I N C I D E N T A L S

Cracking the mystery

The logic behind Technician Assignment

Gone are the days when the LiveTime application simply looked at the location, load and skill set of the technician to make an assignment, as more extensive parameters are considered when routing requests to technicians. By understanding the variables within the assignment process, Users can configure LiveTime to better reflect the workflow of its service support team environment.


When an incident is logged with LiveTime Support Desk or Help Desk, it is allocated to a Team based on the Item assigned to the Incident. Within Service Manager, the Team is selected based on the SLA or Workflow state of the service request. After the Team has been assigned to the request, the application:

1. Checks if the Team has escalation layers, and validates the capability of technicians in Layer One.
2. To make an assignment within the layer, the system checks if technicians are assigned areas of specialty - Skills or Classifications. If so, the system matches the Classification of the Incident with the Classifications supported by the technician.
3. If multiple technicians are assigned the relevant Classification, or if specific Classifications are not assigned to the technicians within the Team, then the system verifies if team members have been assigned to support specific Organizational Units. If so, the application will match the Organizational Unit of the Customer to the Technician.
4. If the Team "Live Priority" feature has been enabled (See Tips & Tricks for further information) the system checks for Team Technicians logged into the application. If multiple matches have been made between the Technician Skills and the Incident's Classification, and the Org Unit of the Customer and Technician, the system checks for technicians logged into the application. However, if no match is made between the Skills and Organizational Unit, it will still check for the logged in User if the Live Priority team functionality is active.
5. If there are multiple valid technicians based on Skill, Org Unit and/or Logged In User, the application will allocate the incident to a technician with the lightest request load.

To date, this logic is a slight variation on earlier iterations of LiveTime. However, do not be fooled into thinking that these are the only forces at work, which govern request assignment. Other factors that determine the routing of requests include the team assigned to workflow state, the technician assignment privilege and if incident queues are enabled.

Service Manager and Workflow states

Within Service Manager the pool of technicians that can be assigned to a request is increased by the OLA or Underpinning Contract assigned to the workflow stage of the request.

Service Manager allows workflow states to be governed by internal or external contracts, known as OLAs or Underpinning Contracts, respectively. OLAs can be assigned to different support Teams, which means if the Team changes as a result of the workflow state change, the request may be routed to a whole new pool of technicians.

If the workflow is supported by an Underpinning Contract, the request is assigned internally to the responsibility of the Service Level Manager.

Technician Assignment Privilege

The "Technician Assignment" functionality allows the application to override the business logic of request assignment. This feature enables the automatic allocation of requests to the technician who creates the request. The system administrator can activate "Technician Assignment" for Requests, within the Privileges sub-menu option of the Setup tab.

Incident Queue

That about covers the automated routing of service requests, but support teams who prefer to create a queue or holding bay for newly created incidents, are also catered for in LiveTime.

Incident queues are activated on a per team basis. This means, where one support team may use the automated routing process, another can create a holding bay. The holding bay allows technicians to choose their jobs from the queue, as opposed to having incidents automatically assigned by the system.

The Administrator User can activate the "Incident Queue" feature in the application Setup. The Supervisor User then enables the option within the Team Information screen, as required. Incidents assigned to a Team with this preference enabled, are assigned to the System User. To access incidents held within the queue, technicians use the 'Incident Queue' Filter within the Incident Tab.

The incident can then be re-assigned to a specific technician within the Summary Tab of the incident.

Tips and Tricks

To access the Live Priority and Technician Assignment features, Users need to be on version 4.07. To upgrade to V4.07, contact support@livetime.com.

Incident Queue

To allow Teams to work from an incident queue, as an Administrator, activate the "Incident Queue" feature within the Setup>Privilieges>Requests.

As a Supervisor, enable the option for an incident management team within Users>Teams>Team Name Hyperlink>Technicians tab.

To access incidents within the holding bay, use the 'Incident Queue' Filter option within the Incidents tab.

Live Priority

The ability to route requests to the logged in User can be enabled on a per team basis. The Supervisor user can activate the function within the Technician tab of the Team Information screen, after selecting a Team Name link within the Users>Team option.

Technician Assignment

To allow a service request to be assigned to the User who created the request, the 'Technician Assignment' privilege must be activated by the Administrator User. To enable the privilege, log in as the Administrator and select "Yes" for the Setup>Privileges>Requests>Technician Assignment option.

Next Release....

What to expect in version 5.0 (Part 2)

The March newsletter outlined a number of features to be released in version 5.0. These included the consolidation of LiveTime Support Desk and LiveTime Help Desk into one product - LiveTime Help Desk, mixed mode authentication, internationalization, a spell checker, customer portal enhancements and additional asset management tool integrations.

Live Chat

When using the customer portal, customers with an active incident can attempt to initiate a live chat session with the assigned technician, or optionally, with a member of the technician's team. Requests for live chat depend on whether the technician is available and is in a position to accept the session. Once both parties have accepted, a live chat session is established and recorded. The dialogs of Live Chat sessions are automatically attached to the Incident and can optionally be emailed to the customer.

Customer Surveys

LiveTime v5.0 enables the creation, publication and analysis of Customer Surveys. Supervisors start the process by defining the intended audience of the survey and include notification options. The User then defines a series of relevant questions and answer types that require completion. Upon publication of the survey, an expiration date for the survey can be set.

There are many ways to complete the survey, relative to the audience selected. Users can complete surveys by accessing the Feedback sub-menu option within the Home Tab. Customers can access Surveys via the Customer portal. Public Surveys are also available from the Login page.

Survey feedback tools are available under the Knowledge > Survey tab. They include the ability to view results by Users/Customers, or analyze responses on a per question basis.

Personalized RSS Feeds

Customers using the Portal are now able to subscribe to personalized RSS feeds for the latest status of their active incidents. Activities supported include incident creation, incident status changes, and the addition of notes.

Scheduled Quick Calls

LiveTime v5.0 has extended Quick Calls to support the scheduling of re-occurring requests. This is achieved by specifying the frequency (daily, weekly or monthly) and timing of a new generated request.

Custom Reporting

LiveTime v5.0 ships with an open source report wizard that enables users to visually design custom reports. Once published to the LiveTime Reports folder, the customised reports are automatically integrated with the LiveTime and accessible via the Reports tab.

So by now you are wondering when will these great new features be released? Version 5.0, which includes all of the above features and over 50 other customer enhancements, is due for release at the end of Q2, 2007.

LiveTime Partner Update

Based in Norway, 99X first selected LiveTime as its tool of choice for internal service support. Shortly after, it was decided that 99x would apply to become a reseller of LiveTime as they were impressed by the great features, and recognized a need within their customer-base for an ITIL certified service management tool.



99X delivers hosted solutions throughout Europe with a configured ASP-platform including 250 servers supporting numerous applications for over 3500 users. LiveTime is now also hosted as an ASP application, which can be accessed by customers globally.

ITIL version 3

Changes and comparison with V2

To remain relevant in an ever-changing world, evolution is imperative, and so is the case for the information technology infrastructure library (ITIL). ITIL version one was released in 1989, updated to version two 1999, and this year will see the release of version 3. The latest version allows organizations to build on the success of V2 and take IT service management to a higher level of integration with business processes.

The evolution reflects how ITSM has matured over time. For example:

1. V2 promoted Business and IT Alignment, where V3 accentuates Business and IT integration
2. V2 promoted Value Chain Management, V3 accentuates Value Network Integration
3. V2 promoted Linear Service Catalogues, V3 accentuates Dynamic Service Portfolios
4. V2 promoted Collection of integrated processes, V3 accentuates Holistic Service Management Lifecycle.

Read more...