Support Group

Support Groups are organizational units within an enterprise which can be involved in resolving tickets. Typically one Support Group reflects a particular area of expertise.

• An important feature of any IPC Management is the different Support Groups who may be involved in resolving Tickets. In a small enterprise this may compromise a small group of people who perform all necessary tasks, from answering the phone to installing hardware and software. However even in such a small group, certain strengths and specialities will be acknowledged and Tickets will be distributed accordingly.
  In a larger enterprise, a number of different groups may be involved, and these groups may be logistically and geographically separate. Typically there will be a Call Center, which takes all calls from users. The Tickets are recorded and trivial ones can be resolved immediately. Non-trivial Tickets will be assessed, prioritized, and passed to the appropriate Support Group for further processing.
  
• The Support Groups in Valuemation IPC Manager help to describe the different groups and their assigned tasks. It is possible to establish which Support Group is currently responsible for a given Ticket at any given time.
  
• Where services are being charged or to increase cost awareness, a price per hour can be associated with a Support Group. This can later be used to optimize the use of expensive specialists.
  

• The Support Group will often be used in Searching, Grouping and Sorting functions. The Support Group will also feature strongly in reports which may be generated about Tickets. The Support Group leader can use reports to monitor the Tickets currently allocated to his Support Group.

Support Group in Edit Mode

Open the Support Group in Edit Mode by double-clicking on the highlighted Support Group in the catalog or selecting the Edit Option. The Support Group is displayed in Edit Mode.

In the Master section, the following attributes are available:

• Support Group

  The name of the Support Group.

• Email

  A group Emails address to which all group members have access.

• Description

  A fuller description of the Support Group.

• Recipient

  The recipient for Emails sent to this group. Possible values are:

  • Group Members
  • Group Email
  • No Recipient
• Ticket Email

  If a ticket is passed on to this Support Group by email, it defines how much detail is to be used. This would depend on how tightly integrated the Support Group is into the Valuemation Service and Change Processes. Valid options are:

  • E-Mail Text – Brief
  • E-Mail Text – Detailed
  • No EMail
• Activity Email

  If an activity is passed on to this Support Group by email, how much detail is to be used. This would depend on how tightly integrated the Support Group is into the Valuemation Service and Change Processes. Valid options are:

  • E-Mail Text Standard
  • No E-Mail
• Default pass on Target Group

  This specifies what should happen when a Ticket is passed out of this Support Group.

  Valid options are:

  • No Default: No Support Group for assignment will be suggested.
  • Overall resp. Person: The Support Group of the overall responsible person will be suggested.
  • KnowHow dependent: The Support Group will be suggested by the Competency Rules.
• Service Level Group

  Choose to which Service Level Group the Support Group is assigned.

• Solution Group

  Define if the support Group is a Solution Group.

• Take overall responsibility on Accept

  Under certain conditions, an option to "take overall responsibility" for the ticket is offered when a user calls the 'Accept' action. (The overall responsible person is the main responsible user for the ticket who receives ticket-related notifications, can accept the ticket even if he/she is not part of the ticket's current responsible group, etc.)

  When the 'Accept' action is called, the application needs to decide whether or not the overall responsibility option should be offered. The 'Take overall responsibility on Accept' check box helps to determine this. It works in the following way:

  - The ticket is sent to a support group, this support group becomes its current support group

  - A member of this support group can now accept the ticket

  - If the member of this current support group is not already the overall responsible person AND if the current support group has the 'Take overall responsibility on Accept' check box set to true, then the overall responsibility option is offered when the user calls the 'Accept' action.

  For example:

  1st level support sends a ticket to 2nd level support. Person 'X' from second level support is about to accept the ticket. If the second level support group has the check box checked and person 'X' is not already overall responsible for the ticket, then the taking overall responsibility is offered when person 'X' calls the 'Accept' action.

• Take over all responsibility on non-status Accept

  Same as above, but for non-status acceptance, i.e. the 'Work On' action. (Clicking the Work on action makes the current user the new actual "worker" of the ticket. This taking over is captured in the ticket history but the ticket status remains unchanged - 'Work On' is not a status action.)

  Analogically to the 'Take overall responsibility on Accept' description above:

  - A member of the ticket's current support group decides to work on the ticket

  - If the member is not already the overall responsible person AND if the current support group has the 'Take overall responsibility on non-status Accept' check box set to true, then the overall responsibility option is offered when the user calls the 'Work on' action.

• Cost per Hour

  For each Support Group, you can set the cost per hour. This is a prerequisite for the calculation of Ticket costs. Please see the 'Calculation Ticket Costs' section for details.

• Currency

  For each Support Group, you can select the currency. This is a prerequisite for the calculation of Ticket costs. Please see the 'Calculation Ticket Costs' section for details.

In the Validity section , the following attributes are available:

• Valid From/To

  Set from when until when the Support Group is valid.

• Updatable by interface

  Decide if the Support Group is updated through Orchestra.

Group Leader section

Here the standard referenced view for a Person is displayed, providing basic contact information for the Group Leader of this Support Group. Using the standard icons on the right hand side, the fields can be reset, the information can be updated, or a new person can be located and assigned as Group Leader.

Comments section

This section is reserved for a detailed comment.

Reference Views

Members of Group Tab

The tab lists all persons (with all the relevant organizational and contact information) (…) who are assigned to this Support Group.

The following controls exist for processing the link between Person and Support Group:

• Create

  Create a new Person if the appropriate entry does not already exist. This will cause the Create New Person screen to be displayed and the Person can be created and assigned to the Support Group.

• Remove

  This removes the Person from the Support Group. The Person is not deleted.

• Edit

  This opens the highlighted Person in the Edit View. This allows changes to be made without opening the Person Catalog explicitly.

• Search

  This opens the BO Browser for Persons. This allows the user to search for new Persons and select them from the resulting list. They will then be added to the list of members of the Support Group.

Competency Rules Tab

The tab lists the types of ticket that should be linked to this Support Group. This allows a help desk user to pass on a ticket to the correct person.

Example: A Group has e.g. competency defined as Database Specialists. If a Ticket with Database issues and the user in the help desk has Passon=KnowhowDependent set, then the correct Support Group will be suggested for the Pass on.