Table of Contents
Service Catalogue Setup: Choose Your Path
The service catalogue is where contacts choose the kind of request they want to make. How you set it up depends on your time, your team and your customers. This page helps you choose a path and go straight to the right article.
Not sure where to start?
Start with Quick Setup. Move to the Advanced Model when you have time to review the catalogue every month.
Choose your path
Path | Who it suits | Effort | Why use it |
1. Quick Setup | Teams with limited time who want it working soon | Low. One-time setup, little upkeep. | One short, generic catalogue that suits most companies. |
2. Advanced Model | Teams with a dedicated customer success person and time for a monthly review | Higher. Setup plus a monthly review. | A small catalogue, AI-attached forms and AI categorisation. The most value from each ticket. |
3. Automated Service Groups | Teams that want a unique catalogue per contact or company, and have automation skills | High at the start, then ongoing upkeep. | Removes manual group creation. It costs more effort than clicking through the UI for most teams. |
4. Contact Groups | Teams whose users share tickets, such as shifts or departments | Low. Decide who belongs to which group. | Shared ticket ownership. Explains the "for me or for a group" question. |
Path 1: Quick Setup
Create one generic service group, assign it at the global level, and organise it into 3 to 5 categories. Keep the total under 25 service types, and under 10 if you can. Spend a little time looking at past tickets first, so you create the service types people really need.
Go to: Quick Setup: Service Groups for Teams With Limited Time
Path 2: Advanced Model
Combine three parts:
- Proactive: a small catalogue of 5 to 10 high-value service types.
- Reactive: AI attaches a form after the ticket is created, only when needed.
- Automated: AI sets tags, categories and priority, so service types don't have to.
A monthly review keeps all three working.
Go to: Advanced Catalogue Model: Proactive, Reactive and Automated
Related articles:
- Build a Small, High-Value Service Catalogue
- Capture Requests the Catalogue Misses With Inline Forms
- Use AI Categorisation Instead of Setup-Only Service Types
- Monthly Service Catalogue Review Checklist
Path 3: Automated service groups
Some teams want a different catalogue for each contact or company. You can use tags and automation to create and assign the service groups for you. This is possible, but it takes real automation skills and ongoing upkeep. If your team finds the manual steps too much, this is usually more work, not less.
Go to: Automate Service Group Creation for Each Contact or Company
Path 4: Contact groups
Contact groups are different from the other three paths. They are not a way to set up the catalogue.
A contact group lets a team share tickets. Think of nurses on different shifts. A nurse on the morning shift creates a ticket, and a nurse on the night shift follows it up. The ticket belongs to the team, not to one person.
This is why the portal asks "for me or for a group" when you create a ticket from the landing page. The answer decides who owns the ticket and which service types you see. The same service type can appear in more than one group, so the portal can't guess.
You can assign a service group to a contact group. This is an extra feature for teams that need services of their own, such as HR. Contact groups are not designed to add service types for individuals.
Go to: Contact Groups: Shared Tickets for Teams
Want to know why?
- Why a Small Service Catalogue Works Better shows real data from MSPs, and why short lists and short forms help contacts who are in a hurry.
- Service Groups Explained: Controlling What Contacts See explains how service groups are assigned at global, company and contact level.
If you use the older service type filter
Our PSA integrations (ConnectWise and Autotask) include an older way to control who can see a service type. It is called the filter. You may have used it to open a service type to everyone or to specific companies and contacts, with exceptions.
The filter is obsolete and we don't recommend it. It still works, but we plan to keep it only as long as it causes no problems, and we may remove it in the future. Use it at your own risk.
We recommend service groups instead, for two reasons:
- It is complex to run. The filter relies on complicated queries, which makes it harder to maintain and to fix when something goes wrong.
- It has limits. Each filter can only hold a limited number of companies and contacts. Service groups have no such limits, and you can have as many service types and groups as you need.
To move away from the filter:
- Group your service types into service groups. Use the paths on this page to decide how many.
- Assign each service group at the global, company or contact level.
- Check what a few contacts see in the portal.
- Remove the filter settings from your service types once you are happy.
