The following questions were raised at the end of our Service Desk webinar on 5/01. We didn't have time to answer all of them during the webinar, but wanted to post them here so none were left unanswered.
Q. With problems, will the "workaround" be emailed to the users as you either add the incident to the problem or do they have to go to the site to view the workaround?
A. The work around can be automatically emailed to the customers who have associated incidents, but this would only be when the incidents are auto-closed with the work around.
Q. If you add history to a problem does the history get added to any/all attached incident tickets and/or are the attached incident tickets updated via email?
A. The history added to a problem is not written to the history of the related tickets, but an automated email can be sent to the customer's that have associated incidents when a work history entry is added to a problem record.
Q. So with Group Access can you limit what the users can see on the EUD when they submit tickets... For instance Managers may be able to see employee HR type stuff where as users may not.
A. The group access feature does allow you to control which templates various users can see via the End User Desktop (EUD)
Q. You said you can associate an incident as you create one with a problem. Can you associate tickets that have been created already to a problem? In other words our users can submit tickets so if we get 5 at one time can se setup those 5 to a problem that we would create about this problem? Can we allow specific users or user groups to submit problems?
A. It is possible to associated incidents that have already been created to an existing problem records. This can be done from the incident and problem records. The problem management module does have it's own permissions so you can control access based on group membership.
Q. Could you have two or more sessions open at once?
A. Yes, multiple sessions can be opened simultaneously.
Q. We have end users entering the tickets. Will this still apply to them?
A. End Users will still be able to enter incidents tickets in version 7.0. They can also be allowed to create change requests.
Q. Can you base reports on user defined categories? In other words, we have a series of values that the EU must select from when entering anew incident. Can we have the reports run against these values?
A. Yes, custom reports can be defined against customer defined categories and custom fields.
Q. Can we connect to multiple SQL customer databases?
A. Currently, it is only possible to connect to a single SQL database using the Other RDB option with Directory Integration.
Q. Does 7.0 support input from multiple Active Directory databases?
A. Support for multiple ADs was added in version 6.5.
Q. Can we upgrade directly from 5.x to v7?
A. In order to upgrade from a 5.x release to version 7.0 you'll first need to upgrade to version 6.0.
Q. Can you create reoccurring changes? For example, 1st of every month?
A. Scheduling reoccurring changes isn't currently possible, but change and change hierarchy templates can be defined. We will pass along an enhancement request for this to our development team as scheduling reoccurring changes would most likely be a feature other customers would like as well.
Q. In version 6, the Views export to Excel exports time worked as text "(1) hour and (15) mins" instead of a numeric value. Is this fixed in version 7?
A. The views weren't changed, but it would be possible to create a custom SQL report that could be used to generate an excel sheet with the time worked data formatted differently in all version from 6.0 and up.
Q. The biggest issue we are having with version 6 is that the reports pull all the incident data regardless of the date. For instance, if we need all incidents with time worked for any number of companies in the system, we need to create custom reports x amount of times for each company.
A. Filters can be added to the reports via SQL reporting. Please feel free to call or email us if you need assistance.
Q. Is there a date filter available for the default canned reports?
A. There is a date filter available for the canned Crystal Reports, but not for the included SQL Reporting Services based reports.
Q. With a defined workflow, can a ticket to deploy a server generate tickets to separate groups such as networking to assign IP addresses, DC to rack and cable the server and the systems team to build and configure the server.
A. Yes, multiple tickets can be auto-generated for a common process through the use of a hierarchy template. Hierarchy templates can be defined in both the incident and change management modules.
Q. How does the software support OLAs and SLAs?
A. The software allows Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to be defined by customer and or category. OLAs are supported, but you may be able to address any needs you have in this area by expanding your categories and SLAs.
Q. Do you have an API for ticket automation from monitoring systems?
A. The isn't a API for ticket automation at this time.
Q. What are the currently supported methods for interfacing between c.Support and another application, eg custom built app, Siebel Sales or SAP?
A. There are only two documented/supported tools for integration in the current product and they are used to import and synchronize Company, Customer (Contact) and Asset data that is stored in third party MS SQL databases.
Q. For Change Management, I know that approval requests can be viewed via a BlackBerry, but can a Change Request be Approved via a BlackBerry?
A. In order to approve or decline a change request a full MSIE connection to the system is required.
Q. Have any changes also been made to the Asseting section of CSupport?
A. The asset scan comparison feature was added.
Thanks again to everyone that attended the webinar.
Eric & Darren