KACE Systems Management Appliance 13.2 Common Documents

Add, edit, and enable process templates

You can add process templates to the Service Desk. In order for a process template to be enabled and available for end users to create tickets based on that process, it must include at least one parent ticket.

Go to the Service Desk Create Process Template wizard:

Log in to the appliance Administrator Console, https://appliance_hostname/admin. Or, if the Show organization menu in admin header option is enabled in the appliance General Settings, select an organization in the drop-down list in the top-right corner of the page next to the login information.

On the left navigation bar, click Service Desk, then click Configuration.

On the Configuration panel, click Process Templates.

To create a new process template, on the Process Templates page, select Choose Action > New.

To edit or copy an existing process template, on the Process Templates page, click a process template name.

The Create Process Template wizard appears, with the Define Process Template page open.

To copy an existing process template, on the Define Process Template page, click Duplicate.

A copy of the duplicated process template appears. While the duplicated process template is disabled, all of the other options are the same as in the original template. When you finish updating the duplicated version, you can select the Enabled option on the Publish Options page.

On the Define Process Template page, specify the following information:

Option	Description
Name	A name that describes the overall process, for example, New Hire, Employee Termination, or Office Move.
Description	A description of the process. For longer descriptions, this field expands automatically, as you type.
HTML/Markdown	An indicator of whether the description contains rich text. Some process descriptions can be longer than others, so formatting specific text elements can improve the overall readability and help the end user better understand the process. You can use the Markdown project syntax to format the contents of the Description box. For example: <h1> Before you proceed:</h1> <h1><ol> <li>Ensure the new employee acquisition process is finalized by HR. <li>Ensure the Badge ID exists for the new employee<br><br> <b>If you do not have a Badge ID, contact HR.</b> </ol></h1> For more information about the Markdown syntax, visit http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax.
Process Type	The type of the process. In a default installation, only the Service Request and Software Request: Approval Required process types are included. You can create new process types, as required. For example, you can create a process type for accessing a specific application, or a group of applications. For more information, see Define process types.
Allow child tickets to inherit fields at creation time from parent ticket	Select this option if you want to enable an option in child tickets to inherit field values from their parent tickets that belong to the same queue. Only the values that exist in parent tickets when child tickets are created can be inherited. Any subsequent changes to the associated parent ticket field values are not propagated to child tickets that have this option selected. Inherited field values are specified on a per-ticket basis, as you configure each ticket.

Click Save and Continue.

On the Parent Ticket page that appears in the Create Process Template wizard, associate a parent ticket with this process template.

Software Request: Approval Required process types only. This process type is meant for building special process templates that can be used to set up user downloads that require one or more approvals. If selected, a parent ticket is created from this process type by default.

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To view or edit the contents of the ticket, click Software Request: Approval Required.

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Tickets of this type do not allow you to edit the Title, Summary, Device, or Submitter fields. These fields will be populated with the values from the request that initiated the process.

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Approvals for this process type are mandatory.

Select a queue containing the parent ticket that you want to associate with this process template, and click Add Parent Ticket.

On the New Parent Ticket page, create a new parent ticket for this process template:

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If you have multiple queues, select a queue. Parent and child tickets can each be located in different queues. If you do not have multiple queues, queue selection is not offered.

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If you select a queue that has one or more ticket templates associated with it, select the ticket template.

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Most fields are similar to those on the Ticket Detail page. See Create tickets from the Administrator Console Ticket page. You do not have to use the same category, owner, and so on, for the parent as you use for the child tickets.

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The Due Date Offset is the amount of time required to complete work on a child ticket, and this amount of time is used to calculate the ticket due date. For example, if you set the Due Date Offset to four days, the child ticket's due date is offset to be four days after the ticket's creation date. Due dates are not enforced, but if the due date has passed, tickets are marked as Overdue on the Ticket list and they appear as Overdue on reports.

For additional information about creating tickets, see Create tickets from the Administrator Console Ticket page.

Click Save to return to the Create Process Template wizard.

Optional. After adding a parent ticket for a process, you can configure child tickets or activities for that process. Child tickets can be from different queues and they can be assigned different stages.

On the Parent Ticket page that appears in the Create Process Template wizard, under Child Tickets, select a queue associated with the child ticket.

If the selected queue has one or more ticket templates associated with it, select a ticket template.

If the queue includes one or more templates, and you do not specify which template you want to use, the default queue template is selected.

Click Add Child Ticket.

When a ticket based on this process template is created, stage 1 child tickets are created automatically (after approvals and requirements are met, if needed). When the last child ticket in stage 1 is closed, the child tickets defined in the next stage are created.

