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Supportworks IT Helpdesk (ITHD) Template Version 1.1 Administrator Guide
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Page 1: Supportworks IT Helpdesk (ITHD) Template · 2008. 2. 18. · helpdesk operation, you would need to enter perhaps an abbreviation of the customer’s company name, together with an

SupportworksIT Helpdesk (ITHD) TemplateVersion 1.1

Administrator Guide

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Copyright © 2008 Hornbill Systems Ltd. All rights reserved.

Information in this document is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Hornbill Systems Ltd. Hornbill Systems Ltd assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this document.

Except as permitted by the Licence Agreement pertaining to the software described in this document, no part of the document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Hornbill Systems Ltd.

Supportworks is a registered trademark of Hornbill Systems Ltd. Acrobat is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. Microsoft, Outlook, Windows, Windows NT and Windows XP are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

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Contents of ITHD Template Administrator GuideIntroduction to Supportworks ITHD Template Administration 1The Topics Covered in this Guide.......................................................................1

Populating the Supportworks Tables 3Relationships Between the Tables.......................................................................3Suggested Order in which to Populate the Tables...............................................4

Customer-Related Data and Settings 7Sites .....................................................................................................................7

Example ........................................................................................................8Adding a New Site ........................................................................................8Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Site ...............................9

Accessing Site Details via a Site Details Active Page ...........................9Accessing Site Details from a Customer Details Active Page .............10

Deleting an Existing Site ............................................................................10Charge Centres ..................................................................................................10

Example ......................................................................................................12Adding a New Charge Centre .....................................................................12Viewing and Modifying an Existing Charge Centre ..................................12Deleting an Existing Charge Centre ...........................................................13

Customers ..........................................................................................................13Adding a New Customer.............................................................................14Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Customer....................18

Accessing Customer Details via the Customers View .........................19Deleting an Existing Customer ...................................................................19

Deleting a Customer via the Customers View .....................................20Setting Up Customer-Specific Notifications for Analysts..........................20

Commands for Generating Pop-Up Message Boxes............................21Commands for Generating Text Messages on the Information Bar.....22Commands for Generating Sounds ......................................................24

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Asset-Related Data 27Suppliers ............................................................................................................27

Example ......................................................................................................28Adding a New Supplier ..............................................................................28Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Supplier .....................29Deleting an Existing Supplier .....................................................................30

Manufacturers....................................................................................................30Example ......................................................................................................30Adding a New Manufacturer ......................................................................31Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Manufacturer .............31

Accessing Manufacturer Details via a Manufacturer Active Page ......32Accessing Manufacturer Details from an Asset Details Active Page ..33

Deleting an Existing Manufacturer.............................................................33Generic Types ...................................................................................................33

Example ......................................................................................................34Adding a New Generic Type ......................................................................34Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Generic Type .............35Deleting an Existing Generic Type.............................................................35

Assets ................................................................................................................36Adding a New Asset ...................................................................................36Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Asset ..........................39

Accessing Asset Details via the Assets View ......................................40Deleting an Existing Asset..........................................................................40

Deleting an Asset via the Assets View ................................................40Setting Up Asset-Specific Notifications for Analysts ................................41

Commands for Generating Pop-Up Message Boxes............................42Commands for Generating Text Messages on the Information Bar ....43Commands for Generating Sounds ......................................................44

Testing On-Line Customer Access to Your Helpdesk 47Testing the Default Auto Responder E-Mail Commands after Installation ......47

Enabling a Customer for Auto Responder Access .....................................48Carrying Out Auto Responder Testing .......................................................48

Testing the Default SelfService Instance after Installation ...............................49Enabling a Customer for Web Access ........................................................50Carrying Out SelfService Testing...............................................................50

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Introduction to Supportworks ITHD Template Administration

1

Introduction to Supportworks ITHD Template Administration

The Supportworks ITHD template is a basic, general-purpose IT helpdesk application that runs on top of the Supportworks Enterprise Support Platform (ESP). The application that you will actually be using is almost certainly going to be a customised version of the ITHD template. Please be aware that the contents of this Administrator Guide reflect the look and functionality of the template before customisation, and you may therefore notice a number of differences between what you read in the documentation and what you experience in the application you are running.

The Topics Covered in this GuideThis Administrator Guide covers just those administrative functions that are associated with the ITHD application template. Firstly, following this introductory chapter, there is a chapter that provides specific advice on populating the ITHD database.

The two subsequent chapters contain instructions on how to manage customer-related and asset-related records on your Supportworks helpdesk system. Basically, all customisable management forms are documented here. Any worked examples given in these chapters will reflect the basic administrative case scenario presented in the ESP Administrator Guide that comes with every Supportworks system.

Finally, there is a chapter on trying out the Web-based SelfService facility, with a view to establishing how much configuration and/or customisation might be needed.

For an introduction to organising the database, instructions on how to import data from elsewhere and information on managing Supportworks entities that are common to all applications, you should read the ESP Administrator Guide.

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Introduction to Supportworks ITHD Template Administration

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Populating the Supportworks Tables

3

Populating the Supportworks Tables

The material covered in this chapter follows on from the chapter, in the ESP Administrator Guide, that introduces the task of organising the database tables.

The Supportworks ITHD template references a number of database tables that hold the details of your support environment. Of these tables, each of the following has some kind of interrelationship with one or more of the others: Site, Supplier, Manufacturer, Charge Centre, Customer, Asset, Generic Type, Call Profile, Service Level Agreement (SLA), Support Analyst, Skill and Support Group. Although the dependencies implied by these interrelationships are administrative rather than technical in nature, it is nevertheless worth taking note of them if you wish to maximise ease of table setup. Details of the interrelationships are given in the section below.

Relationships Between the TablesThe inter-table relationships you need to be aware of when populating the database tables are described in the following paragraphs.

When you create records in the Customer table, related information from the Charge Centre, Site and SLA tables can be inserted into them. In other words, you will be able to select, by name, a predefined charge centre, site and SLA for entry into the relevant fields of the form designed for populating a customer record. It is therefore recommended that you populate those tables prior to creating records in the Customer table.

Similarly, when you create records in the Asset table, related information from the Charge Centre, Site, SLA and Generic Type tables can be inserted. If you wish to use the Supplier and Manufacturer tables, related information from these, too, could be inserted into the Asset table.

Also, when you create records in the Charge Centre or Call Profile table, related information from the SLA table can be inserted.

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Populating the Supportworks Tables

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Finally, when you create records in the Support Analyst table, related information from the Support Group table can be inserted. If you wish, you can also insert information from the Skill table.

Note that Supportworks gives you the flexibility to assign predefined SLAs to customers, assets, charge centres and call profiles. With so many tables dependent on SLAs, it is always a good idea to populate the SLA table before everything else.

