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Symantec® ServiceDesk Customization Guide 7.0

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Skip Holidays

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Business Time Span Config Usage

Using “Allow End Time To Fall Outside Business Hours” establishes that a process can 
auto-escalate or timeout between workdays even if the critical time threshold is reached 
outside of normal business hours (i.e. for most businesses this effectively means that an 
activity can escalate or timeout overnight). “Skip Weekends” and “Skip Holidays” 
ensures that only business days are counted in the escalation/timeout process.

Finally, the drop-down box labeled "Business Time Span Config Usage:" is used to 
specify whether the component should look to the global business hour settings, the 
project settings, or the custom settings on this component itself.

Set Up “Follow the Sun”

The SD.FollowTheSun project is where groups to assign to an incident are defined when 
the incident is marked to “follow the sun.” In the primary model of this project, it is 
necessary to:

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Verify/change the default time of day evaluation (set in increments of six hours by 
default)

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Establish location names that would cause an incident to move for each time range 
(edit the “Build List of Locations to Move” Add New Data Element components)

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Establish group assignment for each location (edit the “Build List of New Group 
Assignments” Add Items to Collection components)

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Verify/change the value of the “Set New Task Duration in Hours” Add New Data 
Element component (default value is six hours)

Each of these items to configure is pointed out within the model.

Change the Frequency of the Customer Service Satisfaction 

Survey

In Service Desk, a task is assigned to the customer after his/her incident is resolved. 
He/she has the option to either reopen the issue or resolve it.

On picking the “Issue Resolved” path in the Confirm Incident Resolved form, the process 
hits the Random Rule component.

By default, this Random Rule component is set to 100, meaning the customer 
satisfaction survey is sent after every incident is confirmed as resolved by an end-user.

Service Desk may not always want to send a survey to a customer every time his/her 
ticket is resolved. Any process that sends out a survey form to the customer can be 
modified in such a way that it sends out surveys only for a particular percentage of time. 
For example, a process can be set up to send surveys for 30% of the time. This means 
that out of the 10 tickets resolved, only 3 customers (assuming the 10 tickets are 
submitted by 10 different customers) get the survey. The random rule would be set to 
30 in this case.

To disable the survey entirely, set the Random Rule to zero, or disable the Random Rule 
component and set its execution outcome to “false.”

Summary of Contents for SERVICEDESK 7.0

Page 1: ...SYMANTEC ServiceDesk Customization Guide 7 0 ...

Page 2: ...SENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON INFRINGEMENT ARE DISCLAIMED EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLY INVALID SYMANTEC CORPORATION SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CONNECTION WITH THE FURNISHING PERFORMANCE OR USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION THE INFORMATION CONTAINED ...

Page 3: ...e that delivers automatic software upgrade protection z Advanced features including Account Management Services For information about Symantec s Maintenance Programs you can visit our Web site at the following URL www symantec com techsupp Contacting Technical Support Customers with a current maintenance agreement may access Technical Support information at the following URL www symantec com techs...

Page 4: ...z Issues that are related to CD ROMs or manuals Maintenance agreement resources If you want to contact Symantec regarding an existing maintenance agreement please contact the maintenance agreement administration team for your region as follows Additional enterprise services Symantec offers a comprehensive set of services that allow you to maximize your investment in Symantec products and to develo...

Page 5: ...ical expertise from Symantec and its trusted partners Symantec Consulting Services offer a variety of prepackaged and customizable options that include assessment design implementation monitoring and management capabilities Each is focused on establishing and maintaining the integrity and availability of your IT resources Educational Services Educational Services provide a full array of technical ...

Page 6: ...ame Virtual Directory 16 Basic Steps for Versioning 16 About Application Properties 17 Restoring ServiceDesk Processes 17 Project Differential Tool 18 Basic ServiceDesk 7 Customization 18 Editing the Core ITIL Processes 18 Verify Users Groups and Organizations 18 Set Up Incident Categories Classifications 19 Verify Default Priority Impact and Urgency Values 20 Verify Close Codes 23 Portal Master S...