On the Child Ticket page, create a new child ticket for this process template:

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Stage: The stage of the process at which the ticket is created, such as 1, 2, 3, and so on. You can assign multiple tickets to the same stage if necessary. For example, if the first stage is to obtain equipment and supplies for a new-hire, you might have several separate child tickets for ordering devices, office equipment, and supplies, all assigned to stage 1.

When you create a process ticket, all child tickets assigned to stage 1 are created automatically. Stage 2 tickets are created when all stage 1 tickets are closed, stage 3 tickets are created when all stage 2 tickets are closed, and so on.

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Title: A title for the child ticket.

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Summary: A description of the task associated with this child ticket.

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Category, Owner, and Due Dates: These values do not need to match those of the parent ticket.

If you selected Allow child tickets to inherit fields at creation time from parent ticket on the Define Process Template page, the Inherited check box appears in each field, allowing you to populate it with the current value of this field in the parent ticket. For more information, see step 3.

For additional information about creating tickets, see Create tickets from the Administrator Console Ticket page.

Click Save to return to the Create Process Template wizard.

If you want the tickets created from this process template to require approvals, on the Approvals page that appears, select One or more approvals required for this process to start, and specify the information listed in the table below.

If you selected the Software Request: Approval Required process type, this check box is selected by default and cannot be cleared. Approvals for this process type are mandatory.

When a process ticket is created for a process that requires approval, child tickets are not created until all of the approvals are received. If there are multiple approval stages, emails requesting the approvals are first sent to step 1 approvers. Step 2 approvers receive their emails only after all of the step 1 approval requirements are met.

Approvers can approve or reject a process ticket by email using email tokens. For example, use the following syntax examples, as applicable:

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To approve a ticket by email:

@approval = approved
@approval_note = This request is approved by email

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To reject a ticket by email:

@approval = rejected
@approval_note = This request is rejected by email

For more information about these tokens, see Changing ticket approval fields using email.

One or more ticket approvers. You can edit the list of approvers, as required.

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New process templates. This field appears blank.

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Existing process templates. If one or more approvers are already defined in the process template, they are listed in this field.

NOTE: The submitter's manager appears selected by default.

Any one approval is required

At least one ticket approval is required.

All approvals are required

All ticket approvals are required.

Remove All

Removes all approvers from the list.

Add Another Step

Adds an approval step.

Approval Options

Approval Timeout Period

The amount of time each ticket approver has to approve or decline a ticket that is based on this process template.

Approval Timeout period does not span over multiple approval steps. For example, if a process has two approval steps and the approval timeout period is defined as eight hours:

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Step 1 approvers have 8 hours to approve.

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When all of the step 1 approvals are received, step 2 approvers are given eight hours to act on their approval requests.

Approval Notification Recurrence

Indicates how often the system sends notifications to each approver about a ticket that is pending approval.

Leaving this option set to zero '0' causes one-time notification to be sent without any recurrences.

Use business hours and holidays for approval timeout and notification frequency

Indicates if the system calculates the approval times using business hours.

Approval Override

Overriding an approval advances the process ticket forward without waiting on any pending approvals. After the override, any pending approvals are closed out, a ticket history is written, and an Approval Received email is sent to approvers, as defined in the email notification.

None

Approval overrides are not allowed.

Allow All Admins to Override

Any users with administrative access can override approvals.

Specify Label

Any users belonging to group with this label can override approvals.

Click Save and Continue.

On the Email Notification page that appears, select the recipients of email notifications for each stage of the ticket lifecycle. Click the indicated link to configure these options on the Service Desk Queue Email Settings page. For more information, see Configure queue-specific email settings.

Click Save and Continue.

On the Recurring Ticket Schedule page that appears, specify the frequency at which a ticket is created. This is useful if you want this process to create tickets at regular intervals, for example, for checking system health or deleting file logs on a regular basis.

Option

Description

None

Run in combination with an event rather than on a specific date or at a specific time.

Every n hours

Run at a specified interval.

Every day/specific day at HH:MM

Run daily at a specified time, or run on a designated day of the week at a specified time.

Run on the nth of every month/specific month at HH:MM

Run on the same day every month, or a specific month, at the specified time.

Run on the nth weekday of every month/specific month at HH:MM

Run on the specific weekday of every month, or a specific month, at the specified time.

Custom

Run according to a custom schedule.

Use standard 5-field cron format (extended cron format is not supported):

Use the following when specifying values:

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Spaces ( ): Separate each field with a space.

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Asterisks (*): Include the entire range of values in a field with an asterisk. For example, an asterisk in the hour field indicates every hour.

