7 Replies Latest reply on Mar 9, 2009 11:17 AM by afrogers

One-click Assign to Myself

Adam Wilden Feb 19, 2009 1:43 AM

Another basic modification which we have found very useful.

One of the problems with ITBM is that, unlike Helpdesk Classic, it doesn't let support staff know when a call is locked (being worked on). This ended up iwith our staff working on the same calls at the same time.

To get around this we ask our support staff to assign any unassigned calls to themselves whenever they make any changes etc.

To speed this up, TP support staff suggested we add an "Assign to Self" option.

We created a new Action called "Assign to Myself" on our main Incident status-stages. The assignment window uses Macro values as shown below. Staff can now assign calls to themselves with one click.

Not rocket science, but was a popular modification with our staff.

1. Re: One-click Assign to Myself

karenpeacock Feb 19, 2009 2:27 AM (in response to Adam Wilden)

Something else on the assignment front that I find really useful is the bulk actions on a query results pane. For example, if someone moves teams within support they often take some of their workload with them and so I just run a query on their workload then use a bulk action to move the incidents to the other group. Saves loads of time!
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2. Re: One-click Assign to Myself

blandg Feb 19, 2009 5:54 AM (in response to Adam Wilden)

Very simple by very useful Adam. A feature I want to include as I have used it in the past with alternative products.

How do you associate the new Action with the window to get the macro values in?

Sorry - novice! But undergoing a RAPID learning curve so hope to be of some help to other soon!!
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3. Re: One-click Assign to Myself

Adam Wilden Feb 19, 2009 6:29 AM (in response to blandg)

Hi,

Under Process Designer I selected the Business Objects button and created a new Incident Action called "Self Assign" as below:

Then I added an Action Instance to the Process and selected "Self Assign"

I added an assignment and right clicked in the Group and Analyst fields and selected ValueType. Then I selected "Specify a Macro Value..." and selected Group and Analyst values accordingly (you are only given the choice to select the correct value).

Finally connect it all up to the required Status stage(s) of your process:

Hope this helps!
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4. Re: One-click Assign to Myself

blandg Feb 19, 2009 6:43 AM (in response to Adam Wilden)

SUCCESS in our test environment!

Thank you - I can now leave this functionality in the Service Desk and Incident Management process documentation I'm writing. As I say used it before so a "wish list" item for me.
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5. Re: One-click Assign to Myself

blandg Mar 9, 2009 10:23 AM (in response to blandg)

I now have this working a treat in our test environment and would like to embellish this as I've spotted where my users may abuse this function thus,

If you keep clicking then you add another assignment to your self. I have tried to negate this and devised this,

This works but adds multiple audit entries but one assignment as designed. My original idea was,

The "Is Not Assigned To Self" was set up as,

I'm happy with my compromise but can anyone tell me why my original thinking did not work - ie why did my pre condition not work?

I have also tried Assignment, Last Value, User in the condition with same result.

Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?
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6. Re: One-click Assign to Myself

afrogers Mar 9, 2009 11:12 AM (in response to Adam Wilden)

We had a long running battle with Touchpaper regarding this, as 90% of our incidents come in via Mail Manager, so our analysts would pick them from the list. We could not believe that this basic feature that existed in the old Helpdesk telling you that somebody else was in the incident had been removed. Eventually, Touchpaper's bods came up with a process design which is very similar to "Assign to Myself", we called it "Take Ownership", see below. As soon as TakeOwnership is clicked (which is an automatic action), it assigns to the current user so no other analyst can work on the incident until it reaches "In Progress" using a pre-condition, this is the status at which the incident has been initially categorised and the user contacted. We then setup the initial workload list query, so it only shows unassigned incidents. The solution is not ideal but it has removed the shouts across the desk of "are you working in this one?".
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7. Re: One-click Assign to Myself

afrogers Mar 9, 2009 11:17 AM (in response to afrogers)

Graeme, I forgot to add the details of the pre-condition, hopefully answering your question, this process works for us so feel free to ask anything further.

Cheers
Anthony
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