Suggested Order in which to Populate the TablesBy looking at the above-mentioned relationships between tables, you can see that there is more than one “valid” order in which you could populate them. It does not really matter exactly which of these you follow, as long as you make sure that you have taken into account all of the relevant relationships.

If, for whatever reason, you choose not to use certain of the tables, you are free to ignore any table relationships involving them.

A recommended order for populating the tables with records might be as follows:

1. SLA table (ESP)

2. Site table

3. Charge Centre table

4. Supplier table

5. Manufacturer table

6. Generic Type table

7. Customer table

8. Asset table

9. Skill table (ESP)

10. Support Group table (ESP)

11. Support Analyst set of tables (ESP)

12. Call Profile set of tables (ESP)

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Populating the Supportworks Tables

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The manual management of tables with the indication “ESP” is covered in the ESP Administrator Guide, while the management of all the others (using customisable forms) is covered in this guide. Within the respective guides, the entities held in SLA and Call Profile tables are characterised as being administrative; those in Skill, Support Group and Support Analyst tables as user-related; those in Site, Customer and Charge Centre tables as customer-related; and those in Supplier, Manufacturer, Generic Type and Asset tables as asset-related.

Managing these kinds of entities involves not only creating their records initially, but also subsequently viewing and modifying them, deleting them and adding more of them.

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Populating the Supportworks Tables

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Customer-Related Data and Settings

7

Customer-Related Data and Settings

Customer-related information consists of the following:

• Site/organisation details

• Charge-centre (department) details

• Individual customer details

The details of each site, charge centre or individual customer are stored in a record in the appropriate table.

In a customer record, you can also set up on-line access rights and passwords for individual customers, as well as customer-specific notifications directed at support analysts.

Before your Supportworks system goes live, you are advised to ensure that all site, charge-centre and customer records relating to your existing supported customers are in place and contain the correct data and the required settings. Equally, if your system has been live for a while, you may wish to make changes to some of these records. In either case, you will be using a relevant management facility to achieve your goal.

This chapter describes each of the customer-related entities and the facilities available for managing them.

SitesSite records are used for holding contact information on customer sites. An external support operation will usually require analysts to be able to easily distinguish between different sites belonging to the same customer, as well as between different customers. Even an internal helpdesk may support customers on different sites, although, of course, these would then all belong to one company.

For an internal helpdesk operation, it is likely that each site will have a unique name by which it is recognised, and this would naturally be the name to enter in the Site Name field when you create the site’s record. However, for an external

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helpdesk operation, you would need to enter perhaps an abbreviation of the customer’s company name, together with an indication of the site’s locality, to ensure that the entry remains unique.

Site records will be referenced, via the Site Name field, by customer and asset records. Since both customers and assets can be displayed by site name in their respective tree browsers, it is important that the details in the Site Name field be as informative as possible.

Example

As DO IT support both internal and external customers, and as they have only the Site Name on their call forms to identify the customer’s place of work, their analysts need to be able to see at a glance both whether a customer is internal or external and where they are located. In order to achieve this, it has been decided that each Site Name field in a site record should hold the customer’s company name and also the town or county in which the site is located. As DO IT themselves are divided into multiple sites, this scheme should fit well with both internal and external sites, providing clear distinctions between these.

Adding a New Site

To create a new site record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select New > Site (or Manage Sites > Add New) to display the Add New form.

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2. Complete all fields in the form.

3. Click the Add Record button.

You now have a new site record.

Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Site

To examine and edit a site record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Sites > Browse to view the Browse Sites form.

2. Select the required site record from the list and click Properties. The Site properties form is displayed, showing the fields of the selected record.

3. You can now edit the contents of any of the record’s fields.

4. Click Save & Close to save your amendments.

5. Click Close.

Accessing Site Details via a Site Details Active Page

Another way of displaying the Site properties form is as follows:

1. In the shortcut bar of the main client window, click the Customers icon.

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2. At the top of the left-hand panel in the Customers view, click Browse, and in the tree browser, expand Customers by Site to reveal, at the next level down, a list of all the customer sites.

3. Single-click the required site. An active page containing most of that site’s details is displayed.

4. In the Actions area, click the Edit Details link. Alternatively, you could right-click on the site in the tree browser and select Properties from the pop-up menu. In either case, the Site properties form is displayed.

Accessing Site Details from a Customer Details Active Page

If you are currently looking at the details of a specific customer in the Customers view (as described in Accessing Customer Details via the Customers View on page 19), yet another way in which you could display the Site properties form relating to that customer’s site would be as follows:

1. In the Customer Details For area of the active page, click the name of the customer’s site. An active page containing most of that site’s details is displayed.

2. In the Actions area, click the Edit Details link. The Site properties form is displayed.

Deleting an Existing Site

To delete a site record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Sites > Browse to view the Browse Sites form.

2. Select the required site record from the list and click Delete. The record is deleted, as indicated by its disappearance from the list.

3. Click Close.

Charge CentresA charge centre represents a departmental group within an organisation, against which cross-charging may or may not be applied. If inter-departmental charging

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is practiced by your organisation, Supportworks will track such charging for support calls with the aid of charge-centre records. Each charge-centre record contains a description of the charge centre concerned, the chargeable rate (if any) for that centre, and the SLA held against the centre for the provision of customer support.

Before you begin creating charge-centre records, you must ensure, if you want valid SLAs to be assigned to charge centres, that SLA records containing the agreement definitions required by your organisation are already in existence.

Once you have created the requisite charge-centre records, you can assign them to individual customers in customer records, or to items of equipment or software in asset records. Then, whenever a call is logged, the analyst can choose either the basis on which the charge centre is to be applied for that call, or the actual charge centre itself. The default is to use the customer-based charge centre. When a call is finally closed, the analyst can specify whether or not it is to be chargeable.

Supportworks keeps a tally, in the call diary, of the time spent on each call. This, together with the cost-centre information, is available to any accounting or reporting application that is able to access SQL tables. Using such a package, any interested party would be able to calculate and display the actual costs of all chargeable support calls for billing purposes.

In organisations where there is no requirement to track inter-departmental charging, charge-centre records can be utilised simply to define departments within the organisation. In such a case, when entering the data in a record, you would give a department name as the charge centre. You might specify a null rate for each charge centre, and set the SLA to an arbitrary default. Then, having assigned charge centres to all customers and/or assets, you would be able to view, in the relevant tree browsers, customers and/or assets by department.

It is possible to use charge-centre records in an external-support context as well. If the requirements of your external support operation incude being able to run reports by company name, you could make use of the relationships inherent in the Charge Centre table to allow you to achieve this. When setting up such a scheme, the key idea is to enter a company name as the charge centre. The Rate fields in each record would be largely superfluous, as no charging would be involved. If you wish, you could change the meanings of these fields (using the system-customisation facilities) in keeping with the revised usage to which the

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table would be put. In the end, you would undoubtedly want to create your own custom reports to take advantage of the scheme you will have created.