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Commas (,): Separate multiple values in a field with a comma. For example, 0,6 in the day of the week field indicates Sunday and Saturday.

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Hyphens (-): Indicate a range of values in a field with a hyphen. For example, 1-5 in the day of the week field is equivalent to 1,2,3,4,5, which indicates Monday through Friday.

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Slashes (/): Specify the intervals at which to repeat an action with a slash. For example, */3 in the hour field is equivalent to 0,3,6,9,12,15,18,21. The asterisk (*) specifies every hour, but /3 restricts this to hours divisible by 3.

Examples:

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15 * * * * Run 15 minutes after every hour every day

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0 22 * * * Run at 22:00 every day

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0 0 1 1,6 * Run at 00:00 on January 1 and June 1

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30 8,12 * * 1-5 Run weekdays at 08:30 and 12:30

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0 2 */2 * * Run every other day at 02:00

View Task Schedule

Click to view the task schedule. The Task Schedule dialog box displays a list of scheduled tasks. Click a task to review the task details. For more information, see View task schedules.

On the Publish Options page that appears, select any publishing options, as required:

Option	Description
Enabled	Processes must be enabled before you can use them to create process tickets. Select this check box if you want to enable users to create tickets from this process template.
Hide approval information from non-owner users	Select this option if you do not want the users who do not own the ticket to view approval information.
Hide process steps from Submitters	Select this option if you do not want to display the process steps (child tickets) to submitters in the parent ticket details page.
Display process to all users	This option is selected by default. If you want to restrict end user access to this process, clear this option. Alternatively, select a label associated with the group to which you want to grant access.
Display process description page while creating new process requests	Select this option if you want to show the process description page when creating new tickets based on this process template.
Use process status workflow instead of ticket status	When you want to take advantage of the approval and notification features available in the process template, you must select this option. If you already configured approvals or notifications, this option is selected by default and cannot be cleared. Choosing to use the process status workflows causes the parent ticket to automatically advance through various process-specific states such as Pending Approval, Approval Denied, Approval Timed Out, In Progress, or Process Complete. If you choose not to select this option and continue to use the ticket status workflows instead, you must create custom ticket rules to achieve desired approval and notification functionality. When you use process status workflows, the Status field does not appear on the Ticket Detail page, even if that field is configured to appear for the related queue. The ticket Status field is still displayed for the child tickets.
Parent Ticket Closed Status	Select the status that you want to use when the parent ticket associated with this process is closed. When the last child activity is closed, the parent ticket is closed automatically, and its status appears in this field.

Click Finish.

The Create Process Template wizard closes, and your newly created or updated process template appears on the Process Templates page.

Define process types

In a default installation, only the Service Request and Software Request: Approval Required process types are included. You can create new process types, as required. For example, you can create a process type for accessing a specific application, or a group of applications.

The Software Request: Approval Required process type is meant for building special process templates that can be used to set up user downloads that require one or more approvals.

Create a parent ticket.

Go to the Service Desk Process Detail page:

On the left navigation bar, click Service Desk, then click Configuration.

On the Configuration panel, under Process Templates, click Define Process Types.

To add a new process type, in the top-right corner, click

. In the text box that appears, type the process type name, and click Save.

To change the name of an existing process, in the row containing the process type that you want to edit, click

. In the text box that appears, type the new process type name, and click Save.

Create process tickets to manage related tasks

If you have added and enabled process templates in a queue, you can create process tickets to manage sets of related tasks, such as the tasks required to set up systems for new employees, as a group.

You have added and enabled process templates. See Add, edit, and enable process templates.

Go to the Service Desk New Ticket page:

On the left navigation bar, click Service Desk, then click Tickets.

Select New > New Ticket From Process > Process name.

The New Ticket page appears. The activities related to each stage of the process are listed in the Process Information section.

Provide the required ticket information. See Create tickets from the Administrator Console Ticket page.

Do one of the following:

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Click Save to save the ticket and return to the Ticket list.

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Click Apply Changes to save the ticket and continue editing it.

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Click Cancel to discard the ticket changes.

If other users have modified the ticket concurrently, the Update Notification dialog appears, provided that the dialog is enabled for the queue and you are the ticket owner or an administrator. This dialog is displayed to administrators and ticket owners only. It is not displayed to other users. Administrators can enable or disable the conflict warning message for each queue separately. See Enable or disable the conflict warning.

See Create tickets from the Administrator Console Ticket page. The process ticket is created, and child tickets are created automatically for activities assigned to stage 1. Stage 2 child tickets are created when all stage 1 tickets are closed, and so on. If approvals are defined for the process, child tickets are created after the approvals are received for the process ticket.