Ticket settings
Admin, Tickets (/admin/tickets), available when the module.tickets module
is enabled.
Tickets are the built-in service desk queue for work that is not a device repair: faults, requests and questions. If you already run Zendesk or Web Help Desk for that and only want Plugboard for the device side, switch the module off and skip this page.
Categories
Section titled “Categories”What a ticket is about. Accounts, Network, Printing, Audio visual, Software, whatever the shape of your requests is.
Categories are a flat list. Keep it under about ten and it stays useful at the point of logging.
Queues
Section titled “Queues”Who work belongs to. A queue is usually a team rather than a person: Level 1, Field, AV, Accounts.
Assigning to a queue and assigning to a technician are separate steps. Most desks assign the queue first and the person second.
A category or queue you add here is offered on new tickets straight away for you. A technician who already has the console open sees it within five minutes, or straight away if they reload. The desk reads these lists once and holds them for the rest of a sitting rather than asking again for every ticket it opens — which is part of what keeps opening a ticket quick.
Canned responses
Section titled “Canned responses”Saved replies for the answers you send repeatedly. Each has a title, a category and a body.
The title is what a technician picks from, so write it as the situation rather than the answer. “Password reset done” beats “Reset confirmation template”.
Canned responses cover the ten or so questions that make up most of a school desk’s volume. They are also the first draft of a knowledge base article: once you have sent the same one forty times, put the answer on the public help centre.
The reopen window
Section titled “The reopen window”How long after a ticket is closed somebody can reopen it rather than raising a new one.
Match it to how your users behave. Too short and you get duplicate tickets for the same unresolved problem, which distorts your reporting. Too long and a ticket from last term comes back to life on somebody who has forgotten it.
A fortnight is a reasonable default for a school.
Time tracking
Section titled “Time tracking”Admin, Tickets, Time tracking sets how your school records time on tickets.
What technicians see is on time tracking. Changing these
settings needs workflow.manage; without it the card is read-only.
Nothing is saved until you choose Save time settings, and each save is
recorded in the audit log.
The whole feature, including My time and the time reports, is switched off on Admin, Features. While it is off this card says so, and the time already logged is kept.
Timer and targets
Section titled “Timer and targets”| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Timer | Automatic when writing | Automatic when writing starts a timer on a ticket at the first keystroke in its reply or note box. Manual leaves it to Start timer. Off removes Start timer |
| Daily target (h:mm) | 7:36 | Each working day’s goal on My time, from 0:00 to 24:00. 0:00 hides the target meters |
| Backdating window (days) | 14 | How far back time can be logged, from 0 to 90 days |
| Long-timer threshold (minutes) | 240 | A timer longer than this asks to keep or trim before it is logged. 30 to 1440 |
| When resolving without time | Nudge | Nudge offers to add time when somebody resolves a ticket they logged nothing on. Required makes them log some first. Off asks nothing |
| Report rounding | None | None, 6 minutes or 15 minutes. Rounds each entry up in the time reports only; logged minutes are never changed |
| Track billable time | Off | Adds a Billable tick box to logged time. While it is off, no entry is billable |
| New entries are billable by default | Off | With billable tracking on, whether that box starts ticked |
Work types
Section titled “Work types”Work types say what kind of work the time was, and split the ticket’s time and the reports. Six come ready to use: Remote support, On-site, Bench / repair, Travel, Project and Admin.
Rename a type and its old entries show the new name. Give each a colour (blue, teal, amber, violet, slate, rose or emerald). Untick Active to stop offering a type; it stays on the entries that already use it, so there is no delete. Add a type by name with Add. Names must be unique, at least one type must stay active, and a school can have up to 30.
By category
Section titled “By category”For each ticket category, an estimate in minutes and a default work type. A ticket without its own estimate uses its category’s, which starts its time budget on the ticket page and counts in the Estimate vs actual report. The default work type is preselected in the composer and the Log time form for tickets in that category. Add categories first, under Queues & classification.
Tickets against submissions
Section titled “Tickets against submissions”Two queues, two purposes, and both can be switched off independently.
| Submissions | Tickets | |
|---|---|---|
| About | A device that needs work | Anything else |
| Carries | A device, a serial, a repair type, a coverage, a cost | A category, a queue, a subject and a conversation |
| Lodged from | The kiosk, the desk, the assistant | The desk, email, the assistant |
| Ends in | A repaired device and a cost | An answer |
| Feeds | Cost analytics | Reporting and SLA |
Both are covered by service levels and both appear in the audit log.
Some work starts as one and belongs to the other. A ticket about a laptop that turns out to need a repair can raise a submission, and directory actions can be attached to an existing ticket or raise a new one, which is how “please give this person access to that mailbox” becomes an auditable record instead of an email.
Statuses
Section titled “Statuses”Ticket statuses are configured on the workflow page alongside submission statuses. The service level clock reads which statuses mean the desk is not the one being waited on, so a status you add is read by its meaning rather than its label.
Internal notes
Section titled “Internal notes”The ticket.internal permission separates reading and writing the desk’s own
notes from working the queue.
An internal note is where somebody writes “third time this term, escalate” or “her mother rang, do not put this in writing”. Separating the permission means a school can hand a casual or a student helper the queue without handing them that.