Solutions

1.Inbox

Vision Helpdesk offers unified inbox in which all the Incidents are listed at one place. Incidents received under inbox can originate from multiple channels eg. Social media, Client portal, Emails, Phone calls etc. Under Inbox you can easily distinguish the channels of the Incident.

1.1. New Incident creation Process:

The staff can add a New Incident from the “+” icon on the top right hand corner of the page.

Department: Here you choose the department in which the Incident is created.

Channels : While creating a new Incident, staff get an option to select the channels through which you have received the client query. Channels helps to filter out the Incidents based on the medium of their origin.

These channels helps your client to connect to your support through various mediums like social media, chats, phone calls, email.

You can enable or disable these channels from Admin setting >> Incident management >> channels

For configuring Channels refer to the admin settings.

Staff can create two types of a Incidents using the New Incident option.

Internal Incident : Internal Incidents can be created for internal team/ staff. Internal incident does not have any customer linked to it.

External Incident : Your staff can create Incident on behalf of a client or drop an email to the client.

You have to select the “As client” option, if you want to create the incident on the client’s behalf.

Following are the fields that need to be filled after selecting the channel and department.

To: Here you can add the email address of the client.

• Cc/Bcc: If the email is addressed to multiple recipients, then the Cc and Bcc fields can be used.

• From: This would be the email address from which the email would be sent to the client. Subject: The subject of the email needs to be entered here.

• Apply macro: A Macro (predefined response) can be added to the email from here. Macro's are available under Admin Settings >> Automation >> Macros

• Assigned to: The ticket can directly be assigned to a staff from here.

• Attach CI: An asset can be linked to the ticket from here.

• Status: The Status of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Open, Closed, Awaiting.

• Priority: The Priority of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Low, Medium, High, Critical

• Urgency: The Urgency of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Low, Medium, High.

• Impact: The Impact of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Affect Business, Affect Group, Affect User.

• Type: The Type of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Open, Closed, Awaiting.

• Level: The Level of the ticket can be defined here. Example: One, Two, Three.

• Category: The Category of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Hardware, Software, Service.

• Subcategory: The Subcategory of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Computer, MS Office, Web Hosting.

• Item: The Item of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Laptop, MS Word, Wordpress Hosting.

Note: The Category, Subcategory, and Item would be dependent fields.

• Mode of contact: The Mode of contact of the ticket can be defined here. Example: Email, Call, Portal.

• Staff comment: The staff can add any additional comments here.

• Send email : When this option is checked client will receive a copy of a Incident.

• Auto responders : When staff want to send an acknowledgment to clients regarding the Incident details such as Incident id, Incident content, departments, Incident property etc then staff can check the option.

• Visible to Clients : Staff has option whether to show the Incident to client over client portal or not. When “visible to client” option is checked client can have Incident listed under their profile over client portal.

• As a Client : When option is checked, Incident appears as it has been created by client also SLA gets applied over it.

• Schedule Incident : Schedule Incident option allows you to set the recurrence / repetition of a Incident. Incident schedule can be set for daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Once Incident has been scheduled, system will automatically trigger the Incident at defined duration.

For eg: Regular server maintenance notification to the clients through emails.

1.2. Filters

Vision Helpdesk allows to organize the client queries into various filters. These filters helps to crunch down Incidents into various segments. We have offered the default filters from where you can view all the Incidents, New Incidents, open Incidents, Drafted Incidents etc.

When a spam email comes into a system, we have some rules by which you can filter it automatically and put it into Spam folder. Also, removing this Incidents from Helpdesk is a hassel free job, just move the Incidents into trash and delete it from there.

All the Incidents can be further categorized and mapped to other segments. These segments can be internal departments, different geography, branches products etc.

• Add Filter

There are some custom filters which can be added into the system for additional segmentation.

• To add the custom filter :

On the right side in the Incident listing board (Inbox) >> Click on Filter Icon >>> Add the required filters >>> Click on Apply filter.

These custom filters would be visible into Custom filter list as well as under default filter list. Hence, you can create custom filters for specific client, organization, Incident status specific etc.

• Internal segmentation : (Left side of the inbox, just below the filters)

Here, you can classify the Incidents into various departments and further into status.

For example : Businesses having internal departments such as Sales, support, HR or With different geography/branches can be added into Helpdesk.

• To add Domains :

Go to admin setting >> Incidents >> Domain

Further email can be mapped to these departments such as sales department can have specific email address so whenever client submits the Incident to sales email address it get automatically mapped to Sales Department.

• To add departments :

Go to admin setting >> Incidents >> Department

• To map email with department :

Go to admin setting >> Email queue >> Add email and select the department.

• To add Incident status :

Go to admin setting >> Incidents >> Incident status

To put it into nutshell, These internal segmentation is totally customizable. If you want department should be visible on a client portal set the access to public. Staff can also create private departments which only staff can view. Also, Status of an Incident can vary from department to department.

