Introduction to the Service Desk module
In this article
- Introduction to the Service Desk
- The Service Desk from the user’s perspective
- The Service Desk from the supporter’s perspective
Introduction to the Service Desk
Wizdom Service Desk provides an intuitive ticketing system for internal operations. This enables employees to initiate and handle internal inquiries and concerns, such as office supply requests, IT issues, and all other employee queries, from the intranet.
Supporting the entire process of a support request, Wizdom Service Desk offers an automated support request management workflow that helps employees and support teams submit, monitor, and manage support tickets.
The Service Desk from the user’s perspective
Entering a service desk landing page, users will be presented to an overview with tabs to access a list of, respectively, tickets in progress and closed tickets. From this overview, users can, also, submit new requests.
Example of a user’s overview of own tickets in progress.
Users submit tickets from the relevant service desk by performing a few intuitive actions:
1) When clicking “Create ticket”, the user can choose between categories defined for the service desk.
2) Clicking on a category will lead to a number of fields that will guide the user to provide the supporter with the appropriate information. Most of these fields are mandatory for the module and its processes. In addition to these, administrators can create fields to be used for specific service desks.
3) The field “Receive email when status of your ticket changes” is ticket per default. When ticked, the user will receive email notifications when a supporter comments the case, provides a solution for the case, or changes state of the case.
Note: Files and pictures, attached to tickets, are uploaded to SharePoint’s storage. They will not be easily findable, but they will not be protected by rights either. This means, if some user guesses the direct link to a picture or file attached to a ticket, the picture or file can potentially be seen by that user.
Wizdom Service Desk allows the user full insight to his or her request.
For each ticket, the user has access to an overview of the ticket with details like assigned supporter, ticket state, relevant files, comments, and proposes solution to the ticket.
Example of user’s overview of a ticket.
Closing a Case
When a supporter set the state of a ticket to “Ready to close”, it enables the user, who created the ticket, to close it from the ticket’s overview.
The supporter can, also, close the case e.g. if agreed with the user, or if the user does not respond to the supporter after the case is solved.
After a ticket is closed, the user can access the ticket and its details under “Closed tickets” from the service desk’s landing page.
The service desk from the supporter’s perspective
From this overview, the supporter can choose between different tabs that helps the supporter in managing tickets.
“For dispatch” displays cases that are not yet assigned to a supporter. From here, a supporter with the role “Super supporter” can assign tickets to relevant supporters.
“My tickets” will show the supporter tickets he or she is assigned to.
“Waiting for user” will show the tickets assigned to the supporter that are waiting for an action from the user that has submitted the ticket.
“All tickets” provides a list of all tickets submitted to a help desk. Ticking “Also show closed cases” will include closed tickets in the list. From the list, supporters can click into each ticket to access the ticket overview and see all details about the ticket in question.
Finally, “Create ticket” allows the supporter to create a ticket in the service desk. Contrary to users with no support role, supporters can create tickets on behalf of other users.
Handling an Assigned Ticket
When a supporter is assigned a ticket, the supporter will receive an email notification about this. Also, the supporter will, now, see the ticket in the overview under “My tickets”.
By clicking on the ticket in the overview, the supporter will enter an interface with all details about the ticket and tools to manage it. From this view, the supporter performs all support actions.
Change Priority of Case
When submitting a request, the user defines the priority of the case to either low, medium, or high. This priority can be changed by the supporter.
To change the priority of a case, the supporter uses the drop-down menu in the top of the ticket overview.
If a ticket is set to “High priority”, an exclamation mark will appear next to the ticket in the supporter’s ticket overview.
Assigning Ticket to Another Supporter
If the supporter will refer the ticket to a colleague, the supporter can assign other supporters to the ticket. This is done in the top of the ticket overview, by selecting the relevant supporter.
Commenting a Ticket
When commenting a ticket, the supporter fills in the field “Comments”. A comment can either be a comment to the user or an internal comment. If the supporter clicks on “Save as internal comment”, the comment will be seen by other supporters, but not the user that has submitted the ticket. If the comment is simply saved, user as well as supporters can see the comment.
When a supporter sends a comment about a ticket to a user, the state of the ticket changes state to “Waiting for user”, unless the supporter unticks the field under the comment “Set status to “Waiting for user" when saving comment”.
