Cookbook/SLA
From Cerberus Helpdesk Wiki
Contents |
SLA
One of the often-asked about features is SLA. People are often confused as to why there is no SLA feature, and when one will be added. Something many people don't realize is that Cerb4 already allows you to do SLA. In this recipe, we will be going through the steps needed to setup SLA. This is certainly not a one-size-fits all solution. Instead, this recipe is designed to provide you with the knowledge and understanding of how to setup your own workflow within Cerb4.
Create the custom fields
The first step is to create new helpdesk-wide custom fields for Addresses, Organizations and Tickets. This is done on the 'Custom Fields' tab of 'helpdesk setup'. The custom fields on Addresses and Organizations will be used to filter incoming messages and apply a Due Date (custom field on Tickets) to any message from those Addresses and Organizations that have the custom field set.
- Create the custom fields:
- The custom fields have been created:
Create the Mail Routing Rule
Once the custom field has been created, we need to actually do something with it. One of the most useful things you can do with this field is set the value automatically on incoming tickets! To do so, click over to the 'Mail Routing' tab (still inside 'helpdesk setup').
Once there, you want to create a new rule. It should look something like the below image.
- Mail routing rule for our SLA:
This mail routing rule will automatically set the 'Due Date' custom field to '24 hours' from when the ticket is processed - on every ticket that is sent by an Address that has SLA - because it is 'Sticky'. You could also do this on the individual rules you have - the ones that direct mail into the proper group, which would allow you to have different SLAs for different groups, but that is currently outside of the scope of this recipe.
Create a workflow
The next step is to create your workflow so you are aware of when tickets are due, when they need attention, and so forth. There are several ways to physically do this, but I will list just one here. The steps you will take depend largely on your workflow, so the below may need to be adapted to fit your needs better.
To create a workflow, click 'home' in the top left, then click the 'Add Worklist' button. A dialog will pop up, you can pick anything you want, just make sure you pick 'Tickets' as shown below. I have chosen to create a new Workspace in the example below, but feel free to add it to any existing workspaces you may have.
- Add Worklist dialog:
Once you have created the new worklist, we need to set the filters and columns so we see the information that is important to us. This done by hitting the 'customize' link at the top of the worklist we just created. Once you hit customize, you'll see a list of columns and fields you can populate into them, like below. You can also change the name of this worklist at the top, and the amount of items to show below the column list. You can also sort by field by clicking the header link of each column.
- Columns and fields:
To change the fields shown in a column, simply click the dropdown list and select a new field.
- Changing a column:
You are going to want to customize the columns so they have the information you want. I find the below works well for me, though your needs may be different. You can select up to 15 different columns.
- Columns customized:
Once you have customized your columns, you are going to want to change your filters. By default, the filter is empty, so this list will show you every ticket currently in the system. We want to restrict it to a very specific list of tickets - in this case, just the tickets in the 'Support' group. You can of course change this to show whatever you want. You can filter on any of the fields you can add to columns.
- Worklist filter:
For this filter, we are going to want to have something like the following, so we see only the tickets that should be in this list.
- Example filter:
Once you have modified the filter and columns to your liking, you must hit 'Save Changes' for your changes to take effect. Once you have saved your changes, the list will update and all tickets in the list will match the criteria you have specified. Again, you can sort using the column headers at the top, so you can sort by Due Date with the tickets due first on top. You may be wondering why I set the filter on 'Due Date' to be '-24 hours - +24 hours'. Well, it was just an example! You can put anything here that you want, really. You could even setup a second list for 'emergency' SLAs that expire within 2 hours, 3 hours, 1 hour, etc! This will effectively allow you to 'escalate' tickets to make sure they are resolved by their due date.