Page 7: ...ew Reports 53 Creating a Child Report 55 Configure Automatic Generation of Reports 55 Making a Report a Web Service 55 Replicating ServiceDesk Data 56 Create a New Schedule 56 Adding Removing E mail Notification 57 Application Property for Two Notifications 58 Remove an Approval Step 58 Customize the Spell Checking Dictionary 58 Create Incidents from Other Sources 59 Notification Server 59 Other S...

Page 8: ...rs or technicians to log an incident End users receive updates on all problems that they report Once an issue is reported it can be prioritized and routed to the right people who can solve the problem and report the success back to the users and management ServiceDesk 7 has many automated capabilities that can drive down the amount of human effort needed to correct issues In other cases where seve...

Page 9: ... cover the basics of deployment but more in depth instructions on it and using the Debugger for testing are covered in the Symantec Workflow documentation Process Manager ServiceDesk Database The term Process Manager refers to the database that stores process data and ServiceDesk data such as groups users and permissions The Process Manager database is a standard part of Symantec Workflow when you...

Page 10: ...and and manage Aim to provide the basic functionality and services needed to achieve a reasonable amount of satisfaction not the ultimate end all solution Then build up the ServiceDesk 7 system over time as the support staff and the end users become more familiar with it Phases in Implementing ServiceDesk This document organizes the process of implementing ServiceDesk 7 into 3 phases z Phase 1 Pro...

Page 11: ... processes directly follow Symantec s opinion of ITIL best practices determined through customer feedback and scrutiny of ITIL documentation z Incident Management Process The incident management process manages incidents with a focus on restoring the user to an operational state as quickly as possible to the level identified in the Service Level Agreement z Problem Management Process The problem m...

Page 12: ...mization Consider these questions when thinking about your current processes z Is the process different if the issue is a hardware problem or a software problem z Is the process different if you don t know what is causing the issue only that a user is unhappy z How do you determine if an issue is a high priority or what the level of impact to the organization is This part of the ServiceDesk 7 syst...

Page 13: ... brought in technicians will see the incidents but actually work them in Help Desk 6 5 via an IFrame Therefore it is necessary to keep Help Desk 6 5 up and running until all of its tickets are closed Best practice is to cut off users from submitting new incidents into Help Desk 6 5 once incident migration occurs Since migrated incidents receive their own category in ServiceDesk and are prefixed wi...

Page 14: ...flow to make sure it is still running In the tool right click the KB migration process turn on logging and go to the Log View tab The migration wizard sends notifications throughout the migration process to the e mail address specified in one of the wizard screens You are notified each time a KB category successfully migrates and if there s a failure down to the specific article that failed If a d...

Page 15: ...rocesses such as routing rules that only run for a split second If you publish over an existing virtual directory the only instances that are broken are ones in an active state For instance if you have a web forms process and people have some forms open if you publish to that same virtual directory the next time a button is clicked on the open forms an error message will display This is also the c...

Page 16: ...the instances that were already submitted without age would not break and all the new instances that were submitted with age would work Basic Steps for Versioning To publish version a ServiceDesk process in Symantec Workflow simple versioning method 1 Create the new version of the project by either copying an existing project or unpacking the original and renaming it as desired For example append ...

Page 17: ...Manager Updates made to the application properties are not immediately applied to Process Manager this is because Process Manager relies on cached application properties You can force the new application properties by restarting IIS thus clearing the cached data but this is not usually feasible in a production environment Once Process Manager updates its cache then the current processes will start...

Page 18: ...ore ITIL projects from packages for example SD IncidentManagement SD ChangeManagement etc the process name by default is the file name of the package IT IS NECESSARY TO ADD A SPACE in between IncidentManagement ChangeManagement etc within the name of the project being unpacked If you do not add a space and simply accept the default process name then you would see two entries for incident managemen...