Example

DO IT maintain an internal policy of inter-departmental charging, and therefore need to track charge centres. For external support, no charge centres will be required.

As the DO IT support operation has to offer different levels of support to different departments, an appropriate SLA will need to be assigned to each charge centre.

Adding a New Charge Centre

To create a new charge-centre record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select New > Charge Centre (or Manage Charge Centres > Add New) to view the Add New form, which displays all the fields for the record to be created.

2. Complete all fields in the form.

3. Click the Add Record button.

You now have a new charge-centre record.

Viewing and Modifying an Existing Charge Centre

To examine and edit a charge-centre record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Charge Centres > Browse to view the Browse Charge Centres form.

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2. Select the required charge-centre record from the list and click Properties. The Charge Centre properties form is displayed, showing the fields of the selected record.

3. You can now edit the contents of any of the record’s fields.

4. Click Save & Close to save your amendments.

5. Click Close to close the Browse Charge Centres form.

Deleting an Existing Charge Centre

To delete a charge-centre record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Charge Centres > Browse to view the Browse Charge Centres dialogue box.

2. Select the required charge-centre record from the list and click Delete. The record is deleted, as indicated by its disappearance from the list.

3. Click Close.

CustomersCustomer records hold all relevant information and settings data on supported customers. This ranges from personal and contact details to SelfService and e-mail access-control settings. Among the fields in each customer record, apart from the usual contact fields, is a large-capacity field available for entering free-form text notes, and a number of user-definable fields that you can use for more specific information. As an added feature, many of the user-definable fields will accept commands by which you can specify the content of visible and audible

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messages that would be generated whenever an analyst logs a call from the customer concerned.

Before you begin creating customer records, you must ensure, for maximum convenience, that suitable SLA, site and charge-centre records already exist.

Adding a New Customer

To create a new customer record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select New > Customer (or Manage Customers > Add New) to display the Add New form.

2. Complete all fields in the top left-hand quadrant of the Main Details tab. Note that any field with a red marker in the corner is mandatory. As site records should already exist, you can select the relevant site name from the

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pick list associated with the Site Name field. The same goes for the SLA and Charge Centre fields.

3. In the Communication sub-tab, fill in all the fields with the requisite contact information. Note that the E-Mail field has a browse button on the right providing a link to the system’s Address Book dialogue box, which you can then use to select an e-mail address for insertion into the field. See the chapter, in the ESP Administrator Guide, on managing e-mail for details of that dialogue box.

If your support team uses Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), and there is a requirement to incorporate CTI functionality into Supportworks for communication with customers, see the relevant Appendix in the ESP Administrator Guide.

4. Select the Site Address sub-tab if you wish to check the address of the customer’s site – assuming that you have already specified a valid site name on this form.

5. In the next area of the form (called Other Details by default), there are likely to be a number of fields customised according to your administrative requirements. Among them, you may see a notification-related field. This would allow you to enter a specially coded command that triggers one of three possible types of customer-specific notification, generated for the benefit of support analysts when they log calls against the customer concerned. These commands are described in the section Setting Up Customer-Specific Notifications for Analysts on page 20.

6. In the Notes area, type in any miscellaneous information pertinent to the customer. The limit is 4096 characters. It is up to you to decide what kind of information should be entered here.

7. Select the Customer Attributes/Control tab.

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8. In the top section of this tab (called Additional Attributes by default), you can enter any additional form-based information you wish to store against the customer. You may see up to ten customised fields here, some of which could be notification-related like the one in the Main Details tab. Again, see Setting Up Customer-Specific Notifications for Analysts on page 20 for details.

9. The Access Options area of this tab contains mainly settings controlling the customer’s SelfService and e-mail access rights.

In the checkbox section, enable each of the rights the customer is supposed to have. These rights relate to the Web-based SelfService application and to Auto Responder e-mail commands. If you want all customers to have the same Web and e-mail rights, and you have some knowledge of SQL, you could, as a quick alternative, enable these via a batch process performed on the table from an SQL command line. To obtain details of this procedure, ask

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the Hornbill Technical Support team to e-mail you a copy of the FAQ entitled Mass Updating of Customer Web Access Rights.

Note that the “Get updated customer information (Assetworks)” access option is not actually an access right as such, and applies only if you have Assetworks (formerly known as PC Audit) installed along with Supportworks. It is a self-resetting legacy option that would send a command to Assetworks to display a survey form at the next audit of the customer’s workstation. See your Assetworks user documentation for details if your Assetworks package came with this feature.

In the SelfService Password field, if the customer is to be allowed access to SelfService, enter a default password that the customer can use. To log into SelfService, the customer would then have to supply the customer ID you specified in the Main tab, together with this password. Alternatively, for an internal customer, you may want to give them access to SelfService via their existing Windows/network credentials rather than via the above Supportworks-specific ones. In that case, you should enter any one of the following in the SelfService Password field, depending on the means of authentication required:

• _NTD:<NT domain name> for NT domain authentication

• _ADS:<User Principal Name> for Microsoft Active Directory authentication

• _LDA:<LDAP server name>/<Distinguished Name> for LDAP authentication

• _NDS:<NDS user ID> for Novell NDS authentication

For details of what constitutes the NDS user ID, see the description of the “Authenticate login using” field in the ESP Administrator Guide (found in the section on adding a new support analyst, in the chapter covering user-related data and settings).

10. When you are initially creating the customer records for your system, you can ignore the Customer Assets tab, as this lists all the assets owned by the customer, and you will probably have not created the table of supported asset records yet (as described in the chapter Asset-Related Data on page 27). However, if you are adding a customer record at any subsequent time, you may find it convenient to create asset records for the customer from this tab.

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Use the New button, and proceed in the same way as when creating an asset record directly.

11. Click the Add Record button. You now have a new customer record.

12. Close the form.

Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Customer

To examine and edit a customer record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Customers > Browse to view the Find Customer dialogue box (as illustrated) or the Browse Customers form.

2. In the tree browser displayed in the Browse tab, expand a chosen top-level item down to its lowest level to reveal the required individual customer ID and highlight it. Alternatively, in the case of a table browser, just highlight the required customer entry on the list.

3. Click Properties to display the Customer properties form, whose structure is identical to the Add New form for customer data.

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4. You can now edit the details in any of the tabs. Note that, in the Customer Assets tab, you are able to select any listed asset and make changes to its record.

5. Click Save & Close. Your changes are saved and the form is closed.

6. Click OK to close the Find Customer dialogue box, or Close to close the Browse Customers form.

Accessing Customer Details via the Customers View

Another way of displaying the Customer properties form is as follows:

1. In the shortcut bar of the main client window, click the Customers icon.

2. At the top of the left-hand panel in the Customers view, click Browse, and in the tree browser, expand any of the top-level items down to the lowest level to reveal the ID of the particular customer whose details you wish to access.

3. Single-click the required customer ID. An active page containing most of that customer’s details is displayed.

4. Right-click the customer ID and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Alternatively, in the Actions area of the active page, click the Edit Details link. In either case, the Customer properties form is displayed.

Deleting an Existing Customer

To delete a customer record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Customers > Browse to view the Find Customer dialogue box or the Browse Customers form.

2. In the tree browser, expand a chosen customer category down to the required individual customer ID and highlight it. Alternatively, in the case of a table browser, just highlight the required customer entry on the list.

3. Click Delete and, at the confirmation prompt, click Yes. The customer record is deleted.

4. Click OK.

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Deleting a Customer via the Customers View

Another way of deleting a customer record is as follows:

1. In the shortcut bar of the main client window, click the Customers icon.

2. At the top of the left-hand panel in the Customers view, click Browse, and in the tree browser, expand any of the top-level items down to the lowest level to reveal the ID of the particular customer you wish to delete.

3. Right-click the customer ID and select Delete from the pop-up menu. At the confirmation prompt, click Yes. The customer record is deleted.

Setting Up Customer-Specific Notifications for Analysts

In customer-form fields bound to the following columns of the Customer table, you can enter commands that trigger the generation of various types of notification for analysts whenever they log or examine a call for the customer concerned:

• Column name user4

• Column names attrib1 to attrib10

Against a given customer, you could, for example, set up a notification informing analysts that the customer concerned has failed to renew their support contract. The notification would be generated at the analyst’s workstation on successful entry of the customer’s identification details into the Log Call form. Another example might be a notification that the call being logged is for a VIP customer. It is easy to see that customer-specific notifications can be useful whether set up on a temporary or permanent basis.

The above columns can also be used simply to hold additional customer data. To indicate to everyone that a field, on the customer form, bound to such a column is being used specifically for notification purposes, it would have an appropriate display name, as seen on the form. This name can be changed by means of the Data Dictionary Editor, as described in the System Customisation Guide.

Customer-specific notifications for analysts are of three types:

• Pop-up message boxes

• Text messages on the information bar

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• Sounds

Each type of notification is triggered by a command in an appropriate format, although all commands begin with an exclamation mark (!) to identify them as commands rather than plain text. It is possible to generate more than one notification per customer by entering a command in more than one of the special fields.

Command specifications for each type of notification are given in the following sub-sections.

Commands for Generating Pop-Up Message Boxes

The pop-up message box triggered by a command in a customer record is a simple Windows dialogue box that contains an icon of your choice and the text of your predefined message. Here is an example:

The message box pops up in front of the Log Call form immediately after the analyst has entered data that uniquely identifies the customer. If more than one message-box notification has been set up for a given customer, the message boxes will all pop up in a stack, each in front of the previous one.

Note that notifications of this type are generated during the call logging process only. Unlike other kinds of notification, the message box will not appear in the context of the Call Details form.

The format of the command to generate a pop-up message-box notification is as follows:

!P<icon>:<text of message>

where:

<icon> is one of the following letters, representing the icon indicated:I = Information iconQ = Question icon

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E = Exclamation iconS = Stop icon

<text of message> is any text you wish to compose.

For example, the command to generate the message box illustrated above (containing the stop icon) would be:

!PS:Please check that customer has paid for support

Commands for Generating Text Messages on the Information Bar

Another place where textual notifications can be displayed by command from a customer record is on the information bar that stretches along the bottom of the Log Call and Call Details form. Such a notification consists of an icon of your choice, followed by your predefined text in the colour of your choice. Here is an example, using the same text as in the previous one:

On the Log Call form, the message appears in the information bar as soon as the analyst has entered the valid identifying customer information. If more than one information-bar notification has been set up for a given customer, the messages will cycle around continuously, each of them being displayed for about two seconds at a time.

In the context of the Call Details form, the message will appear in the information bar when the form opens, or when the analyst changes the customer to one whose record contains the relevant notification command.

The format of the command to generate an information-bar notification is as follows:

!T<icon><text colour>:<text of message>

where:

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<icon> is one of the following letters, representing the icon indicated:E = (Error)X = (Exclamation)I = (Information)T = (Shaded clock)S = (Spanner)C = (Calculator)D = (Calendar)K = (Unshaded clock)

<text colour> is one of the following hexadecimal digits, representing the colour indicated:0 = (Black)1 = (Dark blue)2 = (Light blue)3 = (Dark green)4 = (Light green)5 = (Dark cyan)6 = (Light cyan)7 = (Dark red/brown)

8 = (Light red)

9 = (Dark magenta)A = (Light magenta)B = (Dark yellow/green)C = (Light yellow)D = (Dark grey)E = (Lighter green)

<text of message> is any text you wish to compose.

For example, the command to generate the text message illustrated above (with an exclamation icon and light-red-coloured text) would be:

!TX8:Please check that customer has paid for support

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Commands for Generating Sounds

In addition to, or instead of, defining a visual notification in a customer record, you could specify a sound to be played when an analyst has entered valid identifying customer information in the Log Call form, or displays the customer’s information in the Call Details form. This sound can be a standard Windows (or PC speaker) sound, or it can be a sound stored in a specific .wav file. Note that, if you set up more than one sound notification, only the first of these will be played.

In the context of the Call Details form, the sound will be played when the form opens, or when the analyst changes the customer to one whose record contains the relevant notification command.

The format of the command to generate a sound notification is as follows:

!S<sound type>[:<pathname>]

where:

<sound type> is one of the following characters, representing the type of sound to be played:– = PC speaker beepA = AsteriskX = ExclamationH = Critical StopQ = QuestionO = Default BeepW = .wav file

<pathname> is the folder location and filename of the .wav file that is to be played, if any. It is necessary to supply a pathname (together with the preceding colon) only if you have specified the sound type as W.

The sound types A, X, H, Q and O refer to the sounds associated with standard Windows events, as defined in the Sounds section of Control Panel.

The command to generate the Windows “Exclamation” sound, for example, would be:

!SX

To play the sound file tada.wav, the command might be:

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!SW:C:\WINNT\Media\tada.wav

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Asset-Related Data

The hardware and software items your team supports are known collectively as assets. Asset-related information consists of the following:

• Asset supplier contact details

• Asset manufacturer contact details

• Generic type details, used for categorising assets

• Actual hardware/software asset details

The details of each supplier, manufacturer, generic type or actual asset are stored in a record in the appropriate table.

In an asset record, you can also set up asset-specific notifications directed at support analysts.

Before your Supportworks system goes live, you are advised to ensure that all supplier, manufacturer, generic type and asset records relating to your existing supported assets are in place and contain the correct data. Equally, if your system has been live for a while, you may wish to make changes to some of these records. In either case, you will be using a relevant management facility to achieve your goal.

This chapter describes each of the asset-related entities and the facilities available for managing them.