1.3. Segmentation using Labels:

If you do not want to add some internal departments, we have label option available which helps you to divide the Incidents based on various labels.

To add Label view on Inbox :

Go to admin setting >> Manage portal >> Select the left panel view to “Labels”

To add the labels under Inbox, Go to admin setting >> Module Properties >> Label

These labels can be applied on a Incident using mass operations and also you can apply labels while working on a Incident.

For eg: When a Incident comes in a system and your staff started working on the Incident, if they want to add label such as important, urgent, Awaiting etc from label option. Once staff add the label on left panel, you would be able to see the count of Incidents with that specific label.

1.4. Incident View

Views can be set to select the required data fields on Incident listing board. Vision Helpdesk allows you to see the default view with some fixed fields such as Incident hash, subject, department, email, priority etc. These default views are not customizable.

• Personalise View : According to staff needs they can set the views of required fields over the Incident listing board. These would help staff to view the essential fields over Incident listing board and based on it staff can prioritize work on Incidents. For eg: your support staff would require Incident hash, subject and priority of Incident should be visible under view.

To add view : Login to manage portal >> Inbox >> View >> Add new a view.

You can restrict your staff members to set up their personalize view.

Go to admin setting >> Users >> Role >> un-check manage view option.

• List of views

Staff members can create views as per their requirements, for example: support team will have different view than the Sales team. All this views are listed under View management option from where you can check all the custom views.

To view the list : Go to Profile >> Views

• Deleting Views

Staff can manage these view list. If you do not want particular view to use, you can disable or delete it permanently.

To Disable the View :

Go to profile >> select view management >> click the view which you want to disable from the list >> disable the status

Staff can also delete the view which they do not want to use.

• To Delete the View :

Go to profile >> select view management >> click on the Delete icon on right most corner of the view which you want to delete.

1.5. Schedule Incident

Scheduling an Incident helps to automatically send a Incident from Helpdesk at a defined time to the clients as well as for a staff. It helps to send a email without getting logged in into the Helpdesk.

Above all, this feature can be used when you want to notify clients or staff about certain recurring activity which takes place at regular intervals. For eg: When you want to notify clients regarding monthly server maintenance activity, you can set a monthly schedule for a Incident.

Add the recipient email address under to field while creating External Incident. Staff can set a schedule while creating New Incident. Existing Incidents can not be scheduled. Also, the existing scheduled Incident can be modified.

How to Schedule a Incident :

Login to manage portal >> Create a new Incident >> Check the schedule Incident option >> Set the schedule ( Once, daily, weekly, monthly)

Internal Incident Scheduling : When you want to set recurring Incident for staff, you can create an internal Incident and add the schedule for a department. If you want to schedule a Incident for a specific staff member then Assign a Incident to that staff person.

This Incident will be automatically sent from Helpdesk to registered email address of a staff to whom scheduled Incident is assigned, also this Incident will appear as a new Incident under respective department.

Note : If any workflow is set for New Incident that will be applied on scheduled Incident also Default SLA will be applicable to the scheduled Incident with Response “Undue” and Resolution time.

External Incident Scheduling : Staff can schedule a Incident for clients using a schedule Incident option. This can be used when you want your client to be notified regarding recurring activity at regular intervals. For eg: Every week you want to notify your client regarding server maintenance activity. In such cases, you can schedule a recurring Incident with duration “Weekly” and the duration i.e start date and end date.

This Incident will be sent to client automatically at defined time period and it will have default workflow rules applied over it. When client reply to a scheduled Incident, it is treated as a general Incident into the system which has been created by clients.

Note :If you have set workflow rule to apply automatically over new Incident such as apply SLA that will get applied over scheduled Incident. Refer admin setting >> Workflow section.

Moreover, Scheduled Incidents will appear under Incident list after it gets triggered from the system and it will be treated as a new Incident into the system. It will be distinguished from other Incidents by “Clock” icon on Incident list.

1.6. Mass Operations

Our Mass operations is made to save your time, so on one click you would be able to perform various operations on a Incident. For eg : You can select multiple Incident and assign it to yourself or respective staff user, also you can move the department of Incidents and modify the Incident properties by one click. You can also delete Incident, ban a user also mark as spam to the select Incidents.

There are various operations which you can perform on a Incidents:

• Mass Deletion of a Incident

You can select the multiple Incident and move Incidents to trash at same time. From trash you can either delete the Incidents also if you want to restore the trashed Incidents you can do it.

Once you delete the trashed Incidents, it gets deleted permanently from the system.

• Merging multiple Incidents :

You can merge multiple Incidents into one. For eg: When you receive multiple Incidents from one client and you want to give common reply or you want to answer client in one Incident, you can use merge Incident option.

