Self-Help Desk Feature: Complete Help Desk
The Help Desk features are built around two types of requests: Problem Report and Service Request. They share many similarities, but vary slightly in what is being requested.
Users can report their own problems, or help desk personnel can make the request on behalf of users. Users can edit their requests until the request has been assigned, at which point only help desk workers can make changes.
Contact Tab
The Contact Tab identifies you to the Help Desk staff. Depending on your company policy, you may be required to enter all field values for billing or authorization purposes.
If you want to receive an email when the problem is assigned, put on hold, or solved, be sure to check the checkbox. When you do this, you must enter an email address.
Notice that users can elect to be notified by email if the status of the request changes, whether assigned, put on hold, or closed. Requests filled in by Help Desk workers on behalf of users can also be set to send the email with a link to the new request. This way, the user isn't left guessing as to when the problem is being worked on. The email includes a doclink to the request document, so the user can instantly read it with only one click.
All user information on this page is stored in a User Profile document. The next time a user fills in a form, the fields are automatically filled in, and if changed, automatically updated in the User Profile. The Lookup and Fill In buttons are displayed only for Help Desk workers to help them quickly complete request documents.
Problem Tab
The Problem Tab is where you describe the problem you are having and what you have already tried to do to work around the problem.
Only the Brief Description field is required, but the more information you provide the Help Desk, the quicker they will be able to assist you. You can expound on your problem on the Problem Details tab, which includes a rich text field for the problem as well as any workarounds you have discovered.
Service Requests can be for software service, or can include facilities and telecom requests.
Who can Request Help
All users can create Problem Reports. You can edit the request until it has been assigned to the help desk (the Status is no longer New).
Scheduling Tab
Only users in the [HelpDesk] or [DBAdmin] roles can set the fields on the Solution tab. This tab tracks what is being done to solve the problem.
When Problem Reports and Service Requests are assigned by someone in the [HelpDesk] role, they can do so in one of three ways:
- Enter a name (be sure to enter the fully distinguished name!).
- Click the helper icon
to select a user from an address book.
- Click the Assign button and select one of the assignment roles. When the document is refreshed or saved, a name from the Technicians field is randomly assigned to the request.
The Reassign button clears the Put On Hold and Reason fields and sets the Status back to Assigned.
The + and - buttons allow you to increment or decrement the Time Spent field. Every time you work on the problem, you should add your time to the running total.
When you solve the problem, change the Status to Resolved and add a Closed on date and identify the person who solved the problem.
Of course you should also enter the final solution to the problem on the Solution tab.
Any time the status is changed by a Help Desk employee and the user has requested email notification, this prompt appears, giving the option to send (or not send) the user the email:
Views
The Requests views display Problem Reports and Service Request documents in a variety of ways.
Users can view requests by Requestor, Date (the default view), and by Product.
Most views contain these columns:
- Icons. The first icon shows the Severity level. "Low" is displayed as a low temperature
, "Moderate" a high temperature 
, and "Urgent" as a bomb 
. The second icon shows the request type. Problem Reports are displayed with this icon: 
Service Requests are displayed with this icon: 
- Posted On. When the request was first created. Subsequent modifications do not change this date.
- Doc #. The assigned document number, used to track requests when other information may be
- Problem Title. The short description of the problem.
- Status. Four possible values. New means the request hasn't been assigned to a help desk employee and the user can still edit the document. Assigned means the request has been assigned. On Hold means the request is not being actively solved, such as if a part is on order or the required person is on vacation or assigned elsewhere. Closed means the request has been either solved, found not to be a problem, not approved, etc.
- Lock symbol. This means that the document needs to be approved by users in the [DBAdmin] role before other users can read it. In the mean time, the user can read the document and make changes up until the point it is assigned for work.
- For. Who made the request, or if requested by a help desk employee, for whom the request was made.
By default, the view is categorized by date. Click any of the column headers to re-sort the view by the column header. Click again to reset the view.
Click the Requests By action button to switch the view to see all requests by Product. This helps you see if the problem has already been reported by someone else. If it has been reported, there may not be a need to report it again.
Users in the [HelpDesk] and [DBAdmin] roles can also view requests by Status, Requestor, Assignee, by Company, and Metrics.
The Metrics view is used to determine your effectiveness at assigning and closing requests:
The view is organized by "State", which is essentially the Status of the request.
When collapsed, the view shows total and/or average numbers. Expand the view to show supporting details.
This table defines the view columns:
Column |
Contents |
Percentage |
The percentage of all requests that are New, Assigned, On Hold, or Closed. |
PRs |
For a particular state, how many of those documents are Problem Reports. |
SRs |
For a particular state, how many of those documents are Service Requests. |
Icon 1 |
The first icon shows the Severity level. "Low" is displayed as a low temperature  , "Moderate" a high temperature  , and "Urgent" as a bomb  . |
Icon 2 |
The second icon shows the request type. Problem Reports are displayed with this icon:  Service Requests are displayed with this icon:  |
Posted |
The date the request was first posted. This date is not changed when the document is modified. |
Put in State |
The date the request was Assigned, put On Hold, or Closed. This column is context-sensitive to the document state and shows the date the document was put into its current state. |
for days/avg |
If the document state is:
- New, shows the number of days it has been since the document was first posted (DaysToAssign).
- Assigned, shows the number of days it has been in progress (DaysAssigned).
- OnHold, shows the number of days it has been since it was put on hold (DaysOnHold).
- Closed, the number of days it took from posted date to when the request was closed (DaysToClose).
When collapsed, the categories show the average numbers. |
Work hours total |
The number of hours of work that have been identified in the request document. When collapsed, the total number of work hours is displayed. |
avg |
The average number of work hours per state. |
Users in the [DBAdmin] role can click the Refresh Daily Metrics to recalculate the DaysToAssign, DaysOnHold, and DaysAssigned values. These numbers are also updated daily by an agent that is enabled under Application Settings.
Refresh Daily Metrics
Several statistics are computed when the document is edited, but others are updated by an agent. This code can also be run on demand from the Metrics view by the database administrator using the Refresh Daily Metrics action button.
Urgency
The Daily Metrics agent is also responsible for computing the urgency of a request using variables such as number of days before being assigned, priority, severity, etc. You can see the urgency factor of user requests in the Requests by\Urgency view:
The weight of the variables used to factor urgency can be affected under Application Settings on the Metrics tab:
