Symantec® ServiceDesk Customization Guide 7.0
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On a global level, business hours and holidays can be set via the Business Time Span
Editor, which is one of the tools installed with Workflow Solution and ServiceDesk. These
global business hour settings are then picked up and used as the default settings by
every new workflow and monitoring project that is created.
The project level represents the second level of business hour and holiday settings.
Although initially drawn from the global settings, the business hours can be modified on
project-by-project by basis, if necessary. The project level settings can be found on the
project attributes screen under the Publishing tab and labeled "Business Time Span
Config." The ability to incorporate business hours respective to individual projects may
be beneficial, for example, if an organization 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 appropriate they may be incorporated at the component level to
allow or prevent certain actions from occurring based on established business hours. A
very common example is the consideration of weekends and holidays when establishing
timeout and escalation rules, and in the Emergency track of the default SLA.
Below you see a screenshot taken during configuration of a Dialog Workflow component.
The dialog box pictured is used to set up the proper timeout and escalation schedules for
this activity.
There are four settings which look to the business hours to ensure proper execution:
z
Allow End Time To Fall Outside Business Hours
z
Skip Weekends
