Help CenterStaying on top of tickets can be a real challenge, especially when it comes to managing and tracking support tickets for multiple types of products across various users. The 'Product Family' custom field is a great way to categorize tickets to allow support teams to quickly identify which product a ticket is related to and route it to the appropriate team or individual for resolution.
You can create ticket automation rules around the 'Product Family' custom field to help save your technicians time and effort. Plus, using product families can help you identify trends and patterns across tickets over time, allowing your support team to proactively address common issues.
This article describes:
- Setting up the 'Product Family' custom field
- Adding a product family to a ticket
- Creating ticket automation rules based on product families
- Filtering tickets by product
- Reports on tickets by product family
Setting up product families
'Product Family' is an optional custom field that appears on every ticket. To start categorizing your tickets according to product families, and the products within them, you must first set up this custom field.
Note: Please note that there are two preconfigured product families/products for your convenience: Online Backup > DataShield and Mail Security > MailShield and Mail Archive. You have the option to remove, add to, or override these defaults as needed.
To set up the 'Product Family' custom field:
1. From Admin (on the sidebar), click Custom Fields.
The Custom Fields page appears. The Ticket tab, where the 'Product Family' custom field appears, is selected by default.
2. Click the edit icon(). The Edit Field window appears.
3. Click the plus sign + next to Values to begin adding product families.
4. Add a Child Value or 'Product' to further specify categories within your 'Product Family.' For example, if you would like to categorize tickets specifically relating to hardware, you might create a product family Value called 'Hardware' and add the Child Values/products, 'Monitor', 'Printer', 'Laptop,' 'Docking Station,' etc.
5. Click Apply.
Awesome! You can now start categorizing your tickets by this 'Product Family' custom field.
Add a product family to a ticket
There are multiple ways to add a product family and/or product to a ticket. This can be done manually from within the ticket itself, or you can set up a ticket automation rule to automate this process.
To manually add a product family to a ticket
1. From Tickets (on the sidebar), select a ticket.
2. The ticket appears. Navigate to Ticket Properties on the bottom-right side of the page.
3. Select the 'Product Family' and 'Product' you would like to apply to the ticket from the respective dropdown menus and click Update.
The ticket will now be tagged with the product family and product you selected.
To add a product family to a ticket via ticket automation rules:
For this example, we will add a ticket automation rule that adds the "Hardware" product family and "Monitor" product to any newly created ticket that has the word "Monitor" in the ticket title.
1. From Admin (on the sidebar), click Ticket Automation Rules.
The Ticket Automation Rules page appears.
2. Click Add New Rule. The Add Rule window appears.
3. Enter details for the new rule:
- Rule Name
- Description: Can be the same as the Rule Name or more detailed
- Trigger: Select the trigger for the action, in this case, we will select 'New Ticket Created'
- Ignore Flow: On the Automation Rules page, the rule listed first is dominant, so if it contradicts or conflicts with other rules beneath it, those rules will not apply. Ignore Flow allows this rule to operate regardless of rule hierarchy and structure. For this example, we will select 'Yes'
4. Click Add.
The Ticket Automation Rules page appears. The new rule is now visible.
5. Click the newly created Rule Name to expand the options.
The Conditions and Actions fields appear.
Note:
- Remember we already selected the trigger 'Create New Ticket' when adding details for the new rule. We will now select what happens a new ticket is created.
- For this example, we will apply the 'Hardware' product family and 'Monitor' product to a newly created ticket if the word 'Monitor' appears within the ticket's title. That being said, you can configure a ticket automation rule to add a product family and product based on other conditions such as 'Customer Name,' 'From Contact Email', etc.
6. Add Conditions:
- Ticket Property = Ticket Title
- Operator = Contains
- Expected Value = Word to look for in ticket title (in this example, 'Monitor')
Note: This is case insensitive so it will capture instances of both 'Monitor' and 'monitor' - Must Match = This determines whether or not the condition(s) must be met.
Note: Because there is only one condition specified for this rule, we do not need to check the box for Must Match. Learn more about setting conditions in ticket automation rules.
7. Add Actions:
- Action Type = Set Field Value
- Related Field/Email Template = Product Family
- Value = Product Family > Product (for this example, Hardware > Monitor)
That's it! Now, any ticket that has the word 'Monitor' in its title, will be tagged with the 'Hardware' product family and 'Monitor' product.
Create ticket automation rules based on the Product Family custom field
In addition to creating ticket automation rules to add a product family or product to a ticket, you can also create rules based on a specific product family. In the example highlighted below, we will create a ticket automation rule that assigns a particular technician to any ticket related to the 'Group Policy' product within the 'Server' product family.
Important note: It is not possible to create a ticket automation rule based on the result of another automation rule. In the example provided below, we would not be able to create a rule that assigns a particular technician to a ticket related to the 'Group Policy' product in the 'Server' product family if the product family was also assigned to the ticket via a ticket automation rule.
1. From Admin (on the sidebar), click Ticket Automation Rules.
The Ticket Automation Rules page appears.
2. Click Add New Rule. The Add Rule window appears.
3. Enter details for the new rule:
- Rule Name
- Description: Can be the same as the Rule Name or more detailed
- Trigger: Select the trigger for the action, in this case, we will select 'New Ticket Created'
- Ignore Flow: On the Automation Rules page, the rule listed first is dominant, so if it contradicts or conflicts with other rules beneath it, those rules will not apply. Ignore Flow allows this rule to operate regardless of rule hierarchy and structure. For this example, we will select 'Yes'
4. Click Add.
The Ticket Automation Rules page appears. The new rule is now visible.
5. Click the newly created Rule Name to expand the options.
6. Add Conditions:
- Ticket Property = Product Family
- Operator = Equals
- Expected Value = Product Family > Product (for this example, Server > Group Policy)
- Must Match = As we only have one condition here that needs to be met, we can leave the Must Match box unchecked.
7. Add Actions:
- Action Type = Set Field Value
- Related Field/Email Template = Technician
- Value = Technician Name
Now, any newly created ticket that has the 'Server > Group Policy' product family and product added to it, will be assigned to the designated technician.
Filtering tickets by Product
Once you have set up some product families and products, you can filter the Tickets page to view tickets relating only to specific products.
Note: You cannot filter at the product family level but by the products within each product family.
To filter tickets by product:
1. From Tickets (on the sidebar), click Filters.
2. Scroll down and select a value from the Products dropdown menu.
Note: You can also search for the relevant product in the search field of the dropdown menu.
3. After setting your filter parameters, the Tickets page will update automatically.
Reports with product families
You can see reports on tickets broken down by product and product family in the Dashboard and the General report. Plus, the Timesheet report provides product family information for resolved and billed tickets.
In the Dashboard:
The 'Tickets per Product' report is available in the dashboard and provides a breakdown of tickets according to product (as long as a product has been specified within the 'Product Family' ticket field.)
In the General report
The General report is available under Reports > Classic Reports > General. Here, you will see your tickets broken down by the product families you have created. For more information on the General report, see this article
In the Timesheet report:
You can generate a 'Timesheet' report with product families to understand the time your technicians spend working on tickets relating to specific products within a selected time period. You can find this report under Reports > Classic Reports > Timesheet.
Note: Make sure to select 'Product Family' and 'Product' from the Include Ticket Custom Field(s) dropdown menu when generating the report. For more information about the Timesheet report, see this article
Dana Grob Seligman