Once you merge the Incidents, multiple Incidents will get clubbed into one. You can select whether you want Incidents notes, comments, any invoice to be merged into one Incident.

Merge Incidents would add clients email into recipient field multiple times. To avoid these you can change the setting into Admin setting >> Module >> Incident >> Add merged Incidents email as recipients to “No”.

Once you make the setting, whenever you merge the Incidents, under recipient you would see only one client email address.

Note : Once Incident has been merged it can not be un-merged.

• Linking multiple Incidents :

Link Incident helps to define a relationship between two Incidents. For eg: When you receive Two Incidents from client and both are dependent on one another, in such case you can link a Incident. Once Incident has been linked under Incident property you can check link Tab.

Note : Once Incidents are linked, it can be un-linked.

• Mass reply :

You can give a common reply to multiple Incident on a single click using Mass reply option. Select the Incidents and send the reply. When you mass reply to multiple clients, your client won't be able to see details of other clients. Mass reply goes as a individual reply.

1.7. Search through various modules

Searching through a various modules in a vision helpdesk is a easy job. You can search using specific keyword, Incident ID, message body, subject, client email, name, organization etc.

In Vision there are two options available for a search :

Quick Search : This options allows you to quickly search through available modules.

Quick search option is located on top menu bar. To search using Quick search you have to type a keyword under text area and press enter. You would get option to search through listed module. For eg: If you want to search a particular Incident with Incident id is VHD-12453. Add the Incident id under quick search box and press enter. Then select the Incident module from the listed module.

Particular Incident would appear as a search result.

Advance search :

In Quick search you can search through some specific modules but to have a customize search you can go for Advance search option.

To open Advance search option :

Login to manage portal >> Go to Inbox >> Incident listing board >>on right side of Incident listing board click on “+” icon >> Select Advance search.

Under advance search you can add the criteria on which you want to search through the system. For eg: If you want to search a Incident with message body then under criteria select the Message body contains “Some keywords” and search it.

Advance search also allows you to search through spammed, trashed Incidents and save this search as a filter. This filters would be saved as custom filters and would be visible on left side panel under default filters list.

Advance search has match “And” “Or” conditions to add multiple criteria.

1.8. Incident Overview

When you open a Incident, on top you would see the details of the Client who has submitted the Incident. Also the SLA plan for a new Incidents would be applied over it. (For SLA refer : Admin setting >> SLA)

If you want to modify the Incident details such as moving the Incident to another department after reading the client's query or you may want to re-assign the Incident to staff members or change any other Incident properties, then you can make the necessary changes under Incident details.

• Inside a Incident : On right side panel you would see a generic Incident view which has Incident hash, subject of the Incident and creation date. You would also able to trace the modified date of a Incident. So whenever any operation is done on a Incident, the system will capture the time and date of modification.
  

• Incident Hash Generation : Vision Helpdesk identifies new email of a client and creates a Incident for each client query. Each query is identified with a unique Incident id. This Incident id can be system generated or it can be set to be generated sequentially.

For example : if you want to set Incident Hash as sequential with your company name prefix and sequential number so that whenever Incident comes into system it has Incident hash generated sequentially as “ABC-001” and so on.

To set the Incident hash : Go to admin setting >> Module >> Incident >> Incident Hash generation >> make it Sequential >> Prefix and number

• Channels : When Incident is created, system identifies the channels from which it has been originated. (to set up channels , go to admin setting >> Channels)

• Conversation Area : All the staff and client conversation a Incident will get appended under conversation area. You would be able to trace out the complete conversation with client under one Incident.

• Audit Log : If you want to trace all the operations done on the Incident by staff member, you can view audit log of a Incident. It captures each and every actions of a staff for eg: if staff put note or comment or if status of a Incident is being changed all those operations are added under audit log automatically.

• Incident Reply : There are two reply option, One is on Top when used client would receive a individual reply on a Incident.

If agent wants to reply with a complete trail of communication to client then “Reply with quote” option can be used. Incident post >> Right side of Incident post >> Reply with quote.

Reply all : If multiple recipients are added under Incident then Reply all option can be used.

Forward Incident : Incident can be forwarded to any third party emailing tool.

Split Incident : Splitting a Incident would help agent when client has added multiple queries in one Incident which could be handled by different staff persons or different departments.

Note : Split Incident must have have at least 2 Incidents post

In such a case, agent can split a Incident into a New Incident or into existing Incident.

• Split Incident into New Incident : You can split a Incident into a new Incident when client has sent two or more than two queries in a same Incident and different department is going to handle the Incidents. You can create a new Incident for different queries of a client by splitting the existing client Incident .

• Split Incident into Existing Incident : You can split a Incident into existing Incident of a client. For example: when a client has submitted two or more queries which you want to split and add into existing Incident of same client. The post gets appended into existing Incident of a client.