Page 19: ...s in SD IncidentManagement try restarting IIS and reloading the Symantec Workflow project Set Up Incident Categories Classifications A good category system is key to building a smoothly running ServiceDesk 7 system Some of the more useful ServiceDesk 7 reports are sorted by category to help you see what types of issues are most common and what trends are occurring in your environment ServiceDesk 7...

Page 20: ...oup Entire Department Unsure z Default urgency values to technicians Core business service Support service and Non urgent services z Default impact values to technicians Department LOB Branch Small group or VIP and single user Note You can change the values however doing so requires caution and a good understanding of the Symantec Workflow software The instructions below focus on impact and urgenc...

Page 21: ...ority Incident Management automatically sets the priority to normal even if the form selection was the new priority To add new impact and urgency values to the end user Submit Incident form and the decision table that calculates priority 1 Open the SD Feeder GeneralIncidentSubmitForm project 2 In the Primary model open the Create New Incident Form Builder component 3 The lower left section of the ...

Page 22: ...Table component Configure as follows Click on Next Double click the Matches Rule for Impact vertical on the left Click on Add Type Financial Group and click OK Click OK again Double click the Matches Rule for Urgency horizontal across the top Add No Internet Access in the same manner Click OK then OK again In each cell showing invalid type the desired priority value It must be exact no extra space...

Page 23: ... open the Initial Diagnosis Dialog Workflow component 3 From the Interaction Setup tab open the Dialog Model 4 Open the Work Resolve Incident Form Builder component This contains the UI technicians access for working an incident 5 Edit the items list within the Drop Down List component for Close Code to reflect the desired changes Portal Master Settings Portal master settings are established durin...

Page 24: ...ServiceDesk documentation housed Do not change settings under Application Management or Process Manager Events Determine AD synch method z Internal synch method which is selected by default Built in to the PM Synchs everything Process Manager Active Directory Settings AD Sync Process Interval default is once an hour z Workflow method enabled by checking the Process AD Changes Using Workflow checkb...

Page 25: ...osing messages z Setting the desired error messages z Adding data additional fields to forms The following sections offer examples to give you ideas of how you can do basic form changes throughout ServiceDesk 7 Change the Theme and Template for a Form Themes in Symantec Workflow dictate component control styles like font attributes dialog box form size border width and style and background images ...

Page 26: ...d using a utility included with Symantec Workflow From the Start menu select All Programs Altiris Workflow Designer Tools Composer Theme Editor 2 Click the New icon to start a new theme When the theme is saved it automatically defaults to the directory where themes are browsed to when editing a form For further information on building themes consult the Symantec Workflow documentation 3 New themes...

Page 27: ...required field is not populated You can get more sophisticated with your error messaging for example a specific error message can appear if a field value violates a rule other than the field being empty For example in a numeric field an error message could say the value must be between 1 and 10 The following instructions use the customer satisfaction survey as an example To modify the message that...

Page 28: ...ouses the data to exist For example adding CostCenter attribute to the Incident data type 2 Adding the field to the form so the data can be captured For example creating a cost center input field for technicians to enter a cost center when submitting an incident Step 1 is a very important more technical piece Both of these steps are covered in the section Extend Data Profiles page 46 Note about re...

Page 29: ...ne assignment the order of the rules is the order in which they are enforced Note Any time you want to add auto assignment of incidents to the Incident Management process simply add the DetermineAssignmentComponent from the ServiceDesk Data Incident category of components at the point where you want to introduce a call to that service By default a call to this service is done right after an incide...

Page 30: ...e the incident to the Facilities group These instructions assume Facilities exists already as an added top level category in ServiceDesk along with the sub categories HVAC Water leak and Cleanliness Issue The instructions also assume that the user group Facilities exists as well See the section Set Up Incident Categories Classifications page 19 for assistance regarding categories See the section V...

Page 31: ...t to a certain group The instructions assume that the desired groups exist See the section Verify Users Groups and Organizations page 18 for assistance adding groups You could set up this example in tandem with the routing by priority example you could perform priority evaluation first then route to a special group for high or urgent incidents for that location for example To create a routing rule...

