ARS 4.02
HD 4.0

Our Help Desk team leader raised this question this morning.

There was a crash of our internet proxy server, so the Help Desk received quite
a few calls, each asking about the Internet connectivity.

The question: is there any way to "attach" all the callers as individual
requesters to a single ticket for "internet connectivity problem".

I said I thought the only 'out of the box' solution was to go to the "Related
Items" tab and open an additional HD Ticket for each caller.

And then wondered whether:
a) there was actually another solution, which I had overlooked (putting all the
names in the Description field doesn't count :-)
b) anyone out there have a custom workaround? or other ideas?

Thanks

Regards,
Carolyn

By using the parent / child relationship you are able to create one parent
ticket and as many duplicate tickets as you want, then when the parent is
resolved the remaining children are closed. This still requires a ticket per
requestor so I am not sure that is what you are looking for. Otherwise, you
will definitely need to make some customizations.

Mark

----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2000 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: Multiple Requesters


> **
>
> ARS 4.02
> HD 4.0
>
> Our Help Desk team leader raised this question this morning.
>
> There was a crash of our internet proxy server, so the Help Desk received
quite
> a few calls, each asking about the Internet connectivity.
>
> The question: is there any way to "attach" all the callers as individual
> requesters to a single ticket for "internet connectivity problem".
>
> I said I thought the only 'out of the box' solution was to go to the
"Related
> Items" tab and open an additional HD Ticket for each caller.
>
> And then wondered whether:
> a) there was actually another solution, which I had overlooked (putting
all the
> names in the Description field doesn't count :-)
> b) anyone out there have a custom workaround? or other ideas?
>
> Thanks
>
> Regards,
> Carolyn
>
>
>

You could create workflow that fires off of a push button that says something
like "Create Child Ticket" and it could push the data from the master ticket
and also set some default field values - all you would need to do is enter
the new requester name on the child ticket and possibly some specific
details. I believe that a child ticket process is the best way to monitor
and document each separate call. The create child workflow would link the
child tickets to the master ticket and when that master ticket is closed, all
of the child tickets could close and the resolution for the master ticket
could set to the child tickets.




Carolyn_Andre@BANKONE.COM@LISTSERV.VISTAIT.COM on 12/21/2000 03:07:00 PM
Please respond to ARSLIST@LISTSERV.VISTAIT.COM
Sent by: ARSLIST@LISTSERV.VISTAIT.COM
To: ARSLIST@LISTSERV.VISTAIT.COM
cc:
Subject: Re: Multiple Requesters

**

ARS 4.02
HD 4.0

Our Help Desk team leader raised this question this morning.

There was a crash of our internet proxy server, so the Help Desk received
quite
a few calls, each asking about the Internet connectivity.

The question: is there any way to "attach" all the callers as individual
requesters to a single ticket for "internet connectivity problem".

I said I thought the only 'out of the box' solution was to go to the "Related
Items" tab and open an additional HD Ticket for each caller.

And then wondered whether:
a) there was actually another solution, which I had overlooked (putting all
the
names in the Description field doesn't count :-)
b) anyone out there have a custom workaround? or other ideas?

Thanks

Regards,
Carolyn

We recently went through this thought process. We saw at least two ways to
do it:

1. Duplicate tickets, Parent->Children. This is the one discussed on the
list so far. All tickets are identical except for the Requestor
information and the distinction of one of them as the "parent" ticket. A
status change in the Parent cascades to all, so that you only have to
change one ticket once the problem is resolved.

2. Create another schema that contains Requestor information fields and a
field to hold the Help Desk ticket #. For each secondary caller on a Help
Desk ticket, have a button called something like "Add Caller" that would
bring up this other schema. There you save the caller's info and the Help
Desk ticket# (the latter should be done automatically). Thus you have a
parent-child relationship, but it is between the Help Desk schema's single
ticket (parent) and the new schema's multiple records (children -- one
child per new caller on the Help Desk ticket). You could then have a
table field displayed on the Help Desk ticket showing all callers who have
called about the problem captured on the ticket. This method is actually
cleaner in many ways. The end result is one Help Desk ticket for a given
problem, but it is tied to any number of callers via this new schema.

We wound up settling on option #1, but only because it was important for us
to, as a metric, show one ticket per call received.

