Service Desk Implementation Checklist

This chapter covers the following topics:

Setups in Integrated Applications

This section provides guidelines for implementing integrated applications that are required to make your application work properly. References are provided to sections of this guide with additional setup details.

Implementation Tasks for Service Desk

The table in this section provides you with a checklist of implementation steps for the Service Desk module of Oracle TeleService. Use this checklist to determine which chapters and sections of this implementation guide are relevant to you.

The steps are listed in suggested implementation order. Not all steps depend on previous steps, but many do.

Follow the references for detail information and procedures in this and other guides.

Implementation Step Description References
Set up resources. You must set up agents as resources using Assignment Manager before you can assign ownership of service requests to them.
You must set up resource groups with the usage of "Support" to assign service requests to groups.

  • Setting Up Resources

  • Resource Manager section of the Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide
Set up business processes. To default response and resolution times for service requests, you must set up the default service level agreement. This requires you to set up at least one business process.
A business process provides a general classification of the work performed.
You can set up different default response and resolution times by setting up multiple business processes.
Set up service request statuses. Service request statuses provide a classification system which makes it possible for your organization to track the stage of a response to an employee problem from the initial contact to resolution.
Group the statuses into status groups. Status groups make it possible to assign different statuses to different service request types and to create permissible status transitions.
Set up service request types. Agents use service request types to classify the employee problem.
Different service request types can capture different information about the employee problem and even generate tasks for resolution.
Map service request types to responsibilities. Mapping service request types to responsibilities restricts their use to users logging in under those responsibilities. This mapping provides the basis of standard service request security.
Organize service requests into categories for Oracle iSupport. If you are using Oracle iSupport, creating categories organizes service request types into meaningful groups on the employee Web portal user interface. You can add images to help employees identify the correct service request type for their problem.
Set up service request severities. Service request severity reflects the support agent's perception of the reported service request. Service request severity is a mandatory field in the service request.
Set up service request urgencies. The Urgency field indicates the employee's perception of the urgency of the service request. Urgency is an optional field in service requests.
Set up problem codes and map them to service request types, inventory items (individual items or categories), or a combination of the two. Problem codes standardize the description of employee requests. Mapping them makes it possible to narrow an agent's choice to only those problem codes appropriate to each employee problem.
Set up resolution codes and map them to specify where they are to be used. Resolution codes provide a uniform way for agents to specify how a service request is resolved.
You can specify which resolution codes are relevant to which service requests by mapping resolution codes to problem codes, service request types, inventory items (individual items or categories), or a combination of the three.
Set up service request linking. You link service requests to indicate that one service request is a duplicate or the cause of another, for instance.
Specify the valid languages for the service request by setting up the Language Field. Agents use this field to indicate an employee's preferred language for a specific service request.
Set up task types and priorities. This step is required only if you are using tasks for resolution of service requests.
Create additional note types. Note types classify the information your organization keeps on service request, tasks, and employees.
You can create note types in addition to those included with your application.
Set up service request security. Service request security is built on top of the standard application security.
By mapping service request types to responsibilities, you restrict by responsibility the ability of users to view and update service requests and related objects.
Alternately, you can choose to implement your own application security.
Set up work assignment and distribution. Setting up assignment and distribution of service requests and related tasks to groups and individuals involves setups of service territories, and system profiles.
Set up automatic notifications. By setting up automatic notifications, you can keep interested parties, including employees and agents, informed of any service request updates.
Set up the capture of custom service request attributes through extensible attributes or descriptive flexfields. You can capture additional service request information using either extensible attributes or descriptive flexfields.
Using extensible attributes, you can:

  • Capture an unlimited number of additional attributes. (The number of descriptive flexfields is fixed.)

  • Extensible attributes permit multirow entries making it possible for agents to enter multiple items on the same service request. (Descriptive flexfields permit only a single row.)

  • You can capture global attributes (visible in all service requests) as well as attributes specific to a service request type.


You can expose the descriptive flexfields using the Oracle Application Personalization Framework. Service Desk does not support context-sensitive descriptive flexfields.
Automatic task generation for service requests. You can have the application automatically generate tasks for newly-created service requests based on the service request's type, item or item category, and problem code.
Set up automatic closure of service requests and tasks. You can set up the application to automatically:

  • Close service request when all their tasks are closed

  • Prevent the closure of service requests when tasks are still open

  • Close tasks that have not been worked on


The closing of service requests tasks is independent of the service request status.
If you do not implement closure automation, agents must remember to close all tasks when they close a service request and remember to close the service request after all tasks are completed.
Set up the default response and resolution times. Even if you do not use Oracle Service Contracts, you must still set up a default service level agreement to enable the defaulting of due dates on tasks and service request actions.
Enable service request reports. You can print the contents of service requests and in HTML, PDF, RTF, and XSL formats via integration with Oracle XML Publisher.
Set up electronic approvals and records. You can set up service requests to require electronic approvals and to generate electronic audit records whenever an agent sets the service request to a specific status.
You set up the approval rules in Oracle Approvals Management and the e-record templates in Oracle E-Records.
Enable Oracle Enterprise Asset Management integration for the Service Request window. Agents can create service requests for internal assets maintained in Oracle Enterprise Asset Management.
Enable Oracle Email Center integration. When you implement Oracle Email Center and enable the integration, agents can:

  • Compose and send e-mails to employees with one click

  • Use e-mail templates to populate the body of the e-mail

  • View replies

  • View a history of sent e-mails and their replies

  • Access the archived e-mail messages themselves
Set up indexing of text in service request summaries and notes for searches. You must run the Service Request Synchronize Index concurrent program to make it possible for agents to search for text in the summary and note fields of service requests.
Set up any additional system profiles and lookups. You can use the Functional Administrator responsibility to obtain a list of all system profiles and lookups relevant to your implementation by searching by application. Relevant system profiles and lookups are classified under the "Service" application.
Set up the default customer. Service Desk hides customer information by default, but each service request still requires a customer entry.
To satisfy this requirement, you must specify a default customer in the system profile Service: Default Customer Name.
If you do want to expose customer information, then do not specify any value for this system profile and use Oracle Applications Personalization to expose the hidden customer regions.
Configure and personalize the application. Configuring and personalizing the application involves:

  • Specifying the Service Desk template for the responsibility you are creating.

  • Choosing the Agent Dashboard variations depending on the work assignment and distribution model you have implemented.

  • Modifying what appears in the user interface by modifying lookups and using Oracle Application Framework Personalization.
Set up the agent key performance indicators. Key performance indicators provide agents with statistics about their personal and group's response to employee service requests in the Key Performance Indicator region of the Agent Dashboard.
Modify the definition of jeopardy. The application considers service requests with expected response or resolution dates prior to the current date (or within a defined period prior to the current date) as in jeopardy.
You can extend the range of service requests that are considered by the application as in jeopardy by extending the time period.
Modify notes. By default, the application does not permit anyone, including the author, to edit a note after it is saved. However, you can modify notes by adding functions.