Overview of a Service Request Lifecycle

Creating or editing an SR includes the following steps. You don't need to do all the steps, and they don't need to be done in the order we are presenting.

• Enter the summary information: View SR details about what the service request is about such as the customer account, primary contacts, SR description, and so on. You can also add tags to the SR. For more information about adding tags, see "Tagging Service Requests".

• View Interaction History: View details about the various interactions an agent has had for a service request. Get details on who called whom, through what communication channel, what were his top interactions, and with what customer. The view always shows the parent interaction with the associated child interactions (including the cross-channel interactions) in a nested view under the parent interaction. To view the associated interactions, click the + icon next to the parent interaction.

• Compose messages: Use the Messages tab to view, create, and send messages and notes on the SR.

• Add contacts: Add customer contacts to the SR.

• Add team members: Add team members who can view and work on the SR.

• Create activities: Create activities such as appointments, tasks, and log calls with the customer.

• View linked articles: View related knowledge articles that can help resolve the SR.

• View Service Request Milestones: View the service milestones for the SR.

• Manage Work Orders: Manage your work orders to facilitate resolution of the SRs.

• View Audit History: View changes to the application data such as the business objects that were created, updated, and deleted

A Typical SR Flow

This flowchart describes the process flow of a Service Request:

An Example of an SR Process

A typical and simple example of an SR Lifecycle flow is given below:

• The agent receives an inbound email from a customer. This creates the SR in "New" status.

  Use any of the following methods to create an SR:

  • Customer sends email to create the SR. This requires setup by an administrator.

  • Customer creates the SR using Digital Customer Service. Requires setup by an administrator.

  • Agent manually creates the SR by clicking the Create SR button.

  • Use other methods such as REST or Import.

• The agent starts working on the SR, and changes the status of the SR to "In Progress".

  Use any of the following methods to update the SR:

  • Customer sends email to update the SR.

  • Customer updates the SR using Digital Customer Service.

  • Agent manually updates the SR.

  • Use other methods such as REST or Import.

• The agent realizes that they need some additional information from the customer. So they send an email to the customer and flip the SR status to "Waiting".

• The customer replies back to the email. At this time the application changes the status back to IN PROGRESS. Here status change isn't ready-to-use, and requires setup in the application.

• The agent replies back to the customer with the solution and sets the SR status to Resolved.

  Use any of the following methods to resolve the SR:

  • Automatic Resolve of the SR from Waiting status. Require setup by an administrator.

  • Customer resolves the SR using Digital Customer Service.

  • Agent manually updates the SR.

  • Use other methods such as REST or Import.

• After X days of the SR being resolved, the application flips the status of the SR to Closed, if the customer has configured the ESS job to close SRs.