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.
Search for | Example | Results |
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A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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. |
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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Service Desk Interaction Management form details
The following table identifies and describes some of the features on Service Desk’s Interaction Management forms.
Label |
Description |
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Interaction ID |
Service Manager populates this field with a unique ID when a Service Desk Agent registers a new interaction. |
Status |
The options in this field have been revised to align with our new best practices. Tip You may want to tailor these options to match your business needs. These statuses are available out-of-box:
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Phase |
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Contact |
The Service Desk Agent populates this field with the person from which the call was received. The contact person is not necessarily the same person as the service recipient. This field ensures that the correct person will be notified about updates to the interaction. After filling in the contact name, the Service Desk Agent can use the Smart Indicator positioned at the end of the field to view open or closed interactions for this contact. This field includes a hover-over form that displays full name, telephone, and email address if available for the contact. This is a required field. |
Service Recipient |
The person who has the problem and needs it resolved. It is not necessarily the person who is calling to report the problem. Filling in this field automatically fills in the contact name from the contact record of who should be notified of the resolution. The Service Desk Agent populates this field with the person this issue is registered for. This field includes a hover-over form that displays full name, telephone, and email address if available for the service recipient. After filling in the service recipient, the Service Desk Agent can use the Smart Indicator positioned at the end of the field to view open or closed interactions for the service recipient. This is a required field. |
Location |
The location for which the interaction has been reported. The field is for informational purposes only. Location data is customer and implementation specific. |
Source |
The source from which the record is created. The following out-of-box sources are available:
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Portal Order ID |
The order number of the corresponding order submitted in Service Manager Service Portal. Note This field is used only when the interaction record is created from an order that a user submits from Service Manager Service Portal. |
Portal Request ID |
The request number of a bundle or catalog item in the corresponding order or the request number of the corresponding support request in Service Manager Service Portal. Note This field is used only when the interaction record is created from an order or a support request that a user submits from Service Manager Service Portal. |
Notify By |
To notify the customer when the issue has been resolved, Service Manager prepopulates this field with Email for user. User or the Service Desk Agent can change it to None or Telephone, if applicable. When the related incident or change is closed:
This is a required field. |
Affected Service |
The Service Desk Agent populates this field with the business service affected by the registered issue. Only business services the service recipient has a subscription for can be selected. As a best practice, users should select the affected service before selecting the Affected CI because the Affected CI selection is limited by the service selected by a user. Selecting the service first prevents a mismatch between the service and the CI. ITIL 2011 is centered around services, so a service construct should always be defined for best practices. If you have not yet created a service construct, start with a catch-all service, such as My Devices. Note The out-of-box options in this field are based on past Service Manager implementations. You should tailor these options to match your business needs. These business services are available out-of-box:
Selecting the service:
An end user is more likely to know that the e-mail service does not work than what part of the e-mail service does not work. This is a required field. Tip You can use the Smart Indicator, positioned at the end of the field, to search for related incidents or problems. |
Affected CI |
The Service Desk Agent populates this field with the configuration item (CI). Click Fill to select from a list of the physical CIs that relate to the service. Other CIs can be entered manually. If the business service does not contain any CIs, then the list shows only the CIs that the service recipient is subscribed to and the CIs that are assigned to the service recipient. If you choose an Applications service, you are presented with a list of CIs in the service, as well as those that you own. This field includes a hover-over form that displays Critical CI and Pending Change check boxes to indicate whether or not these attributes apply to the CI. After filling in the affected CI, the Service Desk Agent can use the Smart Indicator positioned at the end of the field to search for open and closed incidents for this CI, and to view the details. |
Title |
The Service Desk Agent populates this field with a brief description that identifies the interaction. Note Service Manager searches this field when you do an advanced or expert text search. This is a required field. |
Description |
The Service Desk Agent populates this field with a detailed description of the interaction. When the location and telephone number differ from the contact details, the Service Desk Agent can record the correct information in the description field. Clicking Search Knowledge searches description fields across multiple Service Manager knowledgebases for the text entered. Depending on the permissions of the user, Service Manager may look in interactions, incidents, problems, known errors, and knowledge documents. The Service Desk Agent can use the solution from any returned document as the solution for the interaction. Note Service Managersearches this field when you do an advanced or expert text search. This is a required field. |
Completion Code |
