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TeamHeadquarters Queues can be contained within a project. While it is still possible to run a ticket queue without a project, consider using a project for your support operation when:
People working on the Queue will need to enter time sheets
You require detailed cost measurement for their efforts
The Queue needs to be represented in portfolio reporting along with projects.
When tickets are related to projects and tasks, the time spent on them can be automatically brought into time sheets. This saves time and greatly improves accuracy.
In this scenario, the support queue can easily be included in portfolio reporting, making it easy to harmonize reporting when the support activity is related to the funded projects.
To set up a support infrastructure, first consider how many Ticket Queues (or Projects) are needed. For a centralized help desk, it may be best to operate with a single queue. If there are de-centralized help desks serving wide geographies, it may be best to have a queue for each location and map them to the organizational unit structure as defined in Active Directory. If the range of supported products and locations is large, this may also drive the need for multiple queues. Remember that the Ticket Monitor supports centralized monitoring and reporting for multiple queues.
When the information in some tickets is sensitive and requires unique security permissions on the data, a separate queue is essential because individual tickets cannot have unique security permissions.
The queue roster is unrelated to the security treatment on the queue. It is best to set permissions on queues to be as open as possible for all of the users who may need to view the data or report on it. Ticket Queues should facilitate the rapid assignment and management of work, which becomes difficult with overly restrictive security permissions.
Queues exist under organizational units. To create a new queue, right click on an organizational unit and select New Queue.
Like projects, Ticket Queues have a Roster that the queue manager maintains by right clicking on the queue and selecting Edit.
Tickets are categorized with selections for product, location, and next step that can also be used for statistical reports, filtering/viewing ticket lists, and workflow. The software has a global ‘master’ table of options that are maintained by the System Administrator. However, each queue can establish its own subset of possible selections by deactivating unwanted selections from the master list. This function is only available to the queue manager(s), by ‘editing’ the queue.
As tickets are created and closed, exceptions will occur and some incidents may become unmanaged. Queues need people monitoring for stale tickets or those that are unassigned.
Queues can be monitored by using the queue filters or the queue reports. The Ticket Monitor makes it possible to centrally monitor for unassigned, unacknowledged, or unmanaged tickets across any number of queues. Examples are provided in the TeamHeadquarters help system under Queues.
