Many of the clients that I work with have been using Ivanti Service Manager for many years. When we begin working together on some of the first items, we address how they get their work, how do they process the work, and where they feel their current processes are lacking. Quite often it comes down to customers building out their systems in a way that Ivanti Service Manager was not designed to function. That does not mean what they built is necessarily wrong, but they may be overlooking some key features that come with Ivanti Service Manager right out the gate. Here are three of the most overlooked functions within the Incident workspace.
- The Subject Field – The point of an incident within the ITIL framework is to quickly address problems our end users are experiencing. This includes gathering all the required information needed to potentially resolve the incident. The Subject line may look benign, but it serves an important function, called Object Matching. In this case, the field looks up relevant Incidents, Problems and Knowledge Articles to help assess the root cause of the incident along with ways the agent can address the problem. If set up correctly, we can enable the agents to quickly solve these incidents and keep SLA resolution times down. It does require some commitment to get it right, but once you do you will quickly see the benefits!
- The Status Field – This is another field often overlooked. You may think that it’s purely for categorizing the current status of where the incident is at, but it also controls emails that are sent out via Business Rules, makes certain fields required/read only before the agent can proceed, and controls the Escalation Clock assigned to that record. For instance, when an incident is set to “Active” a Team and an Owner become required. When the ticket is set to “Resolved” an email will be sent out to the customer letting them know it’s been resolved which includes the Resolution Notes. When the incident is set to a waiting status, the Response Target is paused as to not penalize the agent.
- Templates – Templates lay information on top of a blank Incident record. For any field on the incident, we can prepopulate information that is specific to the issue the end user has raised. Setting fields such as the Service, Category, Team, Source, etc, may seem like a no brainer when it comes to saving your agents time, but it’s something I see rarely utilized properly. You can also create Request Offerings for your end users to submit using these specific Templates.
So how does your service desk stack up? Are you doing the right things to ultimately provide the absolute best in customer satisfaction? Are your processes aligned with your technology and people? If not, we can help! Contact us today and let us help you lead the way!