Table of Contents

Service Types

Niamh Ferns Updated by Niamh Ferns

Service Types Overview

What Are Service Types?

Service Types are used by end-users to submit tickets in your portal. To get started, login to your admin console and head to Portal > Service Catalogue > Service Types.

Generic vs Customised Service Types

You will need to identify generic request types that suit all needs and a client specific request types that only work for one company.

The best practice is to keep a good balance of both types of requests. Most MSPs when they first start with DeskDirector go for the global request type approach, where they create 5-10 request types that fit roughly the needs of all their clients. This is a vanilla approach; you are missing out on terrific value-add opportunities. But if you take the other extreme, you end up with multiple duplicate request types and a mess when trying to edit one for a specific company. The right balance is up to you to find; however, the best way is to think about your current structure. Do all tickets go into a single board/queue? Do some clients have their own? If so, you can create generic request types and duplicate it so that the duplicate has a filter and point to the different location.

Alternatively, look into workflows from your PSA, maybe you can use a generic request type and send it to the right place from your PSA, saving you a request type. Think about how you onboard a new client, you want to make sure they have the right access to the right request types from the moment they are onboard. If you must go out of your way to add a company to a request type, maybe you need to re-evaluate how you approach the topic. Don’t be afraid to plan a re-do. Request types can be enabled or disabled easily, and ticket or filter settings can easily be copied from one request to the other, allowing you to trial many layouts before deciding on one.

Think about request type management as cable management, a tangle of cable might work as it should, but when you need to make a slight change, you are in for a lot of wasted time. If you aim to keep your cables neat, then any changes in the future are a breeze.

Here's an article on the 10 most popular request types.

How to Use Service Types

Service Types List

This is the main page when managing Service Types. From here you are able to:

  • Create Type: You can easily create new Service Types by hitting the green "+ New" button.
  • Test Types: You can test companies and contacts against existing Service Types to see which have access.
    You can also login as any contact by using our other awesome feature: Impersonation!
  • Clone Types: You can copy settings from one Service Type to a new one via cloning. This copy's the filter and automation settings.
  • Exports: You can use this button to export your current Service Types.
  • Search: Filter and search for Service Types.
Creating a Service Type
Cloning a Service Type

Service Type Editor

You can edit and configure the Service Types behavior using these tabs: General, Automation, Filter.

Settings Tab

The General tab is where you can save the Request Type Item in a draft or published state, add tags, edit category/description names, attach the form and add task templates.

Automations Tab

The Automation tab is where the ticket created by the request type should be set to: the board, status, priority, source. The ticket tab for ConnectWise and Autotask instance are not identical. Here are screenshots showing the ticket tab of each instance, and the options/fields available for finetuning tickets created from the request types.

Any changes made to the Automation tab must be saved before moving away from this page.

Standalone:

With Autotask PSA Integration:

With ConnectWise PSA Integration:

Access Tab
The Legacy Filtering System is deprecated and will be removed from DeskDirector in upcoming versions. Going forward, access should be configured using cascading permissions and Service Groups or User Groups.
Standalone (Tokity) users will not see this tab.

The access tab is where you can configure which accounts and contacts have access to your Service Types through the Legacy Filtering System.

  1. Default Access. This defines the default access level of this type. Global on means that everyone will have access to this type, global off means that no-one will have access to this type. It also changes the functions of some of the buttons (from exclude buttons to include).
  2. Add Exceptions. If Default Access is set to on, this button will allow you to exclude companies and contacts from accessing this portal type. If Default Access is off, it will allow you to include companies and contacts.
  3. Company exclusion. Contacts from this company will not have access to this portal type by default, unless you drill down another layer and give specific contacts access
  4. Contact inclusion. This contact's company has been excluded from using this type, however, they have been included and will be able to use it.

Service Type Ordering

A Service Types name and category can be re-orederd to appear in a specific order in the Client portal.

To achieve this, enter put a number in front of category name, or Service Type name. Anything without an ordered number will be displayed below those with ordering numbers. If two items have same order number, they will be ordered by alphabetically.

