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Service Solution

Corteza Service Solution is a highly flexible, scalable and open source solution for keeping up with customer cases.

Since Service Solution is highly customizable, this guide may differ from yours.

In such cases, please contact your system administrator.

Home

The home page is accessible by clicking on the "Home" in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

The homepage is sort of like a dashboard for your business — it gives a quick overview of your cases, so you know what is going on.

It shows you essential statistics regarding your cases, such as cases by priority, status, and category.

Cases

There are three pages dedicated to cases — one main page and two subpages. They all show leads but with different filtering.

  • Cases shows all of the cases in the system,

  • All New cases shows only the cases that have the New status,

  • My new cases shows only the new cases that you are responsible for.

Cases are the main component of Corteza Service Solution — this is where all of the customer issues are captured and handled.

Add a new case

You can add a case from either one of the subpages, but they are usually created from the account.

  1. Click on the "+ Add" button to open up the form,

  2. populate the data and press the "Save" button on the bottom right corner.

Each case has an automatically generated case number, which starts with "ticket#" followed by a number. An example case number is ticket#20191025094353420.

The ticket number provides a unique identification that is used within the system. To make the ticket understandable, provide a good subject.

Make sure that the subject is short, clear and straight to the point!

Key parts of a case

Case Description

This is where you can find the base information regarding a case; such as its status, priority and related product.

Case Details

This is where you can find essential relations, such as the related account, contact, case owner, and it’s cost.

Updates

This is where all the updates related to the case are kept. This can be anything from receiving updates from the clients to us contacting the client. It gives you a clear picture of what is going on. You can add a new update by clicking on the "Add Update to this Case" button. Case status changes automatically create an update.

Knowledge Base

This is where you can quickly search through the knowledge base to find relevant information to get a better understanding of the task at hand.

Typical case flow

  1. A client contacts the company with an issue,

  2. the service agent checks the clients account to see if their entitlements permit support for the issue,

  3. if the client is entitled to support, a new case is created, directly from the account page,

  4. the agent inserts any relevant parameters to the case, assigns a category (the default is "Problem"), links any related products, contacts, and assigns an agent,

  5. the assigned agent works on the case, creates updates and finally closes the case.

Accounts

The Accounts page is accessible by clicking on the "Accounts" in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Accounts are entities (companies or other) that you are doing business with. An account stores essential data regarding the company, along with a set of contacts, entitlements and cases.

Add a new account

  1. Press the "+ Add" button on the top of the list,

  2. fill out the data,

  3. press "Save" on the bottom right corner.

Add a case for an account

  1. Open an account you wish to create a case for,

  2. click on the "+ Add" button on top of the Cases list,

  3. fill out the data,

  4. press "Save" on the bottom right corner.

Refer to the cases section for additional details.

Contacts

The Contacts page is accessible by clicking on the "Contacts" under the "Accounts" dropdown in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Contacts belong to accounts, and we can think of them as employees for a specific company that we are allowed to contact.

Key parts of a contact

A contact has two particular fields that indicate how and if we can contact them:

  • Do Not Call,

  • Email Opt Out.

The agent should check these fields before trying to make any contact.
Personal Data

Here we store the essential information regarding contacts, such as their name, title, phone, and email.

Contact Address

Here we store their contact address if we need to generate any quotes, send packages or dispatch maintainers.

Contact Twitter Feed

Here we can keep track of the contact’s latest updates via Twitter.

Cases related to this Contact

Here we store the cases that are related to the contact; either created by them, or they are responsible for.

Emails

Here we store the emails that we sent to the contact, presented in chronological order. These are usually generated based on cases.

We can use this outside of cases, for example, to notify the client that their subscription expires soon.

Add a case for a contact

  1. Open a contact you wish to create a case for,

  2. click on the "+ Add" button on top of the "Cases related to this Contact" list,

  3. fill out the data,

  4. press "Save" on the bottom right corner.

Refer to the cases section for additional details.

Add an email for a contact

Emails are usually generated from a case and not directly as shown here.

  1. Open a contact you wish to create an email for,

  2. click on the "+ Add" button on top of the Emails list,

  3. fill out the data,

  4. press "Save" on the bottom right corner.

Entitlements

The Entitlements page is accessible by clicking on the "Entitlements" under the "Accounts" dropdown in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Entitlements are types of customer support, such as phone support or email support. You can set up entitlements to help support agents determine whether a customer is eligible for support or not.

Entitlements are related to an account and a product, and they are eligible for a fixed amount of time (defined by the start and end date).