SuppliersSupplier records in Supportworks hold support- and/or sales-contact information about the suppliers of the hardware and software owned by your organisation or by your external customers. Thus, if the source of a reported problem turns out to be a faulty asset, an associated record of the supplier of that stock would be available for scrutiny. A selectable reference to the supplier is normally provided on the asset form.

The holding of supplier information in Supportworks is optional, as you may wish to manage all your asset-procurement information using a dedicated

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application instead. However, even if this information exists in an external database, you may want to keep a regularly synchronised copy in Supportworks as well for more convenient accessibility.

Example

DO IT, as a software-manufacturing house, are the primary suppliers of their FAST software, but they also have a number of external resellers who supply the software. It is essential that the right supplier of the FAST software is listed against each FAST customer. In addition, DO IT use a number of external hardware suppliers for their own staff’s equipment. Therefore, it is necessary to make the supplier database an accurate means of accessing specialist support for in-house hardware, as well as an accurate purchase register for the FAST software supplied to their customers.

Consequently, it has been decided that there will be three kinds of supplier records, containing the following information:

• The names and contact details of the hardware suppliers from which the DO IT in-house assets have been purchased

• The names and contact details of the FAST resellers, each of whose company name in an actual record would be prefixed with “RE” to denote a reseller

• The details of the DO IT office and sales person responsible for the sale of the FAST software to direct-purchase customers

Adding a New Supplier

To create a new supplier record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select New > Supplier (or Manage Suppliers > Add New) to display the Add New form.

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2. Complete all fields in the form.

3. Click the Add Record button.

You now have a new supplier record.

Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Supplier

To examine and edit a supplier record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Suppliers > Browse to view the Browse Suppliers form.

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2. Select the required supplier record from the list and click Properties. The Supplier properties form is displayed, showing the fields of the selected record.

3. You can now edit the contents of any of the record’s fields. Also, if you have CTI set up on your workstation, you can dial out to the supplier by clicking the red telephone button next to the relevant telephone-number field.

4. Click Save & Close to save your amendments.

5. Click Close.

Deleting an Existing Supplier

To delete a supplier record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Suppliers > Browse to view the Browse Suppliers form.

2. Select the required supplier record from the list and click Delete. The record is deleted, as indicated by its disappearance from the list.

3. Click Close.

ManufacturersManufacturer records have much the same purpose in relation to manufacturers as supplier records do with respect to suppliers, in that they store support- and/or sales-contact information about the manufacturers of the hardware or software being used by your organisation or by your external customers. Such a record would provide a point of contact for the analyst should a problem with an asset escalate beyond the supplier. A selectable reference to the manufacturer is normally provided on the asset form.

The holding of manufacturer information in Supportworks is optional.

Example

In addition to maintaining contact with hardware manufacturers in respect of their in-house assets, DO IT are software manufacturers in their own right who

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produce FAST, the project-management application. Consequently, it is necessary for DO IT to hold manufacturer information against both internal and external assets. This would be done by creating a single manufacturer record in the name of DO IT, as well as a third-party manufacturer record for each piece of hardware used in-house.

Adding a New Manufacturer

To create a new manufacturer record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select New > Manufacturer (or Manage Manufacturers > Add New) to display the Add New form.

2. Complete all fields in the form.

3. Click the Add Record button.

You now have a new manufacturer record.

Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Manufacturer

To examine and edit a manufacturer record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Manufacturers > Browse to view the Browse Manufacturers form.

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2. Select the required manufacturer record from the list and click Properties. The Manufacturer properties form is displayed, showing the fields of the selected record.

3. You can now edit the contents of any of the record’s fields. Also, if you have CTI set up on your workstation, you can dial out to the manufacturer by clicking the red telephone button next to the relevant telephone-number field.

4. Click Save & Close to save your amendments.

5. Click Close.

Accessing Manufacturer Details via a Manufacturer Active Page

Another way of displaying the Manufacturer properties form is as follows:

1. In the shortcut bar of the main client window, click the Assets icon.

2. In the tree browser at the left of the Assets view, expand any of the top-level items down to the level that displays manufacturers.

3. Single-click the required manufacturer. An active page containing most of that manufacturer’s details is displayed.

4. In the Actions area, click the Edit Manufacturer Details link. The Manufacturer properties form is displayed.

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Accessing Manufacturer Details from an Asset Details Active Page

If you are currently looking at the details of a particular asset in the Assets view (as described in Accessing Asset Details via the Assets View on page 40), yet another way in which you could display the Manufacturer properties form relating to the manufacturer of that asset would be as follows:

1. In the Asset Information area of the active page, click the name of the asset’s manufacturer. An active page containing most of that manufacturer’s details is displayed.

2. In the Actions area, click the Edit Manufacturer Details link. The Manufacturer properties form is displayed.

Deleting an Existing Manufacturer

To delete a manufacturer record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Manufacturers > Browse to view the Browse Manufacturers form.

2. Select the required manufacturer record from the list and click Delete. The record is deleted, as indicated by its disappearance from the list.

3. Click Close.

Generic TypesSupportworks uses generic types as a means of categorising all supported hardware and software. The records in which these entities are held are referenced from the asset form. Generic types offer a helpful way of breaking down the asset records, as viewed in an asset tree browser, since they can be configured as root group items below the top level. Thus, if you look in the Assets view and expand the Entire Asset Database group, you will see the codes that represent the generic types displayed at the next level. Also, for reporting purposes, generic types can help to identify fault trends in assets, or areas where your support team may require further training.

Before you start creating generic type records, you should compile a list of all the hardware and/or software categories that you can think of to classify your

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currently supported assets, and make up a unique easy-to-identify code of up to 32 characters to represent each of them. You can then enter these on the form used to create the records. To further enhance your tree-browser display, you can select, for each generic type code, an appropriate icon with which to prefix it.

Example

As previously indicated, DO IT have to provide technical support for both internal and external customers, the support being divided between hardware and FAST software. As with any software, there are a number of versions that customers can purchase. Consequently, DO IT have decided that they will define a separate generic type for each version of FAST in commercial use, which will allow them to track specific problem areas for key performance reporting. The supported in-house hardware will also be divided into logical categories, with appropriate generic types defined, allowing DO IT to trace problem assets and report back on these to the relevant suppliers or manufacturers.

Adding a New Generic Type

To create a new generic type record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select New > Generic Type (or Manage Generic Types > Add New) to display the Add New form.

2. Complete all fields in the form. Note that the code (limited to a maximum of 32 characters) will be the unique identifier for the record, and will be the one seen in asset tree browsers and (normally) in reports. Be aware that the description (if a field for it exists at all) is not a unique identifier and has a much bigger size limit.

3. Click the Add Record button.

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You now have a new generic type record.

Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Generic Type

To examine and edit a generic type record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Generic Types > Browse to view the Browse Generic Types form.

2. Select the required generic type record from the list and click Properties. The Generic Type properties form is displayed, showing the fields of the selected record.

