Maintaining ESS

To manage service offerings, items, and support channels in Efecte Self-Service, specific user roles are required. Here's how you can navigate through the administrative aspects of the service: 

• Logging In: Service owners and administrators must log in to perform maintenance on service offerings and items. Navigate to the service owners’ and administrators’ view by visiting https://{your_application_domain}/ssc/admin. 
• Maintaining Offerings: All existing service offerings are accessible via the offering navigation list, where they are segmented into three visibility states: Published, Indirectly Published, and Unpublished. 
• Maintaining Support Channels: Note that the maintenance of support channels is exclusively performed by administrators. 

Ensure that your role aligns with the tasks you wish to perform within Efecte Self-Service to guarantee a smooth and efficient administrative experience.

Managing and Creating Support Channels

Navigate to the "Support Channels" tab to manage and create support channels:

1. Initiating a New Support Channel: Click “Add” and select the type of support channel you are creating, which could be: 
   • Webhook 
   • Email 
   • Integration connector (e.g. “Efecte Service Management”)
2. Naming and Connecting: Input a unique name for the support channel and choose the applicable connector.
3. Defining Initial State Options: Specify which handling status will be shown to the user when a request is dispatched to an external system without a bi-directional integration for later status exchange.
4. Customizing Confirmation Page Settings: Determine the settings for the confirmation page. Decide whether or not to collect user’s delivery address and whether the cost center information, or the price should be displayed on the confirmation page. 
   
   • Note: By opting for the Mailing address, the user will be prompted for delivery information when creating a service request. Initially, the address field will be blank, but it will store user input for future use.
5. Inputting Contact Information: The contact information inputted will be visible to users when they view their service request or incident report details.
   
6. Managing Variable Options: Adjust any other options that may vary based on the type of channel you are creating.
7. Tip for Channel Creation: Sometimes it may be useful to create separate channels for different types of goods within the same service desk. For example, an IT services desk might have a physical channel for distributing phones and workstations, and a non-physical channel for distributing software and access rights. Similarly, if you want to hide the cost center from the confirmation page, you can assign services to a support channel that does not display this detail to the user.

Email Channel

The Email channel utilizes SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) settings to establish connections and allow Efecte Self-Service to send Service Requests and Incident Reports via email. 

SMTP Settings 

To set up the Email channel, you will need to configure the following SMTP settings:

• Host name and port: The address and port number of your mail server. 
• Mailbox login and password: Credentials to access the mailbox. 
• Transport Layer Security (TLS): A protocol that ensures privacy between communicating applications and users on the Internet.

After inputting this information, use the "Test configuration" button and try to send a test email to ensure everything is set up correctly. 

Microsoft Email Server OAuth 2.0 

If your organization uses a Microsoft email server with OAuth 2.0, enable OAuth by selecting “Using OAuth” and provide the necessary information, which can be obtained from your email service provider:

• Client ID: Also known as Application (client) ID, obtained after registering your application in the Microsoft Azure portal. 
• Authorization endpoint: Utilize your tenant-specific endpoint using the following format: https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenantID}/oauth2/v2.0/authorize 
• OAuth Scopes: ESS only requires the capability to send emails using your server. Define the scope accordingly, such as: https://outlook.office365.com/SMTP.Send 

Don’t forget to test the configuration after entering the settings.

Email Tab: Message Templates 

Under the Email tab, message templates for created Service Requests and Incidents are defined. The "Add dynamic text" dropdown is used to include dynamic content in the email subject and body. Also, you need to configure:

• Email address: This mandatory field is the address where the Service Requests or Incidents are sent. 
• Sender’s email address: This is the address from which messages are sent. 
• Sender’s full name: This name appears as the sender of the message.

After setting up the addresses and forming templates, ensure to test the mail templates by sending an email using your created template to the address you specify. This practice will confirm the functionality and format of your templates.

Efecte Service Management Channel

When employing Efecte Service Management as an integration channel, different settings are adjustable to manage status mappings for service requests and incidents through the admin interface. This also includes incident template configurations.

