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Since Notifications must be built before they can be used in Escalations, we'll cover them first.
When building an Escalation, you define certain actions for Escalation to follow including sending a message to relevant parties. This section covers how to define a specific Notification to send; the Notifications Grid (see image above) allows you to add, edit, and delete those Notifications that can be sent by an Escalation.
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There are a number of standard Notifications that come pre-built in PCR-360. Sometimes, however, these can be insufficient for an organization's needs.
To add a new notification that can be sent by an Escalation, click located on the Grid Toolbar.
In the Notification form (see image above), you must define several required fields.
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Select a Hash Variable from the list, click . If you want to add formatting, selecting content around it and using the editor's toolbar.
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Once all required are filled and other fields are completed as desired, click . The new Notification appears as an item on the Grid and can be selected when you build an Escalation with a corresponding Start Event.
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You can edit existing Notifications by double-clicking on any item on the Notifications Grid or by selecting an item and clicking located immediately above the grid.
You can make desired changes to the Notification. The Event assigned to the Notification cannot be changed, as it must match the Start Event for any Escalations that use it. If you wish to use the same template content for a different Event, use the form's Options menu, and click Copy to New Form:
This sets up the same content for a new Notification where you can now change the Event. NOTE: You may need to clean up Hash Variables you used in the original Notification that are invalid for the new Event you select. Once all required fields have been satisfied, click at the bottom of the form.
You can delete existing Notifications by selecting the appropriate item on the Notifications grid and clicking located immediately above the grid. Once a Notification is deleted from the Grid, it can no longer be selected as a 'Notification' when adding an action to an Escalation Sequence.
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To see a comprehensive history of all the Notifications that have been sent throughout your organization, open the Notification Log Grid. You cannot add, edit, or delete items on this grid, but you can double-click any item in the grid to see the content of the actual message that was sent:
Escalations
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- Start Event (required) – Event that begins the Escalation's life cycle
- Abort Events (optional) – Events which can interrupt the Escalation to prevent unnecessary actions from occurring
- Sequences (required) – Actions the Escalation takes during its life cycle
- Criteria (optional) – A means of narrowing down the conditions under which the Escalation begins
Adding an Escalation
Navigate to the Escalations Grid: Open the Admin navigation tab, click the Escalations/Notifications node, and then click Escalations.
To add a new Escalation, click the add button located on the Grid Toolbar.
In the Escalation form, you must complete the required fields. Enter an "Escalation Name" so that the new Escalation can easily be identified.
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You can edit existing Escalations by double-clicking on any item on the Escalations grid or by selecting an item and clicking the Save New button located immediately above the Grid.
In the Escalation data entry form, you can define the item's inputs by following the protocol established earlier in this section. You cannot change the Start Event for an existing Escalation. If you wish to define an Escalation identical or similar without reproducing all the steps to create it, use the form's Options menu to create a copy:
Admin users can delete existing escalations by selecting the appropriate item(s) on the Escalations grid and clicking the Delete Selected button located immediately above the Grid.
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Next, you can add a Sequence of actions that occur once the Escalation process begins. In the image above, see the tab labeled Sequence. To add an action to the Sequence, click the Add button located on the Sequence grid toolbar.
In the form (see image above), you must complete the required fields.
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- Generate Incident: A new Incident is added to Service Desk with the supplied CSR, Trouble Code, and Details from this Sequence action.
- Workgroup: Uses the Workgroup from the Service Desk Workflow entry that triggered the Escalation (below) to send Notifications to each person in the Workgroup's Sequence tab.
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- Notify: Sends a selected Notification to a specified list of recipients (Notify To).
A couple of tips for using this Type:- You may leave Notify To empty to use the Notification's predefined recipients.
- If you set a list of recipients here, they are used instead of those set on the Notification.
- Esc. Sequence Event: Generate a custom Event that can abort other Escalations or send out Notifications for specific conditions.
Sequence Events are best used with Criteria (discussed below ) so they are only generated when very specific data conditions are met. With these narrowed conditions, you gain more control over aborting certain Escalations or whether to send particular Notifications.
