I'm trying to create a HR On-Boarding, new hire and transfers ticket queue that supports the current workflow and looking for input from current KACE SMA users using the Service Desk function to manage this process
I need to create a business workflow that supports our HR department and IT department. We have both new hires and employee transfers that require a better management tool.
New hires
I would like to have a service desk ticket created with a form that provides all required information; Position Title, Justification, Description, tools and training required etc. The form would be entered as a ticket and then forwarded to an approver and HR notified.
Once approved the ticket to forwarded to an HR individual for processing and IT is notified to start getting quotes for required hardware and software. HR would then process the change and a IT service ticket would be created to provide advance notification and ensure all required equipment is available and staged prior to the start date. A notification would be sent the the EHS department to ensure training is scheduled. This workflow may cross multiple ticket queues.
Has anyone done a similar process in SMA Service Desk and be willing to share your experience and how you accomplished this?
Answers (7)
I’ve done similar but nothing quite as complex as you have outlined, but all is possible.
With templates you also now have the choice to go as far as you can in a single ticket but providing differing views for differing roles.
Using ticket rules to fire emails to other queues to log fresh tickets will also help you.
I would recommend you map out the complete process so you can then start to build the queue/s from there.
Thanks for your response. Can you have a template that depending on the type of request set up multiple tickets for example:
HR personnel request New Hire, Termination or transfer, each would have a slightly different template and approval requirements.
New hire would have a requirement for approval if new position, HR would have different tasks depending on the request. If a new or transfer position are the hardware or software requirements that may need some lead time for IT and obviously spawn a new IT request. Can KACE SMA support these scenarios?
Yes indeed, in that instance I would recommend loads of custom fields to support the various views, and then you can use ticket rules to copy that data into the existing fields for your IT queue.
Again, I would stress, map out the process/processes as that will enable whoever you get to help or do the work to see what they need to start and also where the end of the process needs to be.
Great advice given. I will add that if you can get an automated email out of the HR system on a New Hire or Termination to send to KACE, you can target a New Hire Process or a Termination Process (so you can control the child tickets and force that process to use a specific Ticket Template with populated fields from the HR email). In my environment, HR notifies us of a new hire and people would often forget to create a request for an account or equipment until the day they start. Instead, I asked for an email out of the HR system the moment a person is hired which removes the element of people forgetting and allows our IT teams to get ahead of the onboarding process, making it work more smoothly. For example, I have a New Hire process that receives an email from the HR system that includes tokens for the new hire name, position, start date, etc. and it creates specific child tickets that go to different team queues for onboarding needs. Ticket rules move the tickets and enforce ticket templates so I can minimize what the teams have to scroll through to get to their part of the request.
As Hobbsy mentioned, mine is also not AS complex as what you have mentioned but it can be done as you learn the SMA. I don't mind sharing what I have learned if you want to reach out to me.
Comments:
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Good advice as well, depending if Mark’s organisation has an HR system or in fact if they need to use KACE to manage that HR functionality. - Hobbsy 5 months ago
Ironically, we are currently trying to implement a similar process. We have the separate queue created and all of the custom fields as well. We are now at a point where we would like to make our HR team approvers for the onboarding/change request.
With that said, we are trying to create a ticket rule that would notify the approvers (HR) that the ticket has been submitted. Once approved, we want this to then generate a email that notifies our IT staff that the ticket has been approved. We essentially stole the ticket rule we use to notify our IT team when a ticket is generated; however, this emails the "Owners" rather than the "approvers" of the ticket queue.
If you have any insight as to how to notify the approvers via a ticket rule, then notify ticket owners once approved, it would be much appreciated!
Rruhl sounds like just need a ticket rule to send the email, which is easy enough, but if you were working with me, I would push back and ask if there is a need for another ticket to be logged?
Whilst on first impression it helps with silo reporting, it can complicate overall metric reporting.
This is why it is so important to map out the overall process. In simple terms, if process activity needs to be carried out by multiple resources consecutively then you need multiple tickets, however if the process can run more serially, one resource after another, then don’t over complicate the flow.
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Hi Hobbsy, I think I may have inaccurately relayed what we are trying to achieve. We do not want separate tickets. It would be the same ticket. However, upon initial submission “HR approvers” would be notified. Once approved by HR, IT would then be notified of the approval to proceed with account creations, etc. This workflow is all for the same ticket that would be submitted by a hiring manager. - rruhl 5 months ago
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Below is the syntax we are using to send an email notification to queue owners once the ticket is approved by HR. However, with the frequency set to "on Ticket Save" in the ticket rule, it sends an email notification every time the ticket is saved. It's as if it sees the approval each time the ticket is saved. Any insight on how to limit the notification to only the initial approval?
# Email Owners group after approval
select
HD_TICKET.ID,
HD_TICKET.ID ticket_number, -- $ticket_number
HD_TICKET.TITLE ticket_title, -- $ticket_title
SUBMITTER.FULL_NAME ticket_submitter_name, -- $ticket_submitter_name
SUBMITTER.EMAIL ticket_submitter_email, -- $ticket_submitter_email
HD_TICKET.CUSTOM_FIELD_VALUE17 user_name, -- $user_name
HD_TICKET.CUSTOM_FIELD_VALUE15 user_job_title, -- $user_job_title
HD_TICKET.CUSTOM_FIELD_VALUE9 user_department, -- $user_department
HD_TICKET.CUSTOM_FIELD_VALUE13 start_date, -- $start_date
group_concat(OWNERS.EMAIL) as EMAILCOLUMN,
CASE
WHEN SUBMITTER.LOCATION_ID = 638 THEN ''
WHEN SUBMITTER.LOCATION_ID = 1 THEN ''
WHEN SUBMITTER.LOCATION_ID = 639 THEN ''
ELSE SUBMITTER.LOCATION_ID
END AS submitter_location -- $submitter_location
from
HD_TICKET
join HD_TICKET_CHANGE C on HD_TICKET.ID = C.HD_TICKET_ID
left join USER SUBMITTER on HD_TICKET.SUBMITTER_ID = SUBMITTER.ID
left join HD_CATEGORY CAT on HD_TICKET.HD_CATEGORY_ID = CAT.ID
left join HD_STATUS STATUS on HD_TICKET.HD_STATUS_ID = STATUS.ID
join HD_QUEUE_OWNER_LABEL_JT HDQOLJT on HD_TICKET.HD_QUEUE_ID = HDQOLJT.HD_QUEUE_ID
join USER_LABEL_JT ULJT on HDQOLJT.LABEL_ID = ULJT.LABEL_ID
join USER OWNERS on ULJT.USER_ID = OWNERS.ID
where
C.OWNERS_ONLY_DESCRIPTION like '%" to "Approved%' - rruhl 5 months ago-
You need to use a switch field so that the email is only sent once, if you would like to know how that works just get in touch, happy to talk you through how to set that up. - Hobbsy 5 months ago
Thanks everyone for your input. Once I have mapped out the process and created the queues I'll update this thread.