This field contains a predefined completion code, describing the way this issue has been solved. The out-of-box options in this field are based on Service Manager customer reference data. Note You may want to tailor these options to match your business needs. These completion codes are available out-of-box:
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Knowledge Source |
This field contains the reference number of the document from the knowledge base document used to solve the issue. If you find a knowledge article by using Search Knowledge, and then click Use Solution in that article to provide the solution to your customer, this field is populated with the Document ID of the document you used. If you do not use a knowledge document or if you do not click Use Solution in the knowledge document, this field is left blank. |
Solution |
This field contains a description of the solution used for this interaction. Note Service Managersearches this field when you do an advanced or expert text search. |
Category |
This field describes the type of interaction. The interaction type determines the process to escalate to when the interaction cannot be solved on first intake. The categories are based on ITIL service-centric processes, and therefore focus on enabling assignment, reporting, and operational analysis for knowledge management purposes. From the category list:
For more information on categories and the subcategories and areas associated with them, see Interaction categories. This is a required field. |
Subcategory |
The Service Desk Agent populates this field with the subcategory of concern. Service Manager displays different lists of subcategories, depending on the category you selected. For more information on categories and the subcategories and areas associated with them, see Interaction categories. This is a required field. |
Area |
The third level of classifying an interaction, mainly used for reporting purposes. Service Manager displays different lists of areas, depending on the subcategory you selected. For more information on categories and the subcategories and areas associated with them, see Interaction categories. This is a required field. |
Assignment Group |
The group assigned to work on the interaction. For a description of this field see the Assignment Group field description in the Incident Management form details section as this field functions similarly. The out-of-box data consists of default assignment groups for use as examples of types of assignment groups. You may want to change the sample assignment groups to meet your own needs. These assignment groups are available out-of-box:
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Assignee | The name of the person assigned to work on this interaction. This person is a member of the assigned support group. Assignees may belong to one or multiple assignment groups, based on the needs of your company. |
Impact |
The Service Desk Agent populates this field with the impact the interaction has on the business. The impact and the urgency are used to calculate the priority. The impact is based on how much of the business is affected by the issue. The stored value can be 1-4, as follows.
This is a required field. |
Urgency |
The urgency indicates how pressing the issue is for the service recipient. The urgency and the impact are used to calculate the priority. The stored value can be 1-4, as follows.
This is a required field. |
Priority |
This field describes the order in which to address this interaction in comparison to others. It contains a priority value calculated by (impact + urgency)/2. Decimals are truncated. The stored value based on that calculation can be 1-4, as follows:
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Approval Status |
This field is only used when you request something from the catalog. When you submit an order from the catalog, Service Manager automatically creates an interaction which, based on approval requirements, may have to be approved before it can be fulfilled. Service Manager populates this field with the current approval status for this interaction. These approval statuses are available out-of-box:
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Activities |
The Activities section records information that the Service Desk Agent enters during the lifecycle of the Interaction. Every time you update an interaction, you can fill in an update on the Activities section (New Update). A log of all the updates is stored on the Journal Updates and activities list. Activities from related records that are flagged as customer visible also display here. |
Related Records |
The Related Records section contains a list of all related records for the interaction. These may include related incidents, known errors, problems, changes, and quotes. |
SLA |
The SLA (Service Level Agreement) section displays SLAs related to the interaction. SLAs in interactions are customer-related and selected, based on the customer contact or department and service related to the issue. The Service Level Objective (SLO) defines the details, such as beginning and ending state, and time allowed between these states. SLA selection takes place when a Service Desk Agent escalates the interaction. The best practice is that the Service Desk Agent should communicate the time of the next breach to the customer at this point. If SLAs are configured to be handled in the background, the information in this section may not display immediately. Note The out-of-box system is set up to run SLAs in the foreground. Tailoring the system to run SLAs in the background complicates communicating with the customer and should be avoided. |
Escalate button |
The Service Desk Agent clicks this button to create an incident or change from this interaction. The customer's issue could not be solved immediately. When research time is required, the Interaction should be escalated to an incident or a change, not saved as an interaction. There is no monitoring on saved interactions, other than self-service interactions. If the Service Desk has a role in the Incident Management process, this incident may be assigned to the Service Desk, and the Service Desk Agent can still work on it. Clicking Escalate starts the Escalate Interaction solution matching. For more information on the Escalate Interaction solution matching, see Escalate Interaction solution matching. |
Withdraw button | The Service Desk Agent clicks this button to withdraw the interaction on behalf of the user. |
Close Interaction button |
The Service Desk Agent clicks this button to close the interaction. The customer's issue was resolved and requires no further action. |
Close Invalid Request button | If the interaction is invalid, click this button to close it as an invalid interaction in the Categorization phase. |