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If you set Type to "Esc. Sequence Event", you are required to give the custom event a name. Only letters, numbers, and spaces are allowed here. The purpose of a Sequence Event is to make a custom Event that other Escalations can use as one of their Abort Events. Sequence Events can be tricky to understand, but they add even more power to the automation of your Escalation actions. This feature needs a little more detail to explain, but it helps to understand Criteria first.
Escalation Criteria
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In addition to specifying a series of actions for an Escalation, you may want to restrict the conditions under which those actions are executed. Criteria act as a filter (think of the Grid's Search and Filter mechanisms) that prevent an Escalation from beginning unless the data provided matches its conditions.
On the Escalation form, click the Criteria tab, and click the Add button . On the Criteria form, you can set a single condition using a piece of Data (that is provided to the Event info) to match against, a Comparison operator, and the Value the data must match to pass and begin the Escalation. Based on the Data field, the Value may be an arbitrary text value, a Picker item, an option from a drop-down, etc.
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Now, any time a Service Desk Item's Status is changed specifically to 'Void', this Escalation begins. Its only Sequence generates the custom "SD Item Voided" event. Now, let's make sure the manager's email is only sent if Mary doesn't view the Incident she's assigned.
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- Name it "Abort for Assigned Worker Viewed".
- Select "Service Desk Item Viewed" as the Start Event.
- Add a Sequence:
- Name it "Worker Viewed SD Item".
- Select Type Esc. Sequence Event.
- Name it "Assigned Worker Viewed SD Item".
- Set Time To Wait to 0m to make it trigger as soon as possible.
- Save and Close the Sequence form.
- Click the Criteria tab the click the add button
to start a new Criteria:- Give it a Description like "Viewed By Assigned Worker".
- From the Data list, select the "global" variable "EVENT_CONTACT" – this is the person who initiated the event. In the case of this Escalation, it is the person who viewed the SD Item.
- Select 'Equals' from the Comparison list.
- To make this custom Event more reusable, we use another Hash Variable for the comparison value rather than specifically picking Mary. Type "##" in the value input and choose "##SDWF_WORKER##". This represents the "Service Desk Workflow Worker" Contact which we want to match the person who viewed the SD Item (EVENT_CONTACT).
- Save and Close the Criteria.
- Save and Close the Escalation.
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Service Host REST Escalations are Specialized Escalation Sequences that can be used to interface with outside data sources. Read more here: Exchanging Data With External Data Stores .
Escalations Log
To see a comprehensive history of all the Escalations that have been triggered throughout your organization, open the Escalations Log Grid. You cannot add, edit, or delete items on this Grid, but it serves as a handy tool for querying and reporting on all escalations.
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As of version 2.1.4.0 this functionality is deprecated and removed. This system was never used, and PCR-360 has outgrown the initial design of this feature. Moving forward please see the newly added Custom Logic: Events functionality which has enhanced PCR-360's ability to handle customized logic.
As previously explained, when building an Escalation, you must first define a "Start Event" that triggers the Escalation process. While you can select a "Start Event" from a number of system-defined events, you can also build and select highly specific events not predefined by the system. These are called User-Defined Events. For example, your organization wants to purchase manufacturer’s maintenance on equipment once the warranty date expires and have PCR-360 send a notification before the warranty ends. With PCR-360, you may create a UDE that monitors the warranty end date value for equipment and generate a Notification when that date is within 'x' days of ending. UDEs are listed as items on the User-Defined Events Grid (see image above). Go to Admin > Escalations/Notifications > User Defined Events.
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You can edit existing User-Defined Events by double-clicking on any item on the grid or by selecting an item and clicking the Edit Selected button located immediately above the Grid.
This action opens the item's User-Defined Event form where you can change permitted inputs by following the protocol established earlier in this section. Once all required fields have been satisfied, click the Save button at the bottom of the form.
You can delete existing User-Defined Events by selecting the appropriate item on the Grid and clicking the Delete Selected located immediately above the grid. Once a User-Defined Event is deleted, it can no longer be selected as an 'Event Type' when building an Escalation.
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