Add an entitlement

  1. Click on the "+ Add" button on top of the Entitlements list,

  2. fill out the data,

  3. press "Save" on the bottom right corner.

You can define an entitlement template under a product to automatically prefill some of the data. Refer to entitlement templates for more information.

Products

The Products page is accessible by clicking on the "Products" in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

A product can be a physical or a software product, as well as a service provided by your company. Products allow you to keep track of how much service a specific product or product family provides. We also get an overview of all cases for a specific product.

Key parts of a product

Product Description

Here we store the essential information regarding the product, such as it’s product code, name, family and optionally an entitlement template.

We can use entitlement templates to automate the creation of more common entitlements, such as a hardware warranty for a product.
Cases totals

Here we see the total time and cost that a specific product has required so far. The system calculates these fields, so we don’t need to worry about that!

Cases related to this product

Here we find all the cases that we created for the product. It can help us identify the most problematic products and the most common issues.

Entitlements for this product

Here we find all of the entitlements that we created for this product.

Knowledge Base items related to this product

The knowledge base allows us to provide some information regarding the product, so our support agents can provide quality answers without the need for experts.

The knowledge base is accessible from the case creation screen.

Entitlement templates

The Entitlement Templates page is accessible by clicking on the "Entitlement Templates" under the "Products" dropdown in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

A product or service comes typically with an entitlement to support. For example, a software license may allow the client to contact you by phone when they have issues or questions. Or, when you sell hardware, you may need to offer a period of guarantee, allowing the client to contact you when the product breaks within that period.

Service Solution provides an easy way of defining the most common entitlements as entitlement templates. After we create a template, we bind it to a product. Now, whenever we create an entitlement for that product, the template will be used to prefill the base information regarding the entitlement.

Create an entitlement template

  1. Navigate to the Entitlement Templates page,

  2. press the "+ Add" button at the top of the list,

  3. fill out the form and press the "Save" button in the bottom right corner.

Add an entitlement template to a product

  1. Navigate to the Products page,

  2. press the edit icon next to the product you wish to do this for,

  3. navigate to the "Product Description" block and select an "Entitlement Template",

  4. press the "Save" button in the bottom right corner.

If you wish to create a new product instead of editing an existing one, press the "+ Add" button instead of the edit button on the product list.

Knowledge base

We use "KB" as a shortened notation to reference the knowledge base.

The Knowledge Base page is accessible by clicking on the "Knowledge Base" in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

The knowledge base stores various information regarding your products, services and other so the agents can solve cases faster without the need for experts.

Key parts of a knowledge base entry

Details

Here we store the essential information regarding the entry, such as the type, related product, description, its status and some other metadata.

Cases with this KB Item as Solution

Here we see all the cases that we solved with the help of this entry. This helps us distinguish good entries from the bad ones to improve our knowledge base. It also allows other agents to solve similar cases much faster.

Add a new knowledge base entry

  1. Press on the "+ Add" button on the top of the list,

  2. fill out the data,

  3. press "Save" in the bottom right corner.

The ID gets calculated by the system.

Tips for improving quality

Implement reviews

We can use the status field of the entry to indicate if it needs to be reviewed by an expert, or if it’s accepted or rejected.

Departments

The Departments page is accessible by clicking on the "Departments" in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Companies usually consist of multiple departments that may have different costs when performing their tasks. One hour support by the service department is not the same as one hour support by R&D. This allows the system to calculate the cost of a particular case automatically.

A department is not directly assigned to a case, but its update. This allows multiple departments to work on the same case.

Key parts of a department

Department details

Here we store the essential information regarding a department, such as its name, list of employees, and it’s hourly cost.

Total time and cost of department related to work on cases

Here we can see some quick statistics regarding total consumed times and the total cost of the department. The system calculates this, so we don’t have to worry about this.

Case updates related to the department

Here we can see all of the case updates that are assigned to this department. This can help us determine what department has the most significant load so we can properly adjust our business process.

Changing the hourly cost of a department only affects new entries. Old entries and their costs remain untouched unless they are updated.

Add a department

  1. Click on the "+ Add" button at the top of the list,

  2. fill out the data,

  3. press the "Save" button on the bottom right corner.

Settings

The Settings page is accessible by clicking on the "Settings" in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

In the settings page, we can configure some parts of the system to suit our needs better. Let’s go over them.

Available settings

Next number for a KB item

This indicates the next ID that is used for the next KB item (entry). Unless you are migrating from another system, this value doesn’t need to be changed.

Default cost per hour

This is used if a department doesn’t define its hourly cost or if we don’t assign a department to the case update.

