Queues

Introduction

The queue is the core component of ConSol CM administration. It contains thematically related tickets which should be handled in the same way and follow the same business process. Every queue has exactly one workflow, which implements the desired course of action. A workflow can be used for several queues. The required ticket data fields are assigned to the queue. In addition, the access permissions, which are granted to the users via roles, are based on queues.

Therefore, the queue determines:

• if the tickets have customers and who are the customers (customer groups)
• how the tickets should look like (ticket data fields)
• how its tickets are processed (workflow)
• who can work on the tickets (permissions)

In addition, some optional settings, as templates, scripts, business calendars, text classes and projects, can be made for the queue.

Queues often reflect the organizational structure of the company. For example, there can be one queue for each department, as each department has its own way of working. A ticket can be passed from one queue to another. In this case it adapts to the new queue, i.e., it receives the data fields of the new queue and only users with permissions for the new queue can work on it.

The objects which are assigned to the queue are defined in other sections. Except for the workflow and the customer assignment, all parameters can be modified after creating a queue, so you can decide in which order you want to perform the configuration.

Queue Administration Using the Admin Tool

In the Admin Tool, queues are managed on the navigation item Queues in the navigation group Global Configuration.

Figure 167: ConSol CM Admin Tool - Global Configuration, Queues: Queue administration

The navigation item Queues contains a list of all queues (1) which can be filtered using a string filter and/or a pull-down menu where the customer group can be selected. In the Details section (2) on the left hand side, all queue details are displayed (in read-only mode).

To add, edit, delete, copy or (de-) activate a queue, use the respective button in the button bar (3) below the queue list.

Filter the Queue List

Queues you want to edit or copy can be found most quickly if you enter filter information in the fields above the queue list.

You can filter for queues which

• contain a certain text string (blanks are interpreted, too) and/or
• are assigned to customer groups.

Create a Queue

You create a new queue by clicking the Add button below the queue list. The pop-up window which appears is the same for adding and for editing a queue. In both cases, you have to edit the queue details.

Figure 168: ConSol CM Admin Tool - Global Configuration, Queues: Create a queue

The following fields are available: 

• General configuration (1):
  • Queue:
    Enter the technical queue name in this field. Click the Localize button to enter the localized queue name for all languages that are available in the system. The localized queue name (depending on the web browser locale) will be displayed in the Web Client in the ticket header. If no localized values are provided, the technical name will be displayed.
  • Workflow:
    Choose the workflow for the queue from this list.

    When you have developed and deployed a new workflow, it will only be available in the Admin Tool after a reload of Admin Tool data!

    Once you have assigned a workflow to a queue it cannot be changed anymore!

  • Prefix:
    You can enter a prefix for the ticket IDs of a queue, e.g., when the ticket ID should indicate to which queue or organizational structure it belongs.

    The prefix remains with the ticket name if the ticket is moved to another queue.

    Please do not use underscores within the ticket prefix as they might cause layout problems. Up to five digits are supported for prefixes and suffixes in total. This also applies when modifying the ticket name in the workflow.

  • Calendar:
    Choose the business calendar for the queue from the list. Business Calendars in CM define working hours, holidays and the valid time zone (see section Business Calendars). They are used, e.g., for time triggers in the workflow and have to be activated explicitly for each trigger, i.e., in order to work with time calculations based on a business calendar, it has to be configured in three places:
    • In the navigation group Global Configuration, navigation item Business Calendars the calendar is created and the active and vacation times are configured.
    • In the queue administration a calendar is assigned to the queue.
    • For each time trigger in the workflow the use of the queue-specific calendar can be activated or not. Refer to the ConSol CM Process Designer Manual for a detailed explanation of working with time triggers.
  • FAQ:
    Ticking this checkbox marks the queue as a knowledge base for CM/Track users. They can search for tickets in this queue in CM/Track, the ConSol CM Web Portal. Please see also section CM/Track: FAQs in CM/Track for more information about this topic.
  • Ticket display name:
    Optional. The string entered here will be displayed as ticket header. If a localized value is provided, this will be used, otherwise, the technical name will be used. In this way, you can adapt the CM system to display terms like Service case, Request or Case and you are not limited to the term Ticket. If nothing has been defined manually, the default value Ticket is used.
    Please note that two manually defined parameters can potentially define the value for the ticket display name. 
    • The ticket display name set here, in the queue details definition. This is queue-specific, i.e. for each queue, a different display name can be defined. For example, in the Service Desk queue, this might be Service case, whereas in the Sales queue, this might be Opportunity.
    • The value which is defined using the label ticket.base.initcap. This is used only if the queue-specific ticket display value is not set. For details about labels, please read the section about Labels.

