Help Desk automations

Help Desk runs two scheduled jobs and sends its e-mails from three templates; the rest happens when a request arrives, moves or is answered. The options are in Help Desk settings.

The deadline watch is active once the app is installed; the idle sweep switches itself on while a desk uses Wrap Up Forgotten Requests. Both are off on a test copy of the database. An administrator stops or starts them in the scheduled actions of the technical menu (Developer mode and the technical menus).

Scheduled jobs

Help Desk: Target Deadline Watch

• When: every hour.
• What it does: marks Missed the running or paused service target clocks whose deadline has passed, even on a request nobody touches, and keeps their Overrun growing.
• How to stop it: stop the job. A clock then turns Missed only when its request reaches the target stage after the deadline.

Help Desk: Idle Request Sweep

• When: once a day.
• What it does: on each desk with Wrap Up Forgotten Requests, moves to the chosen wrap-up stage the open requests whose stage has not changed for its days of silence, from the chosen stages only when some are listed, with a note such as "Wrapped up automatically after 7 days without activity." The move sends what any move sends.
• How to stop it: clear Wrap Up Forgotten Requests on the desk.

E-mail templates

The three templates write in the language of the customer and leave through the outgoing mail queue. On the Front Desk, Received and Resolved carry them.

Help Desk: Request Logged

• When: a request reaches a stage whose Message on Arrival is this template, Received on the Front Desk.
• What it does: thanks the customer, gives the reference and the subject, and invites a reply. On a desk open to customers it adds a View the request button.
• How to stop it: clear Message on Arrival on the stage.

Help Desk: Request Wrapped Up

• When: a request reaches a stage whose Message on Arrival is this template, Resolved on the Front Desk.
• What it does: tells the customer that the request is wrapped up and that a reply opens it again.
• How to stop it: clear Message on Arrival on the stage.

Help Desk: How Did We Do

• When: on a desk with Collect Feedback, a request with a customer reaches the stage whose Feedback Request is this template, Resolved on the Front Desk. Once per request, and never to the person who moved it.
• What it does: asks the customer to choose one of three faces; the answer becomes a score under Satisfaction.
• How to stop it: clear Collect Feedback on the desk, or the Feedback Request of the stage.

When a request arrives, moves or is answered

• Arrival: a contact with the same e-mail becomes the customer; on a desk with Hand Out Automatically, an owner is chosen, or a note says why nobody could take it.
• Move: a wrap-up stage fills Wrapped Up On; the clocks pause, resume or settle; the stale count restarts.
• Answer: an e-mail from the customer reopens a wrapped-up request in the stage it left; the reply clock measures the wait.
• Digest: the periodic digest e-mail of the database counts the Requests Wrapped Up for Help Desk users.