3. You can now edit the contents of any of the record’s fields.

4. Click Save & Close to save your amendments.

5. Click Close.

Deleting an Existing Generic Type

To delete a generic type record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Generic Types > Browse to view the Browse Generic Types form.

2. Select the required generic type record from the list and click Delete. The record is deleted, as indicated by its disappearance from the list.

3. Click Close.

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AssetsAsset records hold all relevant information regarding the supported software and hardware belonging to customers. This includes generic and specific identifying details of each asset, ownership/location details and procurement details. Also, just as in customer records, it is possible to enter free-form text notes, as well as data in customised fields. Again, the latter data may consist of commands to generate messages for analysts at call-logging time.

Supportworks does not enforce asset ownership by default, although it can be configured to do so by defining (in the data dictionary) the relevant fields as mandatory. Such enforcement would mean that each piece of hardware or software being supported by the helpdesk would have to belong to one specific person or department, or would have to be held in stock at a known location. If an asset item were then to be moved, you would have to assign it to another person or department, or, if an owner was being relocated along with the asset, you would have to assign it to the new locality. The advantage of asset-ownership enforcement is that assets cannot simply get “lost” in the system.

Before you begin creating the first asset records, you will probably want to ensure that suitable SLA, site, charge centre, supplier, manufacturer and generic type records already exist.

Adding a New Asset

To create a new asset record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select New > Asset (or Manage Assets > Add New) to display the Add New form.

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2. In the Main Details tab, complete all fields on the left-hand side of the Asset Details area.

If manufacturer records containing make information, and asset records containing model information already exist in the database, you should be able to select a make and a model from the pick lists associated with these fields.

As SLA records should already exist, you can select the relevant SLA from the pick list associated with that field.

If you have Assetworks (formerly known as PC Audit) installed along with Supportworks, or a supported third-party auditing application is integrated with your system, you may wish to use the Inventory function, which is selectable from the Actions menu. The purpose of this function is to allow you to reference detailed information about the asset whose record you are creating. When invoked, it displays the asset information in the Hornbill Information Browser window. Note that you have to enter a valid asset ID before you can invoke the function successfully.

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3. Complete all the fields displayed on the left-hand side of the Ownership/Location area. For the owner type, you can select one of three options, depending on the kind of ownership you wish to ascribe to the asset. If you select User, you should then identify, in the next field, the individual customer who owns the asset.

As site records should already exist, you can select the relevant site name from the pick list associated with that field. When you specify a valid site name here, you will see the site-address details appear automatically in the sub-tab on the right.

4. Complete all the fields in the Procurement sub-tab. If Supplier records already exist, you should be able to select the relevant supplier’s company name from the pick list associated with the Supplier field.

You can set a date (purchase or warranty-expiry) in one of two ways. After clicking inside the date field, you can either use its pop-up control to display a calendar from which to select the date you require, or you can edit the date directly by typing over each portion and finally pressing the Tab key.

By default, the Warranty Expires field is configured to display a red background once the stipulated date has been reached (and a green background before that). This field is also configured to appear in the default call forms that contain asset details, allowing the analyst to be instantly aware of the relevant asset’s warranty status during the course of a call or when examining an existing call.

5. Select the Generic Type sub-tab. If generic-type records already exist, you should be able to select the relevant generic type from the pick list associated with that field. The remaining field(s) in that sub-tab would then be populated automatically.

6. Select the Extended Details tab and enter any additional form-based information you wish to store against the asset.

One or more of the attribute fields you see here may be notification-related. Such fields would allow you to enter a specially coded command that triggers one of three possible types of asset-specific notification, generated for the benefit of support analysts when they log calls against the asset concerned. These commands are described in the section Setting Up Asset-Specific Notifications for Analysts on page 41.

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7. Select the Notes tab and type in any miscellaneous information pertinent to the asset. The limit is 4096 characters. It is up to you to decide what kind of information should be entered here.

8. Click Add Record.

9. You now have a new asset record.

Viewing and Modifying the Details of an Existing Asset

To examine and edit an asset record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Assets > Browse to view the Find Asset dialogue box (as illustrated) or the Browse Assets form.

2. In the tree browser displayed in the Browse tab, expand a chosen top-level item down to the lowest level to reveal the required individual asset ID and highlight it. Alternatively, in the case of a table browser, just highlight the required asset entry on the list.

3. Click Properties to display the Asset properties form.

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4. You can now edit the details in any of the tabs.

5. Click Save & Close. Your changes are saved and the form closes.

6. Click OK or Close.

Accessing Asset Details via the Assets View

Another way of displaying the Asset properties form is as follows:

1. In the shortcut bar of the main client window, click the Assets icon.

2. In the tree browser at the left of the Assets view, expand any of the top-level items down to the lowest level to reveal the ID of the particular asset whose details you wish to access.

3. Single-click the required asset ID. An active page containing most of that asset’s details is displayed.

4. Right-click the asset ID and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Alternatively, in the Actions area of the active page, click the Edit Details link. In either case, the Asset properties form is displayed.

Deleting an Existing Asset

To delete an asset record, follow the instructions given here:

1. From the File menu, select Manage Assets > Browse to view the Find Asset dialogue box or the Browse Assets form.

2. In the tree browser displayed in the Browse tab, expand a chosen top-level item down to the lowest level to reveal the ID of the asset to be deleted and highlight it. Alternatively, in the case of a table browser, just highlight the required asset entry on the list.

3. Click Delete. The asset record is deleted.

4. Click OK.

Deleting an Asset via the Assets View

Another way of deleting an asset record is as follows:

1. In the shortcut bar of the main client window, click the Assets icon.

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2. At the top of the left-hand panel in the Assets view, click Browse, and in the tree browser, expand any of the top-level items down to the lowest level to reveal the ID of the particular asset you wish to delete.

3. Right-click the asset ID and select Delete from the pop-up menu. The asset record is deleted.

Setting Up Asset-Specific Notifications for Analysts

In asset-form fields bound to the columns attrib1 to attrib10 in the Asset table, you can enter commands that trigger the generation of various types of notification for analysts whenever they log or examine a call relating to the asset concerned.

Against a given server, for example, you could set up a notification informing analysts that the server is a “mission-critical” one. The notification would be generated at the analyst’s workstation on successful entry of the asset’s identification details into the Log Call form. Another example might be a notification that a given laptop PC is currently on loan to a particular person. It is easy to see that asset-specific notifications can be useful whether set up on a temporary or permanent basis.

The above columns can also be used simply to hold additional asset data. To indicate to everyone that a field, on the asset form, bound to such a column is being used specifically for notification purposes, it would have an appropriate display name, as seen on the form. This name can be changed by means of the Data Dictionary Editor, as described in the System Customisation Guide.