Providing a Solution for a Ticket
When communicating a solution to the user, the supporter fills in the field “Solution”. Per default, the user will receive a notification by email, letting the user know that a solution has been provided. If the supporter doesn’t wish the user to receive an email notification about the solution, he or she would need to untick the notification box, which is ticked per default.
Changing State of a Ticket and Closing it
As a case evolves, a ticket will change from different states between created and closed.
To change the state of a case, the supporter uses the drop-down menu in the top of the ticket overview.
When a supporter finds a case solved and ready to be closed, he or she can set the state of the ticket to either “Ready to close” or “Closed”. If a ticket is set to “Ready to close”, the user, who has requested the ticket, will be asked to close it. If the ticket is set to “Closed”, it will be closed right away and considered solved.
Time Recording
Time recording provides a tool to better understand how much time a supporter takes to solve tickets.
By the means of a simple drop-down menu in the ticket overview, the supporter can record the time spend on each ticket.
States of the Ticket
Different states of the ticket solving are reflected in the ticket’s states. In this way, the user can follow the course of the ticket solving, and the supporters can keep track of what is happening with the internal service delivery.
Wizdom Service Desk provides the following states:
Created, the initial state of the ticket when it is first created.
Assigned, the state of the ticket when it is assigned to a supporter.
In progress, the supporter has initiated the ticket solving.
Ready to close, the supporter finds the ticket solved and ready to be closed by the user.
Closed, the ticket is solved and closed either by the user or the supporter.
Waiting on user, the supporter is waiting for the user to respond.
Waiting on third-party, the supporter is waiting for a third-party to respond.
In two scenarios, this state change will happen automatically:
1) When the case is assigned to a supporter it will automatically change from “Created” to “Assigned”.
2) When a supporter sends a comment about a ticket to a user, the state of the ticket per default changes state to “Waiting for user”.
In all other scenarios, the states are changed manually.
Service Desk module settings
In this article
- Top-level administration of service desks
- Defining permissions and email settings
- Defining service desk categories
- Defining metadata for a service desk
- Configuring templates for the Service Desk module
- Configuring email templates for the Service Desk module
Top-level administration of Service Desks
The top-level administration of individual service desks created in your solution is managed in Wizdom Configuration Center.
Under ‘administration‘ in the Service Desk module, you have access to configure settings for service desks created in your solution. Here, you are presented to an overview of all service desks created.
To configure a service desk:
1) Click on the service desk that you wish to set up.
2) Now, you are presented to a page with three tabs each offering options for configuration:
The first tab has the name of the service desk. Here you define who will have permissions to create tickets, who will be assigned the role “super supporter”, and settings regarding email messages send from the service desk.
The tab, Categories, lets you define subjects for users to categorize support tickets when submitting requests. E.g. an IT help desk could operate with categories like Asset Acquisition, Asset Move, Asset Retirement, End User Support, End User Move, Maintenance, New Hire Setup, Network Issue, etc.
The tab, Metadata, lets you define data recorded for tickets created in the service desk.
Defining permissions and email settings
Defining permissions for a service desk and adjusting settings regarding email messages sent from a service desk is done in the ‘Administration’ area in the Wizdom Service module.
To define permissions for a service desk:
1) In the Service Desk module administration, click the Service Desk you would like to configure. Permission settings are located in the top of the first page you land on.
2) Under ‘Ticket creation permissions’, decide who will have permission to create tickets by choosing between three options: ‘Wizdom administrators and super supporters’, ‘Everyone’, or ‘Specific people and groups’. When selecting ‘Specific people and groups’, you are offered to find people or groups by search.
3) Under ‘Super supporters’, select users you will assign the role ‘super supporter’ for the current service desk. This role allows the user full overview of and right to manage all tickets in the help desk.
The user creating a service desk is assigned the role super supporter per default. If you wish to remove users from the role super supporter, simply click the cross to the right of the name.
To define settings regarding email messages sent from a service desk:
1) In the Service Desk module administration, click on the service desk you wish to configure. Email settings are located a bit down the first page you land on, under ‘General’.
2) Here, you define which web page emails, send from the current service desk, will link to (under “Url to be used in emails”), whether supporters will receive email notifications regarding tickets in the service desk, and templates for the emails sent from the service desk.