Notes on a Incident : Agents can add important details using related to client query over a Incident using Notes. So whenever any other agent opens the same Incident, he would see Notes with details added over it. This would help agents to work on a Incident without any confusion. You can also attach media files with the Notes.

Note :Notes added over a Incident can not be seen by clients. This is used by internal agents

• Incident Note : Incident note can be added over a Incident to share some information related to that particular query of a clients.

      For eg: While working on a Incident, agent waiting for client reply regarding some information so he can add the note over a Incident.

• Client Note : Client notes when added over a Incident, it gets added over all the Incidents submitted by the same client email id. These notes can be added when you want to use particular client details again and again.

  For eg: When you have given discount for your specific client, you can mention in the note. So whenever client will submit a query you would be able to refer the client notes on each Incidents.
  

Comments on a Incident : Incident comments are the communication between the agents working for a Incident.

For example : There are multiple agents working on a single Incident, each agent has set of responsibilities to be done to resolve client query. In such case, Agents can the comments over a Incident.

Note : comments added over a Incident can not be seen by clients. This is used by internal agents.

Clone a Incident : Agents would be able to clone a Incident. Cloned Incident will have different Incident hash but all the properties and content of Incident will get cloned into new Incident. This can be used when different departments are going to work on the same Incident.

• For eg: Client has asked product related questions as well as he has query regarding software installation. Here, Two department are going to work, First Sales and second the Installation department in such case agent can clone the Incident can assign it to two different departments.

Export Incident to a PDF : Agents can export a client Incident into PDF format with all the Incident details and conversation.

Request a approvals : Agents can send approval request to their higher authority and also, They can take the approval from clients over a Incident.

When clicked on Request a approval, agent would be able to select from whom he wants approval i.e from a team or a specific staff member.

If you want to take approval from staff member/client who is not the Helpdesk user then first you have to add that staff/client as a client into Helpdesk. While sending the approval request add the staff/client email address and request a approval.

Staff/Client will receive a link of a Incident on their email address and to approve a Incident they need to click on the link. Once link is clicked staff/Client will be redirected to the client portal where he can view the Incident for approval.

When staff send approval request on a Incident Incident, he view the status of request under Approval tab with following statuses :

Approval Status :

• Approved : When Staff/client give approval over a Incident, staff would see under approved status.

• Rejected : When Staff/client reject the approval request, staff would see under Rejected status.

• Pending : Until Staff/client reject or approves the request, approval request would come under Pending status.

• Cancelled : Agent can cancel the approval request if he doesn't need approval over it.

Symptoms : Agents can add the symptoms related to the client query over a Incident. If same client query re-occurs then staff can check the symptoms issue and give the reply to the client accordingly.

1.9. Agent collision avoidance

Agent collision detection alerts your agents when another agent is operating and possibly resolving the same Incident. The most important advantage that a collision avoidance system will bring to the table is an enhanced sense of delivering services and keeps them on the same page.

• For ex - If one of the agent is working on a particular Incident, when he will click on the reply that Incident will be locked automatically until he discard the Incident.

When other agent will land on the same Incident a lock icon will be displayed on that Incident, that will make them to recognize the Incident is under operation or not. It can substantially increase the efficiency of operation performed by the agents as well as prevent the client from the consequences of being getting confused from the multiple replies of the agents.

1.10. Time Tracking

Time is precious. Make sure you spend it in the right direction. 

Time tracking feature can be used if you want to track the time spent by your agents to resolve client issues. We offer two kind of time tracking. “Start timer” and “Add Time tracked”.

• Start timer is used for instant calculation of time, you have to click on the timer once you have started working on the incident,Once you have unraveled the issue end the timer and you can add the billing amount for the working time in case you are providing the time based paid support to your clients. Also, you can use this timer feature to trace out the actual time spent by the agent to resolve the client query in such case you can disable the amount field.

    When you add a time tracking entry you would be able to see the time tracking records under time tracking tab over a Incident.

• Add time tracking is a manual course of action where you have to add the certain inputs according to the efforts spent for offering the services.

2. SLA Management

Under SLA (Service Level Agreement) you have an agreement with your clients to provide the service within certain duration, Also you can fix the time for your staff to provide initial response and then resolve or provide solutions to clients. 

SLA has “Response time” in which your staff will give the first reply to your clients and “Resolution time” in which your staff will provide your clients complete resolution. Hence, SLA helps you for better customer service by providing timely response and It allows you to keep the track of the response time and resolution time for a Incident.

SLA can be applied over a Incident using workflow rules. The SLA would get applied over an Incident automatically based on event and criteria you have defined under workflow.

An SLA can be set under Admin setting >> Automation >> SLA

The staff can override the default SLA over a Incident listing and Individual Incident from mass operations. Agents can also pause the SLA when they are awaiting for the client reply. Hence, SLA feature would ensure that the response and resolution of client issues is within the defined SLA time.