    

    Figure 169: ConSol CM Admin Tool and Web Client: Setting and viewing a queue-specific ticket header

  • Enabled:
    If this checkbox is checked, the queue is immediately available in the system after saving, otherwise the queue is disabled. In enabled queues, you can create tickets. In disabled queues, this is not possible.
  • Customer assignment:
    Determines if the tickets in the queue have customers or not. There are two settings:
    • Mandatory: Tickets in this queue always have a customer. This option is selected by default and represents the standard behavior of tickets in ConSol CM.
    • None: Tickets in this queue never have a customer. This is useful for scenarios where customers are not needed, for example, FAQ or news queues, or use cases which do not require customers from a business perspective. Therefore, you cannot assign customer groups to the queue. In the Web Client, tickets in such a queue do not have a Customers section and the customer is not shown in the ticket list.

    In CM/Track, you cannot create tickets in queues without customers. Tickets without customers are only supported for the FAQ and news functionalities in CM/Track.

    You can use text templates for tickets without customers. In this case, the content of customer field variables is empty. If the text templates contain scripts which access customer fields, you need to adapt the scripts with conditions and/or null safe operations to avoid exceptions in the log files.

    The customer setting cannot be modified once the queue has been created.

    Transferring tickets between queues with a different customer setting

    It is not possible to transfer tickets between queues with different customer settings in the Web Client. For such transfers in scripts, the following applies:

    • If you transfer a ticket from a queue with customers to a queue without customers, the customer is removed automatically.

    • If you transfer a ticket from a queue without customers to a queue with customers, you need to provide the customer using the method workflowApi.addNewPrimaryContact(unit.id, "supporter").

• Ticket assignment templates (2):
  Here you can choose email templates which are used for automatic emails which are sent to the (new) engineer when a ticket is assigned to an engineer (Assign), or to the (old) engineer when a ticket is taken away (Unassign). When you have defined the templates in the Scripts & Templates Administration of the Admin Tool (see section Admin Tool Templates) they will be available in the drop-down menu. If you do not want the ConSol CM system to send an automatic email in case of the engineer operation, just leave the field empty. Please keep in mind that the system properties cmas-core-server, mail.notification.engineerChange (= true) and cmas-core-server, mail.notification.sender have to be set, see sections System Properties and Administrator and Notification Email Addresses for details.
• Scripts (3):
  Scripts are used to automate recurring tasks and activities. They are managed and stored in the Scripts & Templates Administration (see section Admin Tool Scripts). You can assign:
  • Email script
    Choose a script from the list if outgoing emails for this queue should be modified by the script, e.g., to contain default values like the sender or address fields. The email script indicated here is the last script that processes an outgoing email, so all former settings will be overwritten if a variable has been set before. All scripts of type Email that are stored in the script section are available for selection, so please make sure to pick the correct one.

  Reply-to addresses in ConSol CM

  There are four potential Reply-to addresses which you deal with:

  • System property mail.reply.to
    If this system property is set, its value is displayed in the email editor in the Web Client. The email address can be overwritten by the outgoing email script. If the page customization attribute showReplyTo for the type mailTemplate is set to false, the Reply-To address is not displayed in the email editor, but used anyway.
  • Queue-specific outgoing email script
    If a Reply-to address is set in the outgoing email script, this address is used. It overwrites the system property mail.reply.to, although the address set in this property is displayed in the email editor.
  • System property mail.from
    Only relevant if the Reply-to address is neither set in the system property mail.reply.to nor in the outgoing email script. In this case, most email clients use the From address as Reply-to address.
  • Email address of the current user
    Only relevant if the Reply-to address is neither set in the system properties mail.reply.to or mail.from nor in the outgoing email script. In this case, the personal email address of the currently logged in user is used as Reply-to address for emails from the Web Client.

  The Reply-to address which was really used is displayed in the ticket history of the Web Client.

