Service Desk Interaction Management form details

The following table identifies and describes some of the features on Service Desk’s Interaction Management forms.

Service Desk Interaction Management form details

Label

Description

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:

  • Open — The interaction has been initially logged. For example, when the Service Desk Agent is still on the phone with the customer.
  • In Progress — The interaction has no incidents, changes, or other records related to it. It is fulfilled by Service Desk.
  • Dispatched — The interaction has been escalated or the catalog request approved and the interaction is now related to another record, such as an incident, change, problem, or request.
  • Pending Customer - The interaction is pending for User input to proceed its fulfillment process.

  • Pending Approval - The service catalog request is pending for approval.

  • Closed — The interaction is closed by the help desk or automatically after the related record is closed.
  • Canceled — The interaction is canceled by Service Desk Agent based on the user updates.

  • Resolved — The interaction is resolved when the linked incident is move to the "Resolved" status.

Contact

The Service Desk Agent populates this field with the person from whom 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.

This field includes a hover-over form that displays full name, telephone, and email address for the contact, if available.

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.

This is a required field.

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 as E-mail. The user or the Service Desk Agent can change it to None or Telephone, if applicable.

When the related fulfillment record is closed:

  • Selecting E-mail closes the interaction and sends an email to the contact
  • Selecting None closes the interaction without notifying the contact
  • Selecting Telephone tells the Service Desk Agent to ask the contact whether the solution is satisfactory. If the solution works for the customer, the Service Desk Agent closes the interaction. If it does not work, then the Service Desk Agent must open a new interaction.

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. 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:

  • Applications
  • Email/Webmail
  • Handheld PDA & Telephony
  • Intranet
  • Internet
  • My Devices (The My Devices service represents all personal devices that the user would use.)
  • Printing

Selecting the service:

  • Validates that it is a valid service.

An end user is more likely to know that the email service does not work than what part of the email service does not work.

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.

Note Service Manager searches this field when you perform an advanced or expert text search.

This is a required field.

Closure Code

This field contains a predefined closure 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 closure codes are available out-of-box:

  • Automatically Closed

  • Cancelled

  • Denied Service Catalog Request

  • Fulfilled

  • Invalid

  • Not Reproducible
  • Out of Scope
  • Request Rejected
  • Solved by Change/Service Request
  • Solved by User Instruction
  • Solved by Workaround
  • Unable to solve
  • Withdrawn by User

Solution

This field contains a description of the solution used for this interaction.

Note Service Manager searches this field when you perform 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 is not a user complaint or compliment.

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:

  • Incident > Continue — You can relate the interaction to a new incident.
  • Request for Change > Continue — Service Manager creates a new change request.
  • Service Request/Request for Administration/Request for Information > Continue - You can relate the interaction to a new service request.

  • Problem > Continue - Service Manager creates a new problem.

  • Support Catalog > Continue - Support Catalog opens, allowing you to place an order. After an order is submitted, the interaction is given the category configured in the ordered support catalog item and a related record is created as defined in the ordered support catalog item as well.

  • Service Catalog > Continue — Service Catalog opens, allowing you to place an order. The interaction is given the category service catalog. Service Catalog interactions are not escalated. When you approve the interaction, it opens the related record as defined in the service catalog connector.
  • Complaint/Compliment > Continue - No related record is created. Service Desk handles such types of interactions.

Note The Service Desk Agent needs to have proper permissions to open corresponding fulfillment records.

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.

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.

Assignment Group

The group assigned to work on the user complaint or compliment. 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:

  • Application
  • Email / Webmail
  • Field Support
  • Hardware
  • Incident Managers
  • Intranet / Internet Support
  • Network
  • Office Supplies
  • Office Support
  • Operating System Support
  • Problem Coordinators
  • Problem Managers
  • SAP Support
  • Service Desk
  • Service Desk Analysts
  • Service Manager
Assignee The name of the person assigned to work on the user complaint or compliment. 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.

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:

  • pending — The request has not been approved or a prior approval or denial has been retracted.
  • approved — All approval requirements are approved, or no approval necessary.
  • denied — The request has been denied.

Activities

The Activities section records information that Service Desk enters during the lifecycle of a user complaint or compliment. Every time you update a user complaint or compliment, 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. Self-Service updates from users are also displayed here.

Related Records

The Related Records section contains a list of all related records for the interaction. These may include related incidents, problems, changes, and requests.

SLT

The SLT (Service Level Target) 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 Process Targets define 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.

Continue button

The Service Desk Agent clicks this button to create an incident, problem, request, or change from this interaction.

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.

Cancel Interaction button The Service Desk Agent clicks this button to cancel the interaction on behalf of the user.

Close button

The Service Desk clicks this button to close the user complaint or compliment. The customer's issue was resolved and requires no further action.

Fulfill button The Service Desk handles the user complaint or compliment.
More > Send Survey After interaction is closed, the Service Desk Agent can carry out a user satisfaction survey.