Defining service desk categories
Categories for users to categorize tickets, when submitting requests, are managed in the ‘Administration’ area in the Wizdom Service module.
To create new categories or edit existing:
1) In the Service Desk administration, click on the service desk you wish to configure.
2) Click the tab ‘Categories’
3) Click ‘Create category’ to establish a new category, click ‘Edit’ to the right of an existing category to edit it, or click ‘New subcategory’ to create a subcategory to an existing category.
For all categories you can define name and description, and choose from a list of predefined icons to represent it.
Category creation window
Categories as they are presented to users submitting requests
Defining metadata for a service desk
The data recorded for tickets, created in a service desk, are defined by the means of metadata.
Based on metadata defined, the service desk will present users and supporters to fields to fill in, during the ticket processing, that will ensure the appropriate data are recorded.
The service desk module includes a selection of pre-defined metadata that are mandatory for the module and its processes. In addition to these, administrators can create metadata to be used for specific service desks.
To manage metadata for a service desk:
1) Click on the service desk you wish to configure under the ‘Administration’ area in the Wizdom Service Desk module.
2) Click the tab ‘Metadata’
3) Click ‘Add metadata’ to establish new metadata, click ‘Edit’ to the right of an existing category to edit it, or ‘Delete’ to delete it. Some predefined metadata are mandatory and can’t be edited or deleted.
You can, also, manage metadata on category level, defining customized metadata that will be applied for tickets in certain categories.
To manage metadata for a category:
1) Click on the service desk, you wish to configure, under the ‘Administration’ area in the Wizdom Service Desk module.
2) Click the tab “Categories” and then on the category you wish to manage metadata for.
3) This will lead you to a list of metadata for the category. Click “Add metadata” to establish new metadata, click “Edit” to the right of an existing category to edit it, or “Delete” to delete it. Again, pre-defined metadata are mandatory and can’t be edited or deleted.
NOTE: Metadata created on service desk level with the box “Push to existing types” ticked will have to be deleted on category level in cases where categories have subcategories.
When creating or editing metadata, you are presented to a metadata definition window with a set of fields that let you define how the user or supporter will fill in the metadata.
Not all fields are present in all metadata definition windows as the fields, you will need to fill out for the metadata, depends on the type of the field.
‘Type’ lets you decide which type of field that will be offered the user or supporter when they fill in the data about the ticket. You can choose between options as text, text area, checkbox, email, number, etc.
In the field ‘Label’, you define the text the user and supporter will see in the top of the field where they will fill in data about the ticket.
Example of the label of a field as the user or supporter see this. 
Settings for “label” in the metadata definition window
Example of the guiding placeholder text of a field as the user or supporter see this inside the field
Settings for ‘Placeholder text’ in the metadata definition window
The text you fill in “Default value” will be the default text of the field where the user or supporter will fill in data. When filling in the data, the user or supporter can choose to change this text or to let the field be filled out with the default data. .
Example of the default value label of a field as the user or supporter see this
Settings for default value in the metadata definition window
In the “Error message field”, you compose the message users will receive when the field is not filled in correctly.
”Display options”enables you to hide custom metadata in either edit mode, on new forms, or on display forms. Note: This feature is currently not supported by the Service Desk module.
Ticking ‘HTML’ for a metadata field of a ‘textarea type’, will enable supporters and users to us use HTML in the text area and e.g. add pictures and links. If HTML is unticked, the text area will be for plain text only.
Ticking ‘Hide image preview in new and edit form’ for a metadata field of an ‘imagepicker’ type, will hide the image you have inserted as the default value.
Ticking ‘Date Only’ for a metadata field of a ‘datetime’ type means that the field will only supporters and users to fill in date, not time.
‘Minimum value’ and ‘Maximum value’ for a metadata field of a ‘number’ type lets you define the minimum and maximum values supporters and users can write in the number field.
‘Possible values’ for a metadata field of a ‘radio’ and ‘select’ type lets you define the options the supporter and users will choose between in a radio button or drop-down list field.
‘Term Set’ for a metadata field of a ‘taxanomy’ type lets you select a term set that administrators can use for tagging.