  Best practice:

  Always set a Reply-to address to prevent personal email addresses from being used, as this would lead to customer emails being sent to the users’ personal email accounts instead of ConSol CM. There are two places to set the Reply-to address:

  • System property mail.reply.to
    This is the simplest way to set the Reply-to address. This address is also displayed in the email editor.
  • Queue-specific outgoing email script
    If different Reply-to addresses are required depending on the queue, we recommend to write one outgoing mail script where queue names are mapped to specific Reply-to addresses. This can then be extended for Bcc, Cc or other addresses.

  You can combine the mail.reply.to system property and queue-specific Reply-to addresses. In this way the email address set in the outgoing email script is used for queues with such a script, and the email address from the system property is used for the rest of the queues.

  Usage in workflow scripts

  When sending emails in workflow scripts, you need to set the Reply-to address within the script.

  • Retrieve the value of the system property mail.reply.to and set it as a Reply-to address in the outgoing email:

    configurationService.getValue("cmweb-server-adapter","mail.reply.to")

  • Use the Mail object if the outgoing email script should be used. This overwrites the system property mail.reply.to.

    mail.useDefaultScript()

  See the ConSol CM Process Designer Manual for a detailed explanation.

  • Default values script
    Here you can select a script to preset values of list boxes when creating a ticket for this queue in the Web Client and/or CM/Track. The script has to be present in the Scripts & Templates Administration of the Admin Tool and has to be of type Default values. Please refer to section Scripts of Type Default Values for details about this topic.
  • Clone script
    Here you can select a script which is executed when a ticket in this queue is cloned (duplicated) using the Web Client (Clone option in the ticket menu). The script has to be present in the Scripts & Templates Administration of the Admin Tool and has to be of type Clone. The clone script sets default values for a ticket which is created using the Clone operation. Please refer to section Scripts of the Type Clone for details.
• Other (4)

  • Description:
    You can enter a free-form description in this field, e.g., to document the purpose of the queue. This information is shown in the Admin Tool only.

• Tabs for assignment of fields, customer groups, classes of text, and projects (5):

  • Tab Ticket fields:
    In order to show data fields (ticket fields) in tickets of the queue, you have to assign the respective ticket field groups here. See section Ticket Fields (Setting Up the Ticket Data Model) for details about the definition of ticket fields.

    Tab Customer groups:
    Tickets in the queue can only be created for customers from the selected customer groups. Please make sure that the engineers who are supposed to work with tickets of the queue also have the respective access permissions to the customer (group) data.

    Tab Classes of text:
    Here you can assign the classes of text which should be available in tickets of this queue. Please see section Classes of Text for an explanation of the text class definition.

  • Tab Projects:
    Here you can assign projects to the queue. Engineers who work on a ticket in the queue can book times on the projects that have been assigned to the queue. Projects are defined on the Projects page.

On each tab you can assign a selected entry by clicking the Assign button and remove it by clicking the Unassign button.

Click Save afterwards to create the queue. The details of the new queue are displayed on the right-hand side of the page.

Edit a Queue

If you want to edit a queue, select it in the list and click the Edit button or double-click the name of the queue. Modify the queue details and click Save to store your modifications.

You cannot change the workflow of a queue once the queue has been saved for the first time!

Delete a Queue

Select the queue you want to delete in the list and click the Delete button. If you confirm the following dialog with Yes, the queue will be deleted and is no longer available in the system.

If there are still tickets for a queue it cannot be deleted. You have to move the tickets to another queue before you can delete it.

Copy a Queue

The Copy button allows you to save time when creating a queue. The selected queue will be copied. The new queue has the same name as the copied queue. Double-click the name or click the Edit button to open the edit window where you can modify the name and details of the queue. Click Save to store your modifications.

You cannot change the workflow of a queue once the queue has been saved for the first time!

Enable or Disable a Queue

You can disable a queue to prevent that new tickets can be opened in this queue. This allows a queue to be made temporarily unavailable without having to delete it. To disable a queue, select the queue in the queue list and click the Deactivate button. The entry in the list is now shown in italics. Just click the Activate button at the bottom of the page to enable the queue again.

What engineers in the Web Client can do in a disabled queue, provided they have the required permissions: 

• execute workflow activities thereby moving the ticket through the business process
• edit the ticket
  • edit ticket fields
  • add comments, emails, attachments

What engineers in the Web Client can NOT do in a disabled queue: 

• open / create new tickets
• move tickets from another queue to this queue using the drop-down menu in the ticket