We strongly advise that each department explicitly specifies an hourly cost.

Default department for new ticket

This is the default department that will be assigned to a ticket if no other department is selected.

Default time for a case update

This is the default time that is used when working on case updates.

You can calculate the average consumed time and use that value here.

Default support channel id

Corteza Service Solution integrates into the Corteza Messaging application. Specific events, such as a case update, are sent to the Corteza Messaging channel that is defined in this field.

Here is an example of an automated message update:

Automatic update. "Ticket#20200914101549730" has been updated: Email: Case: [Ticket#20200914101549730] "Cannot connect the cable to the screen" (type: Outgoing email). Direct link: https://latest.cortezaproject.org/compose/ns/service-solution/pages/111502308285612036/record/161946717564960772

Default case link

This is the base URL that will be used when generating links to cases.

If you have an external portal that is able to display cases stored by Corteza, you can change this link to point to that portal.

Default case email template

This is the default email template that will be used when generating case emails.

Step by step configuration

Next number for a KB item

If you’ve migrated from another system, insert the next number that should be used. If not, you can leave this as it is.

Default cost per hour

Enter a default cost that should be used when working on a case update.

Default department for new ticket

Select the default department. If you don’t see any departments, you should first create it.

Default time for a case update

Enter a default time that should be used when working on a case update.

Default support channel id

If you don’t wish to send automated messages to the Corteza Messaging application, you can skip this.

  1. Open Corteza Messaging, select a channel you wish to use, or create a new one,

  2. take note of the channel ID (this is the long number at the end of the URL address),

  3. paste the channel ID into this field.

Default case link

  1. Navigate to the "Pages" of your admin panel,

  2. find the page called Record page for module "Case",

  3. copy the page ID (this is the long number at the end of the address — similar to the above channel ID),

  4. insert https://your-corteza-instance.tld/compose/ns/service-solution/pages/<page_ID_here>/record. For example: https://your-corteza-instance.tld/compose/ns/service-solution/pages/111502308285612036/record

If you have an external portal that is able to display cases stored by Corteza, you can change this link to point to that portal.

Default case email template

Select a default email template that should be used when working on cases. If you don’t see any email templates, you should first create it.

Email templates

The Email Templates page is accessible by clicking on the "Email Templates" under the "Settings" dropdown in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Email templates help us speed up the process of contacting our clients by prefilling the more common information and let us fine-tune the last few details, specific to the client.

Key parts of an email template

Template

Here we store the essential parts of the template, such as its name, description, subject and the body content. We can use placeholders to speedup the process of designing an email (more on this in the below section).

Template is used in following emails

Here we can see all the emails that are using this template. We can use this to distinguish the more popular templates to help us design better templates in the future.

Placeholders

We can use placeholders in both the subject and the body.

We can use the following placeholders (take note of the {{ }} — this indicates a placeholder).

Placeholders for getting data of the case:

  • {{Case.Number}}

  • {{Case.Subject}}

  • {{Case.Status}}

  • {{Case.ContactName}}

  • {{Case.ContactTitle}}

  • {{Case.ContactEmail}}

  • {{Case.ContactPhone}}

  • {{Case.Escalated}}

  • {{Case.Category}}

  • {{Case.CloseDate}}

  • {{Case.Priority}}

  • {{Case.Description}}

  • {{Case.TotalTime}}

  • {{Case.TotalCost}}

Placeholders for getting data of the contact:

  • {{Contact.FirstName}}

  • {{Contact.LastName}}

  • {{Contact.Title}}

  • {{Contact.Phone}}

  • {{Contact.Email}}

  • {{Contact.Twitter}}

  • {{Contact.Facebook}}

  • {{Contact.LinkedIn}}

  • {{Contact.MailingStreet}}

  • {{Contact.MailingCity}}

  • {{Contact.MailingState}}

  • {{Contact.MailingPostalCode}}

  • {{Contact.MailingCountry}}

  • {{Contact.DoNotCall}}

  • {{Contact.HasOptedOutOfEmail}}

Example subject

Case: [{{Case.Number}}] "{{Case.Subject}}"

Example body

Dear {{Contact.FirstName}},

We are contacting you concerning the case "{{Case.Subject}}".

...ADD_REASON_FOR_CONTACT_HERE...

Kind regards,

The service team

Dashboards

The Dashboards page is accessible by clicking on the "Dashboards" in the main navigation bar on the top of the screen.

Dashboards help you to visually understand changing business conditions so you can make decisions based on the real-time data of your Service Solution.

You can easily define new dashboards to expose the data you care about the most.