-James Clyde


At 02:55 PM 12/21/00 -0600, you wrote:
>**
>
>ARS 4.02
>HD 4.0
>
>Our Help Desk team leader raised this question this morning.
>
>There was a crash of our internet proxy server, so the Help Desk received
quite
>a few calls, each asking about the Internet connectivity.
>
>The question: is there any way to "attach" all the callers as individual
>requesters to a single ticket for "internet connectivity problem".
>
>I said I thought the only 'out of the box' solution was to go to the "Related
>Items" tab and open an additional HD Ticket for each caller.
>
>And then wondered whether:
>a) there was actually another solution, which I had overlooked (putting
all the
>names in the Description field doesn't count :-)
>b) anyone out there have a custom workaround? or other ideas?
>
>Thanks
>
>Regards,
>Carolyn
>
>
>
>

We created a field called Impact. The field is a simple integer field with
a spinner. When it becomes apparent that we have a situation such as you
describe (Many calls related to the same problem) The Help desk personnel
keep the pertinent ticket on display and keep incrementing the the Impact
field for each call.

They dont have to create child tickets or additional tickets for each call
but they are able to document the work done by then in answering all of
those calls.

Stuart





-----Original Message-----
From: Carolyn_Andre@BANKONE.COM [mailto:Carolyn_Andre@BANKONE.COM]
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2000 14:56
To: ARSLIST@LISTSERV.VISTAIT.COM
Subject: Re: Multiple Requesters


**

ARS 4.02
HD 4.0

Our Help Desk team leader raised this question this morning.

There was a crash of our internet proxy server, so the Help Desk received
quite
a few calls, each asking about the Internet connectivity.

The question: is there any way to "attach" all the callers as individual
requesters to a single ticket for "internet connectivity problem".

I said I thought the only 'out of the box' solution was to go to the
"Related
Items" tab and open an additional HD Ticket for each caller.

And then wondered whether:
a) there was actually another solution, which I had overlooked (putting all
the
names in the Description field doesn't count :-)
b) anyone out there have a custom workaround? or other ideas?

Thanks

Regards,
Carolyn

Hi Listers,

We've implemented a simple solution for similar requirements. (Custom Help
Desk application) The Help Desk wants one ticket per call. They also want
to be able to create those tickets quickly in a "Yes, it's down" situation.
In some cases, the callers want to be called back when the situation is
resolved, and the Help Desk provides this service.

We created a small form, Outage, that simply contains the name of whatever
is "down" and a status - Happening Now, or Over. The Create-date captures
the approximate time of the outage and the Modified-date captures the
approximate end time (a nice bonus).

When a flood of calls starts to arrive, the first-line folks at the Help
Desk create a row in the Outage table. On the Help Desk "Call Ticket" form
is a button labeled, "Yes, It's Down." When this button is clicked, if
there is only one active Outage row, a dialog is displayed. If there are
multiple active rows, a pick list is displayed, then the dialog is displayed
after an Outage is selected.

The dialog has only one visible field, asking whether the caller wants to be
called back. Clicking the "Yes" radio button ("No" is default) makes fields
visible for caller's name, phone, and pager (clicking "No" again hides
them). The dialog action buttons are simply "Create Ticket" (focus is
already set to this so they can just press Enter) and "Cancel". Those
tickets not needing calls back are closed when created. Those needing calls
back are auto-assigned to an Outage Call-Back Queue. All are tagged with
the name from the Outage table. Fast and easy for the Help Desk.

When the situation is resolved, the Outage row is deactivated (usually ;>)
and the Help Desk starts emptying the Call-Back Queue.

HTH,
Doug Anderson
Mayo Clinic

Opinions expressed are necessarily mine and not necessarily those of the
Mayo Foundation.

original message:
>Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 14:55:52 -0600
>From: Carolyn_Andre@BANKONE.COM
>Subject: Re: Multiple Requesters
>
(snip)
>
>The question: is there any way to "attach" all the callers as individual
>requesters to a single ticket for "internet connectivity problem".
>
(snip)
>And then wondered whether:
>a) there was actually another solution, which I had overlooked (putting all
the
>names in the Description field doesn't count :-)
>b) anyone out there have a custom workaround? or other ideas?
>
>Thanks
>
>Regards,
>Carolyn