Asset-specific notifications for analysts are of three types:

• Pop-up message boxes

• Text messages on the information bar

• Sounds

Each type of notification is triggered by a command in an appropriate format, although all commands begin with an exclamation mark (!) to identify them as commands rather than plain text. It is possible to generate more than one notification per asset by entering a command in more than one of the special fields.

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Command specifications for each type of notification are given in the following sub-sections.

Commands for Generating Pop-Up Message Boxes

The pop-up message box triggered by a command in an asset record is a simple Windows dialogue box that contains an icon of your choice and the text of your predefined message. Here is an example:

The message box pops up in front of the Log Call form immediately after the analyst has entered data that uniquely identifies the asset. If more than one message-box notification has been set up for a given asset, the message boxes will all pop up in a stack, each in front of the previous one.

Note that notifications of this type are generated during the call logging process only. Unlike other kinds of notification, the message box will not appear in the context of the Call Details form.

The format of the command to generate a pop-up message-box notification is as follows:

!P<icon>:<text of message>

where:

<icon> is one of the following letters, representing the icon indicated:I = Information iconQ = Question iconE = Exclamation iconS = Stop icon

<text of message> is any text you wish to compose.

For example, the command to generate the message box illustrated above (containing the exclamation icon) would be:

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!PE:This is a mission-critical server

Commands for Generating Text Messages on the Information Bar

Another place where textual notifications can be displayed by command from an asset record is on the information bar that stretches along the bottom of the Log Call and Call Details form. Such a notification consists of an icon of your choice, followed by your predefined text in the colour of your choice. Here is an example, using the same text as in the previous one:

On the Log Call form, the message appears in the information bar as soon as the analyst has entered the valid identifying asset information. If more than one information-bar notification has been set up for a given asset, the messages will cycle around continuously, each of them being displayed for about two seconds at a time.

In the context of the Call Details form, the message will appear in the information bar when the form opens, or when the analyst changes the asset to one whose record contains the relevant notification command.

The format of the command to generate an information-bar notification is as follows:

!T<icon><text colour>:<text of message>

where:

<icon> is one of the following letters, representing the icon indicated:E = (Error)X = (Exclamation)I = (Information)T = (Shaded clock)S = (Spanner)

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C = (Calculator)D = (Calendar)K = (Unshaded clock)

<text colour> is one of the following hexadecimal digits, representing the colour indicated:0 = (Black)1 = (Dark blue)

2 = (Light blue)3 = (Dark green)4 = (Light green)5 = (Dark cyan)

6 = (Light cyan)7 = (Dark red/brown)

8 = (Light red)

9 = (Dark magenta)A = (Light magenta)B = (Dark yellow/green)C = (Light yellow)D = (Dark grey)E = (Lighter green)

<text of message> is any text you wish to compose.

For example, the command to generate the text message illustrated above (with an exclamation icon and light-red-coloured text) would be:

!TX8:This is a mission-critical server

Commands for Generating Sounds

In addition to, or instead of, defining a visual notification in an asset record, you could specify a sound to be played when an analyst has entered valid identifying asset information in the Log Call form, or displays the asset’s information in the Call Details form. This sound can be a standard Windows (or PC speaker) sound, or it can be a sound stored in a specific .wav file. Note that, if you set up more than one sound notification, only the first of these will be played.

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In the context of the Call Details form, the sound will be played when the form opens, or when the analyst changes the asset to one whose record contains the relevant notification command.

The format of the command to generate a sound notification is as follows:

!S<sound type>[:<pathname>]

where:

<sound type> is one of the following characters, representing the type of sound to be played:– = PC speaker beepA = AsteriskX = ExclamationH = Critical StopQ = QuestionO = Default BeepW = .wav file

<pathname> is the folder location and filename of the .wav file that is to be played, if any. It is necessary to supply a pathname (together with the preceding colon) only if you have specified the sound type as W.

The sound types A, X, H, Q and O refer to the sounds associated with standard Windows events, as defined in the Sounds section of Control Panel.

The command to generate the Windows “Exclamation” sound, for example, would be:

!SX

To play the sound file tada.wav, the command might be:

!SW:C:\WINNT\Media\tada.wav

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Testing On-Line Customer Access to Your Helpdesk

In the appropriate chapter of the ESP Administrator Guide, you were introduced to the Auto Responder e-mail commands and the Web-based SelfService application. Before you start publicising these access facilities to your customers, you are advised to test them so that you will be aware of what the customers are going to experience.

Guidance on the testing of both access methods is given in this chapter.

Testing the Default Auto Responder E-Mail Commands after InstallationTesting the Auto Responder entails sending e-mail messages to any valid Supportworks mailbox address as a known customer, with a relevant command included in the Subject field of each message (or wherever the command is expected to be located according to its configuration).

To be able to successfully accept such commands, however, the system must first be set up so as to be capable of receiving external mail and, in addition, you must enable Auto Responder access for the test customer. You would perform external mail setup by means of the Server Configuration utility program, as described in the Server Configuration Guide. However, you would carry out the customer enablement within the customer’s database record, opened from the Supportworks client, as detailed below. In a new installation, you may find a number of “dummy” customer records set up in Supportworks, or perhaps the records of a set of genuine customers whose details have been imported. You can use any one of these customers for testing purposes.

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Enabling a Customer for Auto Responder Access

When you are just testing the Auto Responder, you only need to enable one customer for Auto Responder access. However, once you are ready to make the commands public, you will have to repeat the enablement for each of your customers whose details are already held in the database. For new customers, you would enable Auto Responder access as part of the overall process of creating records in the Customer table (as described in Adding a New Customer on page 14).

To simply enable a customer for Auto Responder access, follow the procedure given here:

1. In the main window of the Supportworks client, select File > Manage Customers > Browse.

2. Choose an appropriate customer in the tree browser, expand the entry down to the customer ID, and double-click that customer ID.

3. In the Customer Properties dialogue box, select the Control tab.

4. Enable the “Can request status reports via e-mail” access option.

5. Still in the Access Options field, enable “Can log calls via e-mail”.

6. Also enable “Can update calls via e-mail”.

7. Decide on a password to assign to the test customer for SelfService access, and enter it in the appropriate field.

8. Click Apply, and then OK.

9. Click OK to close the tree browser.

You can now start the actual testing of the Auto Responder.

Carrying Out Auto Responder Testing

The procedure, presented here, for carrying out Auto Responder testing assumes that you are testing the default commands. In the role of the chosen customer, use an e-mail client outside of the Supportworks environment with which to perform this procedure:

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1. Compose and send a message containing any chosen text, with ? logcall in the Subject field. You should then receive back a message confirming that your call-log request was successful. You should also be able to see the logged call listed in the Helpdesk view of the Supportworks client. Make a note of the call reference number, and then, in the role of analyst, carry out any action on the call (such as assigning it to somebody) from the client.