For order number in the names, there are two different behaviours:

  1. Order number follow by colon will be trimmed
    E.G. 12: This is request with order of twelve will display as This is request with order of twelve.
  2. Order number without colon will not be trimmed
    E.G. 12. This is request with order of twelve will display as 12. This is request with order of twelve.

Tutorials

Service Types Overview - Tutorial

18 STEPS

1. Open DeskDirector Admin Portal and click Portal.

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2. Click Request Types.

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3. Here, we will first create a Request Type Item and then assign it to a Request Type Group. Click on Request Type Item.

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4. Click New to create a new Request Type Item

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5. Click the Category textbox to view all the existing categories. Select a category or write a new one.

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6. Next, type the Name for the Request Type Item.

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7. Click Create.

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8. The first option is to toggle between draft and published modes. Click Published to make the Request Type Item visible to the end users.

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9. Click Add Tag, if you want to add tags to this Request Type Item.

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10. Click the Tag which you want added to this Request Type Item.

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11. Next, click the form icon to add a request form to this Request Type Item.

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12. Select the request form.

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13. Click Select.

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14. To add any task templates to this Request Type, click Add Templates.

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15. Select the task template.

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16. Click Select.

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17. Click Save to save this section.

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18. That's it. You're done.

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** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

https://www.iorad.com/player/2354852/Request-type-Items---Basic-settings

Service Types - Automation Settings - Tutorial

13 STEPS

1. Open Request Types Items and click the item that you want to edit.

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2. Click the Automation tab.

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3. In this section, you can modify the default ticket settings related to this Request Type.

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4. Click the Board drop-down to change the category of this Request Type.

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5. Click the category that you want to set.

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6. Click the Status drop-down to change the default status of this Request Type.

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7. Click the status that you want to set.

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8. Click the Priority drop-down to change the default priority.

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9. Click the priority that you want to assign to this Request Type.

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10. Click the Source drop-down to change the default source of this Request Type.

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11. Click the source option that you want to set.

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12. Then, click Save to save these settings.

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13. That's it. You're done.

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** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

https://www.iorad.com/player/2341656/Request-type-items---Automation-settings

Service Types - Access - Tutorial

11 STEPS

1. Open Request Types Items and click the item that you want to edit.

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2. Click the Filter tab.

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3. Here, you can toggle the Default Access switch to ON, to allow the Request Type for use by all users. Or to OFF, to restrict its use only to those you choose.

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4. Toggle the switch to the OFF position. to restrict Default Access. Click the Switch button to confirm your choice.

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5. Click the three dots menu to add exceptions.

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6. Click Allow Companies.

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7. Select the Company names.
First, click Deed and Viper.

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8. Then click Digital Sandbox Company.

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9. Click Select.

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10. Finally, Click Save to save this Request Type.

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11. That's it. You're done.

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** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

https://www.iorad.com/player/2341688/Request-type-items---Filter-settings

Service Types Tags - Tutorial

5 STEPS

1. Open Request Type Items, and click the Request Type that you want to add a tag to.

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2. Click Add Tag.

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3. Select the tag that you want to add.

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4. Scroll down and click Save. The tag will be added to this Request Type.

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5. That's it. You're done.

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** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

https://www.iorad.com/player/2341652/Adding-tag-to-a-request-type-item

Adding a Form to a Service Type - Tutorial

6 STEPS

1. Open Request Type Items, and click the Request Type that you want to add a form to.

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2. Click the form icon in the form textbox.

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3. Choose the form you want to add.

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4. Click Select.

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5. Click Save. The form will be added to the Request Type item.

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6. That's it. You're done.

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** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

https://www.iorad.com/player/2341648/Adding-form-to-a-request-type-item

Adding a Task List to a Service Type - Tutorial

6 STEPS

1. Open Request Type Items, and click the Request Type that you want to add a task to.

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2. Scroll down and click Add Templates.

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3. Select the task template that you want to add.

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4. Click Select.

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5. Click Save. The tasks will be added to the Request Type Item.

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6. That's it. You're done.

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** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

https://www.iorad.com/player/2341650/Adding-tasks-to-a-request-type-item

How did we do?

Service Catalogue

Service Groups

Contact