Workflow Management

This section helps you set up the workflows to route automatically and manage user requests. Also learn to set up approval groups and define workflow constraints like automatic schedules and holidays.

Create and Manage Auto Routes

The end users submit tickets in CA Cloud Service Management for various service desk functions. The analyst assigns each of these tickets to a support group for the resolution. The manual tracking and assignment of tickets to support groups is a difficult and time consuming process. For more information, see Create and Manage Auto Routes.

Create and Manage Workflow Actions

Actions such as Assign, Create Task, Send Mail, Approve, or Reject can be taken on a ticket to resolve a problem. These actions are named workflow actions.

A workflow action is a customized action available to the user for a ticket when the ticket matches the predefined conditions. A ticket progresses through many stages in its lifecycle with one or more workflow actions that are applied on each stage. Taking a workflow action on a ticket can result into a change in the ticket phase, status, reason code, and the ticket fields. A set of workflow actions is available out of the box so that you can start using the application quickly. The application enables you to modify the existing workflow actions and to create workflow actions.

For example, when a user submits a service request, the status of the ticket is New. The values for the Reason Code and the Owner are either default or set by the auto route. An analyst selects the Take Ownership workflow action on the ticket to resolve it. The workflow action changes the Ticket Status to Active and the Owner field gets the name of the analyst. The changes are communicated to the user through a notification that is based on a communication template. The analyst selects the Pending for Approval action when an approval is pending on the ticket or the analyst selects the Resolved workflow action when the ticket is resolved.

For more information, see Create and Manage Workflow Actions.

Create and Manage Task Groups

An analyst performs a set of tasks to process some complex tickets. The nature and type of the ticket determines the type and number of the required tasks. Depending on the support process of the organization, the analyst creates a task ticket for each of such tasks. All the task tickets become child tickets and the request ticket becomes the parent ticket. For example, a request to create user account requires provisioning the user to systems like Active Directory, SAP, and Oracle. The analyst creates child task tickets to provision the user in each of the systems.

Some of the task tickets can be specific to a particular request while others can be general. For example, a new hire service request requires creating an email account and provisioning the user to Active Directory. You can define a set of general tasks for the usage of the analysts

A task group is a set of general tasks which are required to complete one activity toward processing a request. A task group acts as a template to create one or more task tickets simultaneously for a single parent ticket. A tasks group is related to a specific ticket type. For example, the administrator creates a provisioning task group and associate the service request for each user creation request to the same systems. For more information, see Create and Manage Task Groups.

Create and Manage Task Flows

A Self-Service user request requires to perform a set of tasks to resolve the ticket. The analyst can create a task group to perform a set of tasks for the ticket resolution. You can perform a set of tasks when the individual tasks of a task group are independent of each other. Some specific requests require a long list of tasks and task groups to perform in a particular sequence.

For example, a series of IT-related tasks are required when a new employee joins the organization. The series includes task groups like creating a user account, provisioning the user into various systems, and validating access rights. Each of the task groups can have multiple tasks. The task groups must be executed in a specific order. For example, provisioning cannot be done unless you create the user account. The administrator creates task flows for such requests.

A task flow is a set of task groups and individual tasks that are required to process a request. The request is processed in a way that the successful completion of one set of tasks is required for initiating the next set of tasks. Create the first set of tasks in the beginning. CA Cloud Service Management creates the set of task tickets for next task or task group when a task or task group completes successfully. If a particular task or task group fails to execute, the task flow fails and reinitiation is required. For more information, see Create and Manage Task Flows.

Implement Change Management through Approval Groups

IT-related change requests have cost and performance-related impacts. You must carefully plan and then exercise the IT services requests in a controlled manner. Poorly planned change can result into loss in terms of time and money. A competent authority must study the change and its impacts, before actually implementing it. The reviewers analyze the change proposal and post comments. An approval group is a group of users, which after considering all the information, approves, rejects, or asks for modifications. Currently, the functionality of approvals is limited to only Change Tickets. Understand the concept of change management, before configuring approval groups. For more information, see Implement Change Management through Approval Groups.

Create, Schedule, and Manage Service Feedback

You can track feedback about the quality of services that the support teams provide. You create a feedback survey and send it to selected contacts or support groups that are based on a schedule. The survey starts based on the schedule. The respondents can see the survey forms in the Outstanding Items workspace. For more information, see Create, Schedule, and Manage Service Feedback.

Create and Manage Schedules

The service desk analysts manage some routine tasks like taking data backups, monitoring logs, and generating reports. These routine tasks are performed against a fixed schedule and the analyst has to maintain the calendar for them. Managing of the scheduled tasks manually is difficult for the application users. For more information, see Create and Manage Schedules.

Create and Manage Knowledgebase Article Approval Groups

A Knowledgebase (KB) article is a record that contains information about setting up and configuring an IT service. A KB article can also have instructions for troubleshooting frequently occurring or previously reported incidents. You can create, store, approve, control access, and distribute the KB articles to end users and IT support providers. An administrator can create approver and reviewer groups, with matching conditions according to the KB article category.  Only active users and groups are added as approvers and reviewers. At least one approver is required to approve an article. For more information to submit an article for approval, see Create and Manage Knowledge Base Articles.

Follow these steps:

1. Create Approval Groups: Navigate to MANAGE, ADMINISTRATION, Tools, Approval Groups and click Create New.
2. Fill in the details and click Apply  Changes.
3. Create Matching Criteria: The application selects the approval group that is based on the matching criteria. Construct the matching condition by providing values in the fields. If matching criteria is not configured, the approver or reviewer group is applied to all articles submitted for approval.
4. Add Approvers: To add the approvers, use the Approvers tab. Select individual active users and groups that are listed in the lookup.
5. Add Reviewers: To add the reviewers, use the Reviewers tab. Select individual active users and groups that are listed in the lookup.
6. Click Apply  Changes.

Create and Manage Holiday Groups

CA Cloud Service Management entities such as support groups, configuration items, and process workflows(Assign tab on the Process Workflow entry criteria) have an associated availability schedule. A holiday list is used to define the working and non-working days for an entity. Business hours imply when the entity is available. A holiday list implies when an entity is not available.

For example, you can define business hours and can associate a holiday list to:

• A support group to define the availability.
• A configuration item to schedule availability, outage, or maintenance.
• A process workflow with two possibilities:
  • Process workflows that run on holidays.
  • Process workflows that do not run on holidays.
• A schedule task to define the execution and recurrence of scheduled activities. 

For more information, see Create and Manage Holiday Groups.