Page 32: ...passed in to a custom database component that does a lookup to match the Reference ID to a site ID Note This example uses a custom component for querying a custom SQL database table to do a lookup of site ID This requires an upgraded license for Symantec Workflow To create a routing rule to route by location using reference data 1 Open the SD RoutingRules project and navigate to the Determine Assi...

Page 33: ...model Unprivileged escalation means the user does not have the permission to select a particular user or group to whom to escalate this is the default for all Support I members Allowing Auto Escalation is a setting configured during installation However you can change this setting post installation from the Admin Data Application Properties page One example of customized escalation when a ticket t...

Page 34: ...the current assignee if it is assigned to a specific user not a group If the late date at the overall level is reached chances are the ticket already auto escalated and had notifications sent based on the internal SLAs Therefore no action is configured in ServiceDesk at this point Customers can essentially disable SLAs by increasing the late and warning timespans to a very large number of days if ...

Page 35: ... sense to create new models for each then use SD DataServices Setup SLA Requirements so it makes a call to the appropriate model Or use a decisioning component to handle which SLA to use To enable incidents to time out more than once 1 Open the SD IncidentManagement project and navigate to the Set Timeout Date model Please see Editing the Core ITIL Processes page 18 if this is the first time openi...

Page 36: ...ion has a department that operates through the weekend while the majority of other departments operate only during the business week The retail industry would be a prime example of this Finally business hours can be further customized at the component level within workflow projects only On their own the business hour settings do not affect the way a workflow project is executed But when appropriat...

Page 37: ...each location edit the Build List of New Group Assignments Add Items to Collection components z Verify change the value of the Set New Task Duration in Hours Add New Data Element component default value is six hours Each of these items to configure is pointed out within the model Change the Frequency of the Customer Service Satisfaction Survey In Service Desk a task is assigned to the customer aft...

Page 38: ...ncidents templates are pre populated incident submission templates that have pre defined standard values for common issues For example server reboots or password resets are frequently requested in most organizations and there are many values in these incidents that are set the same way every time Instead of the ServiceDesk 7 worker setting all of these values manually every time a password is rese...

Page 39: ...Body Merge HTML component 6 On the Configuration tab click the ellipse next to Merge Data 7 In the Advanced Text Creator window add modify or delete text as appropriate To customize the global header and footer for e mails 1 Open the SD DataServices project in Symantec Workflow 2 Scroll down to the bottom of the models list and open the GetEmailTemplateParts model 3 Configure the Build Email Heade...

Page 40: ...ncidents through the inbound e mail interface The e mail process is found in the SD Email Monitor project The e mail address user name password e mail type and server information is all set up during the installation process Changes can be made however from the Admin tab Data Application Properties Brief Overview of How it Works Ideas for Customization The SD Email Monitor process allows for anyon...

Page 41: ...orrespondence becomes a part of the incident history it is not necessary for a technician to check an Inbox If a reply code is deleted for whatever reason the Service Manager by default gets a task to review the e mail and can associate it to an existing ticket Processing Large Amounts of E mail The SD Email Monitoring process allows for quick processing of e mails however if you tend to have a la...

Page 42: ...ation section at the bottom 5 Click the ellipse next to Timeout Time Span 6 Change the value from two days to the desired duration Establish Change Management Groups If Change Management is to be used the user groups associated with it such as the CAB need to be defined in ServiceDesk Modify the default groups to include the appropriate individuals responsible for handling change This is done from...

Page 43: ... Assignments field Browse button Click AllParticipantsRow EmailAddress and click Remove Click Add From Process Click Pick Array Select RiskAssessors EmailAddress and click OK The Variable name field below shows RiskAssessors EmailAddress Click OK then OK again Click OK to close the Variable Assignments screen Click the Interaction Setup tab Click the Dialog Model field Browse button Scroll right a...

