Connect 2
Manage is a Help Desk (or Call Handling) Application interfaced with a Time
and Ticket Tracking Application that allows tracking of hours worked by any
number of variables including dates, call (or request, job or work order)
ticket, job code, project, and/or person and job tracking. We'll call
these job, project, request or work order transactions "tickets"
throughout this document.
E-mails are generated at various points in the workflow process to ensure
communication between departments, locations, users or companies.
Based on the security level, different menu options will be displayed for
different users. Time Transactions (start and ending times for
employee/contractor by ticket) can be entered directly or generated through the
Help Desk by bringing up the ticket and clicking the IN and OUT buttons.
The Administration Interface (the "AI") allows you to build your
codes and drop down data such as departments and areas or categories, and enter
your customers or users, employees or contractors and build your lists and
reports. The AI is your Content Management tool and allows you to
customize your system at any time.
The work flow process and data fields are customizable to your organization.
The description below is an example of how it can be configured.
Help Desk
A variety of actions can be taken under this option from the main menu.
Upon selecting the Open Transactions option, a listing of tickets assigned to
the user is displayed. As many as three people can be assigned to any particular
type of transaction, so any of the three will see this ticket, call or
job. No one else except the administrator and the user (or customer) who
entered it can see this information.
Options available are to enter a new Help Desk Call or Job Ticket or to change
or view an existing ticket. Simply click on the ticket number in the list
and the detail data for the ticket will be displayed. For a new ticket
the following fields are available and can be changed unless noted otherwise
(audit field):
Ticket/Job/Call Number:
will be assigned upon initial submission of the ticket. It cannot be
changed.
User Name: determined from the id of the user who submitted the
ticket. Audit field.
Phone: obtained and defaulted from user data on file (can be changed).
Priority: levels preset for importance, chosen from a drop down list
that you build.
Department: Department drop down list - you build your departments under
the AI.
Area description: Drop down area type selection - you build your areas
of business under the AI.
Approved: N. Final approval will be N
until status 40, Finished, is achieved.
Open Date: the date the ticket was started. Audit
field.
Open Time: the time the ticket was started. Audit
field.
Estimated Time Due: the time the ticket was promised.
Assignee: automatic - as set up in the AI and associated with an
area. Up to three can be assigned to any ticket. The assignee
can be changed.
Status: A drop down of your work flow process codes -
customizable. Emails can be sent out at certain status codes, as you set
up.
Comments: an open text data field that you can use in any way you need.
User: The last user to submit the ticket is updated automatically when
the change is submitted. Audit field.
Changed: The last time changes were submitted is updated
automatically. Audit field.
Audit fields cannot be changed by
any user.
Other data fields are available.
You can add more data fields yourself through the Administration Interface or
have us set up new data for you.
When you enter a ticket
and the SUBMIT button is pressed, an e-mail is sent to the person(s) assigned
and the status is automatically updated to Assigned and Notified. Paging
is available for an additional cost, but emails can be received by most cell
phones, which is included in the package.
When the assigned
person begins work on the request, they or the Help Desk Administrator can
update the status of the ticket to "Working" and update the Estimated
Time and Date Due.
If you have an email
interface with your submitter, when the job is ready to be reviewed by the
person who submitted it, the assigned person (or Help Desk Administrator) will
type in the Solution Description and update the Status to 40
(Finished). When the ticket is Submitted, an
e-mail can be automatically generated to the user to verify the
solution. If the submitter agrees that it is finished, he/she
changes Approved to Y and submits it. This will update the Status to 50
(Closed) and it will be moved to the Closed Tickets table. If
not, the submitter enters the Reason User Not Accepting Completion on the
ticket and submits it.
If you don't have an email interface with your submitter, the Help Desk
Administrator will simply change the status to Closed.
If the ticket is
cancelled, the person assigned (or the Help Desk Administrator) can go into the
ticket and set the status to Cancelled.
If the assigned
person is waiting on more information from the user, they will set the status
to Holding.
From the ticket
detail screen, the user can use the IN and OUT buttons to generate Time
Transactions. After IN or OUT is clicked, a pop-up screen will prompt for
time and date. If the user clocks IN on a ticket and has not clocked OUT
on a previous ticket, the OUT date of the previous ticket will be set to the IN
date on the current ticket. If a user clocks IN
for other types of hours (such as Administration or Education), an OUT
transaction must be entered. IN and OUT hours must be for the same
day.
Time and Job (Project or Work Order) Tracking
The Time Tracking menu option goes directly to the list of time transactions
for the user (or all transactions for the administrator) who will get a
selection box so that he/she can see selected transactions. The list can
be sorted in any order or any data displayed. From this list, the
New Time Entry button may be used to generate a new time transaction against a
ticket or for other types of hours, such as vacation or sick.
The Name, In Time, and In Date for the new time entry will default to the user
name and current date and time.
Out Time, Out Date, and Comment may be selected. You can select a Ticket
ID or Type Hours (ex:vacation,
sick, etc.) to put this time against. This is used for bill back
purposes.
Administration
Administration provides entry and update of all codes and drop down lists,
including setup information such as customers (or users), people available to
be assigned to tickets, the codes for entry fields, and an alternate way to
list tickets.
The files are listed
and when one is selected, the first screen that appears is a listing of all the
records in that file. You can choose to add a New
record or select an existing one. When a record is selected, the
detail information is displayed and can be changed or the record can be
deleted. The first entry, Company Information, contains company
information used for printing reports.
Use Customers/Users
to add new users. This data is used to set the User ID (User),
password, and Security Level of everyone who is allowed to sign on the
system. New assignees (problem solvers) are set up via the
Assignee File. The e-mail address to which new tickets will be sent is
identified in Assignee File.
Closed Tickets
The Transactions option displays job tickets that were closed (status 50) or
cancelled (status 30).
Reports
A list of reports available to the user is displayed. Many time and job
tracking analysis reports are available only for users with higher security
level, but those with lower security levels might see the option to create a
report of their time and a list of sort and select options. After you
select a report, a screen appears that allows you to further define the report
by:
· specifying/changing
the report heading
· choosing fields to
be included and their sequence
· identifying
fields to be used for selection criteria
A second screen then
lets you specify the selection criteria for the fields chosen.
User Instructions
A user can obtain instructions on how to enter, check, or approve tickets.
Archived Time
This provides a list of time entries that have been archived.
Maintenance
is a user interface that will allow setting some variables that affect sorting,
selecting, header text, help text, drop downs, required entry fields,
etc. Each table is listed and can be selected.
Audit Trail
The application automatically updates each record with a user, date and time
stamp. However, another option available is the Audit Trail Module
which will record every transaction and change with the original record and the
changed record along with who and when.