Managing OTOBO Services

Managing OTOBO Services

To optimize your service desk performance and ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction, it is essential that requests and issues are properly categorized and forwarded to the right expert team. Without a clear assignment based on the affected service, your agents could be confronted with requests that fall outside their area of expertise or access rights. This could unnecessarily prolong resolution times and lead to dissatisfaction among your customers. OTOBO, a leading ticket system and service desk software, offers the ability to effectively manage services to overcome such challenges.

With OTOBO, you can easily add and manage all services that you offer to your customers. By linking these services to Service Level Agreements (SLAs), you can ensure a fast and effective solution for customer issues based on established agreements. Configuring and managing your services in OTOBO is a crucial step to optimize your customer support system and increase your team’s efficiency.

You can find the service management screen under the Services module in the Ticket Settings group. It is important to note that a fresh OTOBO installation does not contain any services by default, which is why you should configure this area immediately after installation.

Before you begin, however, ensure that the Ticket::Service feature is enabled in the System Configuration under the Administration group. This setting is necessary so that services can be selected in the ticket screens. If you receive a warning message, you can navigate directly to the corresponding configuration setting via the link in that message.

Managing Services

Adding and managing services is a straightforward process. To add a new service, click on the “Add service” button in the left sidebar and fill in the required fields before clicking on “Save”.

Please note that services cannot be deleted from the system. Instead, they can be deactivated by setting the validity option to “invalid” or “invalid-temporarily”.

To edit an existing service, select it from the service list, change the corresponding fields, and then click on “Save” or “Save and finish”.

For more efficient management of your services, it is recommended to use the filter field to search for specific services. Simply enter the name of the service you are looking for to filter the results.

You should pay special attention to changing object names. Certain setups such as dashboard filters, Access Control Lists (ACLs), and processes can be affected by a name change. Thorough documentation of your setup is essential here to prevent potential difficulties.

Important Service Settings

When adding or editing a service, various setting options are available to you. Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

• Service: The service name, which can contain any characters, including uppercase letters and spaces.
• Subservice of: Allows you to assign the service to an existing service as a subservice.
• Validity: Determines whether a service can be used in OTOBO. The service is only active if this option is set to “valid”.
• Comment: Here you can add additional information that is also visible in the overview table.

Finally, it is important to mention that a service is only selectable in the ticket screens if it is assigned to the ticket’s customer or set as a default service for all customers in the Customer User Services screen.

SLAs

Compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is of the utmost importance for companies that want to offer efficient and customer-oriented services. SLAs define the standards for service quality, including response and resolution times, and are crucial for building trust and ensuring customer satisfaction. By managing service agreements, OTOBO, a comprehensive service desk and ticket system solution, provides the tools to consistently meet and exceed the expectations of your customers.

OTOBO’s offering for SLA management is particularly flexible and can be scaled with your business needs. It allows you to create numerous service agreements tailored to the specific requirements of your services and customers. Each SLA can include various services and regulate in detail which escalation times and availabilities apply.

It is important to note that using this feature requires the Ticket::Service setting to be enabled in the System Configuration under the Administration group. This ensures that services and SLAs are selectable in the ticket screens. If you receive a warning message regarding this topic, you can navigate directly to the corresponding configuration setting via the link contained in the message.

Managing Service Level Agreements

Before you can add SLAs, it is required that services already exist in the system. Therefore, ensure that you create them first in the “Services” area.

To add a new SLA, follow these steps:

1. Click on “Add SLA” in the left sidebar.
2. Fill in the required fields.
3. Confirm with “Save”.

Please note that once created, service agreements cannot be deleted. However, you have the option to deactivate them by setting the validity to “invalid” or “invalid-temporarily”.

To edit an existing service agreement, select an SLA from the list, adjust the desired settings, and save your changes.

If there is a high number of SLAs in the system, you can use the filter field to search for specific service agreements by their name and edit them more quickly.

Settings for Service Level Agreements

The following options are available when you add or edit a service agreement. Fields with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

• SLA*: The name of the service agreement; any characters can be entered into the field, including uppercase letters and spaces.
• Service: Here you select one or more services that should be covered by this SLA.
• Calendar: Define the calendar that determines the working hours for this service agreement. Calendars can be set in the System Configuration.

Escalation options include the First response time (minutes), which defines the maximum working time before an agent makes contact with the customer for the first time, and the Update time (minutes), which defines the maximum allowable period between agent contacts. It should be noted that the first response time is not triggered for an email ticket or a phone ticket created by an agent.

With these comprehensive features, OTOBO ensures that your organization complies with the terms of your service agreements, thereby creating the basis for a lasting customer relationship. Just as important as defining the service agreements themselves is the implementation of mechanisms that ensure these agreements are met. OTOBO offers detailed options for this, such as early notification of agents before the agreed times expire and the definition of resolution times for tickets. These features allow your team to act proactively and avoid potential escalations, which ultimately leads to higher customer satisfaction.

To further increase the effectiveness of your SLAs, you can make settings in OTOBO that help your agents meet the agreed service times:

• Notify by: This feature allows you to define percentage values at which notifications are sent before the time limit for first responses, updates, or resolutions is reached. Through this early alerting, agents have the opportunity to prioritize their tasks accordingly and act within the agreed deadlines.

• Escalation - Solution time (minutes): Here you define the maximum working time within which a ticket must be marked as resolved. An important feature here is that the solution time of a ticket remains unchanged even after reopening. This consistency ensures clarity and helps in adhering to established SLAs.

• Validity *: As with all resources in OTOBO, you must also define the validity for SLAs. Only resources whose validity is set to “valid” can be used. The ability to temporarily or permanently deactivate resources by setting their validity to “invalid” or “invalid-temporarily” offers flexibility in managing your service offering.

• Comment: This field allows you to add additional information about a resource. A clear and complete description helps the entire support team to quickly grasp the purpose and relevance of a specific service agreement. The comment is also displayed in the overview table, thus increasing transparency.

• Dialog message: If a customer selects a specific SLA when creating a ticket, a preset message can be displayed in the external interface. This offers an opportunity to inform the customer immediately about important information regarding the selected SLA.

By carefully configuring these settings in OTOBO, you can ensure a high standard in fulfilling your service agreements. This not only has a positive effect on the efficiency and responsiveness of your support team but also strengthens the trust and satisfaction of your customers.

Evaluating Services in Statistics

Service data can be evaluated in the statistics. To do this, you must create a new statistic and define the desired filters and display options. Further information can be found here: OTOBO Statistics Management