user cannot print to a network printer, the user contacts the Service Desk for assistance. The Service Desk Agent populates an interaction record with the relevant information. Because the issue cannot be resolved immediately, the Service Desk Agent opens an incident, and the incident is assigned to a technician. The technician discovers that the printer network connection is broken. The technician fixes the connection and closes the incident. The Service Desk Agent contacts the user and instructs the user to attempt printing to the network printer. If the user can successfully print, the Service Desk Agent can close the interaction. If the user still cannot print, the Service Desk Agent may reopen the related incident record.
Service Desk interaction list
The Service Desk interaction list provides general information about interaction records.
| Column name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | The status of the interaction record. | |
| Description | A brief description of the reported interaction. | |
| Interaction ID | The interaction record number. | |
| Impact |
The level of impact this issue has on the company and its end users. The impact can be classified as one of the following values:
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| Urgency |
The importance of the service request to the recipient. The urgency can be classified as one of the following values. The default value is 4–Low.
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| Priority | The priority value is calculated by using the initial impact and urgency values. | |
What is a category?
Service Manager uses the category to which a record is assigned to determine what work needs to be performed in order to close an interaction. For example, a service interruption logged in the incident category could have a different workflow than a service catalog request category interaction. The steps to manage and resolve the incident category interaction may differ from the steps for a service catalog request category interaction.
The category of the interaction determines which Process Designer workflow the interaction uses, and the workflow determines which forms and required fields are displayed. In addition, the category of the interaction determines which Service Manager process is invoked when you escalate an interaction. Categories of the complaint or compliment type are handled entirely as other types of interactions; however, you cannot escalate these interactions.
Note Your organization may have customized many workflows to handle the interaction, and may also have applied different service agreements to those workflows.
Out-of-box Service Desk categories
The following table lists the out-of-box Service Desk categories. Depending on the category that you select, Service Manager may require you to further categorize the interaction record by selecting an Area and Subarea.
| Category | Use |
|---|---|
| Complaint | Interactions that report less than satisfactory service or performance. |
| Compliment | Interactions that report exemplary service or performance. |
| Incident | Interactions that are opened specifically to start the incident management process. |
| Problem | Interactions that are opened specifically to start the problem management process. |
| Request for Administration | Interactions that are opened specifically to request assistance from a system administrator, such as a password resets or rights to access a specific area. |
| Request for Change | Interactions that are opened specifically to start the change process. |
| Request for Information | Call or incidents that request information only. |
| Service catalog | Interactions that are requests for items from the service catalog. |
Categories can be created and revised by the System Administrator. Therefore, additional categories may be available to you.
Notify By field
The Notify By field specifies how to contact the person or customer who initiated an interaction. If the interaction record is associated with another record, the information in the Notify By field affects how the interaction record is closed. For example, if you associate an incident record to an interaction record, the related interaction record closes according to the information in the Notify By field when the incident record is closed.
| Notify By setting | Description |
|---|---|
| None | The interaction record closes. |
| Service Manager sends an email to the contact who is listed in the interaction record to inform the contact that the related record is closed. Service Manager then closes the interaction record. | |
| Telephone | Notification by telephone adds a required action to the interaction record. The required action explains why the customer needs to be called back. This setting also prevents the interaction record from being closed until all required actions are complete. |
Note
- An administrator can add page and fax notifications.
- In Service Manager Codeless, you can configure HTML Rulesets from the workflow to send notifications as needed.
Affected CI field in Service Desk
The information that is available to populate the Affected CI field depends on the service recipient.
For example, if the recipient has individual or departmental subscriptions, a list of CIs associated with those subscriptions opens. If the recipient does not have any subscriptions and is a self-service user, no list is generated. However, if a recipient does not have any subscriptions and is not a self-service user, the following behavior occurs:
- If an interaction recipient is specified, a list of the CIs assigned to that recipient opens.
- If a location is specified, a list of the CIs assigned to that location opens.
- If a company is specified in a multi-company system, a list of the CIs assigned to that company opens.
- If a device type is specified, a list of the CIs of that type opens.
Note The only way to obtain a list of all CIs is to click the Affected CI field before you enter any recipient information.
Required actions
The Required Actions function enables you to track the steps that are necessary to resolve an interaction record. You can view any required actions for an interaction record by opening the Required Actions section of the interaction form. The Required Actions section is available only for interaction records that have required actions. You can add a required action to existing interaction records that have related incident records only. You cannot close an interaction record that is associated to incomplete required actions.
For example, if you use the Full Help Desk model to close an interaction and the Notify By field is set to "telephone" a required action is automatically created and must be closed before the interaction can be closed. Therefore, the Service Desk Agent is required to call the customer and verify the issue is fixed, close the required action, and then close the interaction.