Key Configuration Features
In the Service Request Configuration and Incident Management settings of Efecte support channels, some key functionalities can be adjusted per support channel, including:

• Cancelling Enabled: Allows for the activation of cancellation for incidents or service requests, settable per channel.
• Reopening Enabled: Available only for Service request settings, this option determines if requests per channel can be reopened.
• Ordering Again Enabled: Also exclusive to Service request settings, this allows determining if service requests can be ordered again. Additional information fields are pre-populated when ordering again based on the previous order.

Some points to consider about ordering again:

• Various field types will be pre-populated with previously used values if available.
• If previous values are not available, possible default values are used.
• New fields added to the configuration after the original order won’t prevent reordering unless they’re mandatory.
• If the previous order contained multiple items but now only one is allowed, reordering is still available.
• Commenting Enabled: Allows activating Commenting for incidents or service requests. A global setting for commenting needs to be enabled for either Incidents or Service requests first.

Note on Cancelling Service Requests
To cancel service requests, Self-Service statuses in the Final state should be in a particular order to map them correctly to ESM statuses: Rejected (2nd), Cancelled (3rd), Cancelled – approval incomplete (4th). Any additional custom statuses should only be added after these.

Status Mappings
Status mappings convert technical support process terms into user-friendly and understandable terms and can be presented in the user's preferred language. Efecte Self-Service offers default status mappings, but custom statuses can be added to meet varied business needs.

Creating a custom status mapping for either service requests or incidents involves:

1. Clicking on the Add button.
2. Selecting one of the three available options depending on your need: Initial, In Progress, or Final.
3. Naming the status and matching it with Efecte Service Management statuses.

Translations for statuses are conducted in the languages tab, with missing translations indicated by the support channel turning red.

Incident Management
Incident management outlines the codes of the template, folder, and attributes in the Incident template of the Efecte Service Management tool.

Test the configuration by reporting an incident in Efecte Self-Service.

Note! When multiple support channels utilize the exact same connector, the configuration for incident management should be identical for all.

Statuses Related to Reopen and Rating Feature

Understanding the mechanisms behind reopening and rating features and how they correlate with the internal statuses in the Efecte platform helps in managing service requests and incidents more effectively.

Reopen Feature

• Availability: Reopening is exclusively available for Service Requests.
• Conditions for Use: Reopening can be initiated only when a request has an internal status defined as “Resolved.”
• Determining "Resolved" Status: A request acquires the "Resolved" internal status when it is associated with the second status within the “In progress” state type statuses, no matter the explicit naming of these statuses.
• Post-Reopen Status: When a request is reopened, it adopts the internal status labeled "Reopened," aligning it with the third status within the “In progress” state type statuses.

Rating Feature

• Availability: The rating feature is accessible for both incidents and service requests.
• Status and Rating Correlation: Assigning a rating to a request does not instigate a status update.
• Eligibility for Rating: A request can be rated only if it is situated in an internal status of either "Completed" or “Sent to 3rd party.”
• Completed Status Definition: The "Completed" status is invariably the first status within the Final state type statuses.
• Sent to 3rd Party Status Nuances: "Sent to 3rd party" status operates as a default status for both incidents and service requests in ESS. Nonetheless, it is subjected to potential overwriting via settings available in the Support Channels tab within the admin panel for non-email connectors. For email connectors, an overwriting option is present in the form of a dropdown list, albeit with "SENT_TO_3RD_PARTY" standing as the default.
   

Custom Status and Features Availability

Any custom status integrated into the status configuration does not pivot the available features on a request, independent of the naming used for their Self-service status. It is solely the order of the statuses that predicates the availability of a specific feature.

Key Note: The system’s functionalities, particularly around the reopening and rating of service requests and incidents, are meticulously linked with the structured order and designation of internal statuses. Ensuring that configurations are congruent with intended workflow dynamics and user engagement patterns will enhance the utility and user experience of the platform.

Define Cancelling Incident per Status

In Incident process admin can define per open status if the ticket can be still cancelled or not.

Once the “Cancelling enabled” is selected, the admin can define statutes where this rule can be applied.