Page 44: ...ct Risk Assessment Merge Data component Configure as follows z Click the Merge Data field Browse button Delete the AllParticipantsRow ParticipantName data from the editor screen From the Data tab on the left expand EnsembleSecurityToken and then select Name Drag and drop EnsembleSecurityToken Name in the previous location of AllParticipantsRow ParticipantName Delete the piece of previous data for ...

Page 45: ...Symantec ServiceDesk Customization Guide 7 0 45 3 Double click the drop down list component that houses the categories 4 Update the list of values as desired ...

Page 46: ...example that follows demonstrates the addition of the data cost center to the Incident data type so technicians can enter a cost center value when creating an incident First the data will be created then the form for submitting an incident will be modified to collect the cost center Note that Cost Center is just used arbitrarily as an example since this is a value in the NS it is likely true cost ...

Page 47: ...d a prompt will appear asking to overwrite the local library with the server version Leave the checkboxes unchecked to keep the local library Click OK 3 Right click the Create New Incident Form Builder component and select Web Form Editor 4 Resize the text box for the incident description to make room for the new field 5 From the Variables pane in the lower left expand Incident and scroll down to ...

Page 48: ...e capture a specific comment for a specific question if the rating for that question is less than 3 Follow the procedures in the preceding section Extending the ServiceDesk Incident Data Type but make adjustments appropriate for the customer satisfaction survey Extend the Change Request Data Type The ChangeRequest data type is the central and unifying element within Change Management This data typ...

Page 49: ...cking the Add icon on that page and making a selection from the Class Name drop down menu That is the full list of web parts available Plugins can be added in ServiceDesk as well under Admin Portal Plugin Upload Modify Types of Changes Within the Change Management main model SD ChangeManagement a form provides the type of change for a proposed change request If your organization only utilizes a fe...

Page 50: ...ortant required step regarding unpacking 2 In the Change Management Main model double click the CM Gatekeeper Dialog Workflow component 3 On the Interaction Setup tab open the Dialog Model 4 Right click the Type of Change Form Builder component and select Edit Component 5 Click on the Settings tab 6 Uncheck the Is Enabled checkbox 7 From the Execution Outcome drop down menu that appears select the...

Page 51: ...he name is Search Altiris KB 7 Open the Dialog Model This is where the process itself is configured 8 Add a Merge Text component to the new dialog model and double click the component to edit it 9 Open the Merge Data model It is easiest to paste in the URL of the Altiris KB rather than type it therefore go to the Altiris KB site http kb altiris com Leave the Merge Text component open 10 Do a simpl...

Page 52: ...ere is an important required step regarding unpacking 2 Within the Main Incident Work model double click the Diagnose and Work Incident Linked Model component 3 Double click the Initial Diagnosis Dialog Workflow component 4 Select the Interaction Setup tab 5 Click on the Search Altiris KB smart task and click on Edit 6 From the Setup tab check the Conditionally Use checkbox 7 Open the Conditional ...

Page 53: ...mantec Workflow and when tested and ready to publish choose the option to Publish to Process Manager Forms or Publish to Process Manager Services depending on the type of project 2 Select the catalog location and deploy During deployment set the permissions for the process from the Permissions tab You can also set permissions for the service catalog process in the portal from the Admin tab Service...

Page 54: ...Status Incident Description Incident ID Incident Priority 6 The middle pane is intended to show a preview of returned data not all of the data that will be returned by the report 7 Adjust your report by using the arrows on columns displayed in middle pane or by using the arrows next to the column labels in the column list on the right pane You can also adjust the column width by using the sliding ...

Page 55: ... reporting schedule To set up a reports schedule 1 In ServiceDesk go to Admin Reports Report Schedule List 2 Click on the Add button on the right 3 Set up the schedule as desired and click Save 4 From the schedule s actions lightning bolt icon click Reports 5 Click on Add Report and select the report s to include Select the user to run the reports as if necessary Select the destination type file o...

Page 56: ...nd Release Management directly update the schedule calendar visible under Knowledge Base Schedules It is possible for an administrator to create a new schedule and allow users to add entries to track events entirely separate from the default schedule You can also call the new schedule directly from a process To create a new schedule 1 In ServiceDesk go to the Knowledge Base Schedules page 2 In the...