2. Compose and send a message containing any other chosen text, with ? updatecall Fnnnnnnn in the Subject field, where Fnnnnnnn is the reference number you noted. You should then receive back a message confirming that your call-update request was successful.

3. Compose and send a message with ? callstatus Fnnnnnnn in the Subject field, where Fnnnnnnn is the reference number you noted. You should then receive, by e-mail, a call-status report showing the action you performed as an analyst on the call, and also showing your update of the call by e-mail.

4. Log a second call via e-mail as in step 1 above.

5. Compose and send a message with ? opencalls in the Subject field. You should then receive, by e-mail, a summary report listing the two calls you have logged.

6. Compose and send a message with ? webpassword in the Subject field. You should then receive back an e-mail message containing the customer’s SelfService password.

Testing the Default SelfService Instance after InstallationTesting the SelfService application merely involves logging into the default service as a customer and trying out all the available facilities. To be able to log successfully into SelfService, you must enable the test customer for Web access. You would carry out this enablement within their database record, opened from the Supportworks client. In a new installation, you may find a number of “dummy” customer records set up in Supportworks, or perhaps the records of a set of genuine customers whose details have been imported. You can use any one of these customers for testing purposes.

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Enabling a Customer for Web Access

When you are just testing SelfService, you only need to enable one customer for Web access. However, once you are ready to make the service public, you will have to repeat this exercise for each of your customers whose details are already held in the database. For new customers, you would enable Web access as part of the overall process of creating records in the Customer table (as described in Adding a New Customer on page 14).

To simply enable a customer for Web access, follow the procedure given here:

1. In the main window of the Supportworks client, select File > Manage Customers > Browse.

2. Choose any customer (perhaps a dummy customer) in the tree browser, expand the entry down to the customer ID, and double-click that ID.

3. In the Customer properties form, select the Customer Attributes/Control tab.

4. Enable the “Can access the Customer Web Area” access option.

5. Still in the Access Options area, enable all the Web call functions (log, update and view) that you will want to test via SelfService.

6. Decide on a password to assign to the test customer for SelfService access, and enter it in the appropriate field. Entry of this password will allow you to use the Supportworks-specific means of authentication and, for testing purposes at least, this is perhaps the simplest option. If you nevertheless wish to use some other method of authentication, please refer to step 9 in the section Adding a New Customer.

7. Click Save & Close.

8. Click OK to close the tree browser.

You can now close the client if you wish and start the actual testing of the SelfService application. Instructions are given in the next subsection.

Carrying Out SelfService Testing

When testing SelfService for the first time, it is probably easiest if you run your Web browser on the computer where the SelfService Web server is installed.

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To access the default SelfService instance locally, enter the following URL:

http://localhost/sw/selfservice/

The SelfService login page is then displayed:

Type in a valid customer ID and password (perhaps relating to the dummy customer you created previously), and click Sign In.

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Note A customer can choose, by means of the checkbox here, to be remembered on their computer, in which case their name and ID would be held in a cookie for 30 days and, next time they displayed this page, they would see their name as a link on the right, as shown above. Then, all they would have to do to log in is click their name, type their password in the field that appears and click the adjacent Sign In button. (They can make their system forget their identity at any time by clicking the “x” icon in brackets.)

On a successful login, you will see the SelfService home page:

This page is designed to let customers see how many of their calls are still open, to show any issues being publicly flagged right now, and to provide an entry

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point for logging new calls, viewing existing calls (including those logged for the customer by support analysts), updating existing calls and searching the KnowledgeBase. (Note that you can see a full description of an issue by clicking its summary in the SelfService Noticeboard area of the page.)

To log a new call, click the “Log New Request” link on the left, whereupon (depending on your SelfService configuration) you may first be presented with a page that forces you to search the Knowledgebase. If that is the case, just leave the edit field blank to ensure that no matches are found, click the Search button and, in the empty Knowledgebase Results tab that then comes into view, click the “log a request” link. The “proper” Log New Request page is displayed:

Notice how the customer is able to select a named asset he or she owns in the first field, and a problem profile in the second and subsidiary fields (down to the

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required tier). The edit field at the bottom will map to the problem-description field in the call record. Enter any text in this field and click Submit Request. The following confirmation appears:

(If Supportworks Messenger is running on your computer, its flag window may now pop up, informing you, as an analyst belonging to the relevant group, that a call has been logged and assigned to your group.)

The customer could now specify and submit a file to the support team, which Supportworks would automatically attach to the call just logged. This file submission would be regarded as a call update. Try it now if you wish, or you can wait till later to make a similar submission as part of an explicit update (as described below).

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Make a note of the request reference (which would actually be the call reference number), and click the “My Requests” link on the left. The following page is displayed:

Notice that the call you just logged appears on the list.

To view the details of that call, double-click its entry in the list. The following page is what you will see, displayed in a separate window:

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To update this call, select the “Update This Request” tab. The following page is displayed:

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This page is intended for the customer to add follow-up details to a previously logged call. Enter any text in the large edit field, and (if you wish) click Browse to select a file to be attached. Click the submission link at the bottom. A brief update confirmation then appears below that.

Close the Request window. Now, if you wish to test the KnowledgeBase search facility, you must first ensure that KnowledgeBase documents do, in fact, exist. If that is the case, click the “KnowledgeBase Search” link on the left. The following page is displayed:

In the first drop-down list, select “Word search (any words can match)” as the type of KnowledgeBase search you wish to conduct. In the large edit field, type a suitable collection of significant words. With a word search, if you use words such as “a” or “the” (just for test purposes), you are virtually guaranteed to

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obtain a result. In the “Look in” section, enable the Document Title option and/or any of the other options, and click Search. You should obtain a list of results as follows:

Any call-related problem/resolution data, FAQs or external documents that matched your search criteria would be listed here. Click any result entry to view the contents of the record or document concerned. If you chose an external document, it would open in the relevant application (or Notepad). If you chose a call or FAQ record, you would be presented with a pop-up page in the following format:

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Close the document window. Back on the KnowledgeBase results page, click the “logout” link at the top right to log out of SelfService. The login page is displayed again.

Now run the Supportworks client if it is not already running. If you display the Helpdesk view, you will see that a new call entry (with Incoming, Unassigned or Unaccepted status, depending on configuration) has appeared. This corresponds to the call that you logged by means of SelfService. Your update to that call will be visible in the call diary immediately (if the call status is Unassigned or Unaccepted), or once you have logged the call as an analyst (if the call status is Incoming). It would also be visible to you, in your role as a customer, in the Diary tab on the SelfService Request page.

If you are satisfied that SelfService is working properly, you may now wish to adjust some of its operational parameters, and you will certainly want to customise the text that forms the basis of some of the pages you have been viewing. Also, you may wish to create and configure additional instances of SelfService. You can do all this by means of the Manage SelfService Configurations function in the client. The facilities available in this function are documented in the ESP Administrator Guide.

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