Helpdesk overview
What Helpdesk is for, the ideas behind ownership, transfer, escalation and SLA, and what it does not do yet.
What Helpdesk is for
Helpdesk records every request for support in one place, makes sure each ticket has one clear owner, and watches the clock against the service promise (the SLA). It is built for support that crosses teams: an IT ticket that needs a site visit, a product fault that needs the warranty team, a part that needs a vendor.
Who uses it
- Agents work tickets: reply, add notes, create tasks, log time and resolve.
- Team leaders and managers accept transfers, approve escalations, receive SLA alerts and see the dashboard.
- Administrators set up teams, SLA policies, routing rules, escalation chains, types, categories and skills.
Key ideas
- Ticket. One request. The number looks like HD-000001. A ticket has a requester, a subject, a priority, a status and, once routed, a team and an agent.
- One owner. At any moment exactly one team owns a ticket, and at most one agent works it. Only the owning team resolves, closes or cancels it.
- Transfer. Moves ownership to another team. The receiving team can be set to accept automatically, to let a member accept, or to need its manager's approval.
- Escalation. Raises the level (L1, L2, L3, Manager, Vendor, Executive) and brings in help. It does not always change the owner. The target can collaborate, take over, or only be told.
- Collaborating team. Helps with a ticket without owning it. It can reply, write notes, add tasks and update technical details, but it cannot resolve or close.
- Hand-off log. Every assignment, transfer, escalation and collaborator change adds a row to the ticket's History. Rows are never edited or removed.
- SLA. A first-response target and a resolution target, counted on working hours (8x5) or around the clock (24x7). The clock can pause while you wait for the customer, a vendor or, if you choose, another team.
- Routing. Rules in sequence decide the team, agent, priority and SLA of a new ticket. The team's assignment method then picks the agent: manual, round robin, least loaded or skill based.
How Helpdesk connects to other modules
Helpdesk stands on its own for tickets. It can hold references to assets, products, sales orders, invoices, service contracts and projects as typed text. It does not check them against the other module's records. Notices go to the in-app notification bell only.
Not available yet
E-mail, WhatsApp and SMS notices; ticket intake from e-mail or a portal; a vendor portal; a major-incident screen; knowledge articles; converting a ticket to a project; after-hours and backup team routing; and limiting what a team can see to its own tickets. The Source field is a label only.
In the current release every person with helpdesk.view can read every team's tickets. Plan permissions with this in mind.
Where to start
Set Helpdesk up with Getting started. Day to day, see Raise a ticket and Work the queues.