Page 57: ...to call SD EmailServices z Use the Send Email component within the process z Create a custom Web Service Caller component to call SD EmailServices this requires an upgraded version of Symantec Workflow The recommended method for notifications is by calling SD EmailServices This way the behavior and appearance is consistent The link to SD EmailServices uses variables to provide the Create Email URL...

Page 58: ... step will always return true as if approval was granted There is no need for user interaction Customize the Spell Checking Dictionary User input in ServiceDesk is validated for spelling typically by a SpellCheck component The component is not visible to the end user however it creates red underlining for misspelled words By right clicking the misspelled word a list of spelling suggestions appears...

Page 59: ...loy it to the production server To install the SD Feeder CreateIncidentForAssetInNS package 1 In Symantec Workflow click the Add button and browse to the list of ServiceDesk project packages 2 Open the package for SD Feeder CreateIncidentForAssetInNS 3 Deploy the project using the same deployment procedure as for other ServiceDesk projects to introduce this functionality Other Systems The integrat...

Page 60: ...esired Configure it as follows Image states can remain as they are by default red yellow green Set the default state to red Open the Image Selection model for configuration Clone the existing End component twice and rename them to Red Yellow and Green and open each one to select the corresponding color option based on the name of the component Add a Create Random Number component and connect the S...

Page 61: ...s component Configure as follows First value Counter use the browse capability to pick this variable Second value 1 constant Output value Counter use the browse capability to pick this variable 6 Add an Equals Rule component after the Add Values component and connect the Add Values component to the Equals Rule Configure the Equals Rule as follows Data Type Number integer Variable Name Counter use ...

Page 62: ...und in ServiceDesk To insert the new web part into a page in ServiceDesk 1 Log in to ServiceDesk as the Administrator or a user who has edit permission to a page 2 From the Site Actions menu at the top of the portal select Pages List 3 Select the page in which you want to insert the web part from the Pages List on the left 4 Click the Go To Page button 5 From the Site Actions menu select Modify Pa...

Page 63: ...rocess and potentially cause failure to launch run z Application Properties This should be left enabled in order to maintain the link to ServiceDesk settings within the process The following areas items should not be modified at the component level z Start Removal of this component will cause the process to fail z End Removal of this component will cause the process to fail z SetUp Process This co...

Page 64: ...ery environment This specific use case targets 120 to 160 concurrent technicians processing one to two thousand new incidents per day The steps described below will allow this load to be distributed among 3 ServiceDesk servers Explanation of Topology This topology has 3 identical servers meeting the recommended specifications for ServiceDesk 7 and a separate database server One of the application ...

Page 65: ...ess Manager Settings 6 Wait for the Workflow environment and ServiceDesk to completely install on the primary server before continuing Do not run the post installation setup wizard 7 Open the local machine settings on the primary application server by right clicking the task tray application and selecting Settings If the task tray app is not there you can launch it from the Workflow Designer Tools...

Page 66: ...ed to run these steps on all of your application servers 1 Open windows explorer and browse to the Process Manager directory By default it is in Program Files Altiris Workflow Designer Ensemble Open the web config file here Locate the DataAccessConfiguration section and find the ConnectionString node Copy the connection string out of the value attribute of this node so that it s in your clipboard ...

Page 67: ...o the database so they can be shared Second the seamless experience of interacting with services within the portal belies the fact that they exist in quite separate application domains When you select the New ServiceDesk Request service catalog item for example you re actually making a call into the SD Feeder GeneralIncidentSubmission application which then calls a web service in the SD IncidentMa...

Page 68: ...mance benefit To make things more complicated during installation the base URL value is set to a property on each individual workflow project that is rolled out So if you enter this value incorrectly during installation you have to edit every place to which the URL is propagated For more information about installing ServiceDesk 7 see ServiceDesk Implemention Guide http www symantec com business su...

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