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 |
|---|---|---|
|
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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Working with Service Desk interaction records
The Service Desk functions that are available to you depend on your user profile. You may be able to access all Service Desk functions, or you may be limited by the capability words that are assigned to you in your operator record.
Depending on your user profile, the following Service Desk functions may be available to you.
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| Create New Interaction | From a blank Service Desk interaction form, you can log information about a service request, check for related interaction records, and add service request information to other Service Manager records, such as incident records. From this form, you can escalate the request to an incident record. |
| Interaction Queue | View the Service Desk interaction queue. You can also view other queues, such as the incident queue, problem queue, Change Management change and task lists, and quotes and order lists for all users. |
| Search Interactions | Specify filtering information to locate a specific Service Desk interaction record. |
| Security Files | Add new users, edit the profile of an existing user, maintain macros, views, and probable cause records. Requires administrative rights. |
| Search Knowledgebase | Access the Service Manager Knowledge Base search form. |
Hover-over forms for interaction records
Service Desk interaction record forms include hover-over forms. A hover-over form is displayed when you move the mouse over a field that supports hover-over forms. Hover-over forms are only displayed when the field contains data. The data that is displayed in hover-over forms is read-only.
Service Desk interaction record forms contain the following hover-over fields.
| Field | Subform fields |
|---|---|
| Contact | Full Name, Telephone, Email |
| Service Recipient | Full Name, Telephone, Email |
| Affected CI | Critical CI, Pending Change |
Related records in Service Desk
Service Manager lists all related records for an interaction record in the Related Records section. All information is read-only, but you can click a record ID to view the related record. The related records are listed in alphabetic order by the record file name: Change (cm3r), Interaction (incident), Known Error (knownerror), Request (ocmq), Incident (probsummary). Within each module, the records are sorted by ID number, in ascending order.
The Service Desk Related Records section contains the following fields.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| ID | The related record number in the database. |
| Type | Identifies the related record as related to a change, interaction, known error, request, or incident. |
Activities section
The Activities section allows users to enter new updates for a record or to view journal updates and historic activities for a record.
New update
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| New Update Type | Specifies or categorizes the activity update (for example, communication with the customer) |
| Visible to Customer? |
Makes the update visible to customers so they can view related interactions via self service Note This option can be bypassed by setting the Bypass Visibility Option flag to “true” in the activityactions table. When this flag is set to “true,” automatic activities are invisible to customers, whether the Customer Visible option is selected or not. When the flag is set to “false,” all activities are visible to customers if the Customer Visible option is selected. |
| New Update |
Used to enter notes to explain and describe updates made for the record. If Journaling is enabled, the text entered here is displayed in Journal Updates. If Activities are enabled, the text entered in this field is displayed as an activity record for the selected activity type. Note The System Administrator is responsible for enabling Journaling and Activities. |
Journal updates
Journal updates displays text entered in the New Update field together with a timestamp for the update. This field displays information when Journaling is enabled.
Activity type
To filter the list by the type of activity, select an activity type, and then click Filter. Service Manager opens a new record list that displays the records of that activity type.
The activities list displays activities for the current record. The activities are listed in order of occurrence, with the most recent activity displayed first. The following information is displayed for each activity:
- Date/Time
- Type
- Operator
- Description
Service Catalog requests
You can track your Service Catalog requests on the Service Desk update interaction form. When you submit a request by using the Service Catalog, you can view the request record in Service Desk. An interaction record for a Service Catalog request includes two additional sections, Approvals and Catalog Items.
Approvals section
The Approvals section contains the following subsections.
| Subsections | Description |
|---|---|
| Current Approvals | Displays a table that lists current catalog requests and the approval details |
| Approval Log | Displays a log of the approval actions which have been performed regarding the catalog requests |
Catalog Items section
The Catalog Items section contains the list of items for the catalog request and the details of the each item in the request. This section also includes the Edit Cart button, which links you to the Service Catalog so that you can change your catalog request.
Related topics
Service Desk overview
What is a Service Desk interaction?
Associating a Service Desk interaction with another application record
Reopen an incident