If you untick “Push to existing types”, the metadata field will not appear in cases where users submit tickets using subcategories. The field is ticked per default.
Configuring templates for the Service Desk module
The Service Desk module includes a selection of pre-defined templates.
You find an overview of templates for the Service Desk module under the ‘Templates’ tab in Wizdom Service Desk module administration.
Configuring email templates for the Service Desk module
As part of the flow, users and supporters receive emails to notify of developments in the ticket processing. The service desk module comes with a set of five pre-defined email templates:
1) “NewCommentBySupporter.html” which is the email sent to a user when a supporter has commented a ticket the user has initiated.
2) “NewCommentByUser.html” which is the email sent to a supporter when a user comments a ticket the supporter is assigned to.
3) “SupporterAssignedToTicket.html” which is the email sent to a supporter when a ticket is assigned to him or her.
4) “TicketReadyToBeClosed.html” which is the email sent to a user when the supporter finds the ticket, the user has initiated, ready to close.
5) “Ticket Updated.html” which is the email sent to a primary supporter when a new ticket is created.
The templates for these emails can all be found and configured in the configuration center:
1) Go to the “Email Templates” area in the Service Desk module in Wizdom Configuration Center.
2) By clicking on a template, you are presented to the HTML behind the email template. While editors and admins will be able to edit the text of the email from this interface, developers can change the more advanced HTML behind the email templates.
Service Desk web part settings
From this overview, users can access details of, respectively, tickets in progress and closed tickets, and, also, create new tickets. Supporters are provided with overview of all cases in one or more service desk(s) and are offered easy access to ticket managing tools.
Service Desk web part seen from a user’s profile
Service Desk web part seen from a supporter’s profile
However, if you need to add the ”Service Desk” web part to a page, perform the following steps:
1) Edit the web page and click ‘Add a web part’ to open SharePoint’s web part gallery.
2) The “Service Desk” web part is found in the ”Wizdom” folder.
To configure the Service Desk web part:
1) Press the ‘Settings’ button in the web part. A window pops up and takes you through the settings.
2) In the field “Ticket overview refresh interval (seconds)” choose how often the ticket overview will be refreshed. Default value is 100, which means that the web part’s ticket overview will be refreshed every 100th seconds. This represents a good mix of performance and user experience.
3) Second, choose which service desk(s) in your solution you want the web part to include. You might want the web part as a tool to manage tickets in all or several service desks in your solution. You can set this up by using the Ctrl key which makes you able to select multiple service desks.
Note: When a landing page is created for a service desk, as part of the process of creating a service desk site, the service desk web part will already be added to the landing page. This service desk web part will per default include the service desk of the current site.
4) Choose the templates for the web part.
5) The user interface of the service desk web part is different for users and supporters. Per default the web part will display the user interface intended for users for users and vice versa for supporters.
This, however, can be changed under “Display mode”. If set to “Show all templates as supporter”, users as well as supporters will be represented to the extended tools and overviews intended for the supporter role. If changed to “Show all templates as user” users and supporters alike will see the user interface intended for users.
This can e.g. be relevant in cases where you want different web pages, and therefore different web forms, for respectively user’s and supporter’s view of tickets where, also, supporters will be able to follow own tickets with the user’s interface.
Note: You can only have one service desk web part per web page.
Creating service desks
You’ll need to set up a site for every service desk you’ll build. To set up a service desk on your intranet you start by creating a site.
To create a Service Desk, create a new Wizdom subsite to the site or subsite where you want the service desk site to be located. When choosing site template, select the template ‘Service Desk’.
The service desk comes with a landing page which you will be presented to after creating the site. This will be the landing page of your service desk, providing an overview of support tickets, associated with the current service desk, and tools for supporters and users to handle these.
Landing page of service desk site just created
It’s possible to create as many service desks as you wish in a site collection.
Pre-populate ticket submission form
To create a prepopulated ticket, perform the following steps:
1) From the Service Desk web part (either from a user’s or supporter’s view), create a new ticket and fill it in as you like it to be prepopulated. As you fill in new fields, you will see the URL of the web page change.
2) Copy the URL of the web page.
3) Create a button or line of text and link it to the URL.
4) This will lead users directly from the button or link to the form you have prepopulated and enable them to submit the ticket by filling in only a few fields.
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