Action rules create customized processes and workflows for unique situations. They're triggered only when a client or technician creates or updates a ticket. In this video, I'll show you how to use tasks to create multiple tickets generated by one ticket using a feature called
parent child ticket relationships.
Setting up a new hire is a perfect example because it requires several teams working different parts of the task. When all of the teams complete their assigned processes, the task is completed.
To begin, create the task and its elements. In the toolbar, click 'Setup', select 'Tickets', and then select 'Tasks' to access the Tasks screen.
Click 'New.'
Enter "New Employee" in the Task Name field.
Click 'Shared' to share this task with other techs, but most importantly to make it available for use in
action rules. If an employee performed this task on a regular interval, such as replacing the AC filters, you wouldn't have to share it.
Since this task will be initiated from action rule, I'll leave the Scheduled option unchecked. But if I select the check box, Web Help Desk adds additional options where I can set how often and when I want the task to run.
I can also choose the starting date too. This is useful for regular tasks like creating back-ups.
Now click 'Save.' When the task is saved, the Task Elements and History tabs appear.
Now let's move over to the Task Elements tab. A task normally has several
task elements and one ticket is created for each element, for example, setting up a telephone or creating a new work space for the employee and so on. All of these task elements will be child tickets linked to the parent ticket that triggers the action rule, which we'll set up a little later. Let's take a closer look at what the task elements should look like.
Click 'New' to create a new task element. As you can see, the task elements are similar to the fields of a normal ticket.
Element Order determines the order of the element in the task. This is important especially in relation to the last field in this form, Generate Next Element, which defines when the next element creates a new ticket. You can choose to create tickets for elements at the same time or to run sequentially. For example, at the bottom of the screen, On Creation is selected by default. This kicks off all elements at the same time. By selecting 'when status equals', you can adjust the logic to kick off the elements in a sequential manner.
I'm choosing to inherit some field values from the parent and allow the remaining fields to be defined independent of the parent ticket. Fields can be defined here and they can be inherited from the parent.
Since I want this task element to be one of several child tickets I want to track for this new employee task, I'll select 'Link to Parent' in each task. This displays the Inherit Value column.
Here, I can define which fields should inherit values from the parent ticket. If Link to Parent is not checked, the Inherit Value column will disappear, and each field must be defined on its own or remain blank. We'll set the Location, Room and Department values to be inherited from the parent ticket.
For this Request Type, I'll choose 'IT Request', ‘Hardware Support', 'Telecom', 'Phones' and make this request about preparing a desk phone for a new hire. The Request Type defines the issue and which team will handle the task.
Let's define Subject as 'Create Phone Extension' and set Request Details as 'New Employee' to indicate the purpose of the new phone extension.
I'll keep Tech empty and set Priority as 'High.'
Attachments will be set to be inherited. This will only pull ticket attachments, not client or tech note attachments to the newly created ticket. This way we can ensure any relevant documents from the Parent ticket created by HR is passed to this newly created ticket if needed.
We'll skip some custom fields and click 'Save.'
I've only created one element, but normally I'd create several elements for different departments depending on our new hire process. Let's skip those and move to the second task of creating an action rule.
I'll go back to the Action Rules in the Processes menu and create a new action rule called "New Employee Action Rule." I'll click 'New.'
Now let's take a look at the specific settings. We'll keep this rule enabled and keep the default priority. Priority defines the order of how rules are applied to a ticket. Let's define a Rule Name "New Employee action rule", a nice description for my rule, and have it set to trigger on all ticket updates and only at ticket creation.
In the Criteria tab, I'm using Request Type is HR Request - New Employee as the condition that triggers the action rule. So, whenever a ticket is opened with this request type, Web Help Desk fires the action rule.
Now for the interesting part. In the Actions tab, Run Task is set to 'New Employee.' As I mentioned earlier, if you don't share the task, it won't appear in the Actions tab. If it wasn't shared, you wouldn't see it in the drop-down menu as an available task to run.
Finally, I'll show you how this all ties together, and what the tickets will look like. So, here's a ticket that matched my action rule criteria for the request type. It triggered the action rule to run Task: New Employee, which created a bunch of child tickets.
Take a closer look at the Client and Location in this ticket. If we scroll down to Linked Child Tickets, you'll see all of the tickets created by the task. I can open any child ticket directly from here by clicking on the ticket number. Notice that the client and location is the same as it was on the parent ticket. And now, instead of having a Linked Child Tickets section, I have a Linked Parent Ticket section that includes the parent ticket number.
There are many more and exciting ways you can use action rules. Take a look at all the Criteria and Action options available to you. Using Web Help Desk, you can automate your unique processes and streamline your help desk operations.