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TicketingHands-on Exercise

Chapter 8 – Ticketing Hands-On Exercises

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You have been hired as the lead IT Administrator at the Florida International University (FIU) to manage the computers at the School of Computing and Information Sciences (SCIS), the Machine Room (MR), the Green Library (GL), and the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC). As shown in Fig. 8.1, SCIS, MR, GL, and CEC are physically located in four buildings. SCIS maintains about 200 desktop workstations in its instructional lab, MR maintains about 5 servers, GL maintains about 50 open access guest desktops, and CEC maintains about 500 PCs and laptops. The exact number and configurations of computers are not well documented. Typically, the servers run Windows 2003 and the desktop workstations, PCs, and laptops all run Windows XP. Active Directory is implemented in one of the servers, named dc, and is assigned to all computers in SCIS and GL, but not to those in CEC. As the lead IT Administrator of the organization you are responsible for ensuring that all systems run efficiently with minimal disruption of computing services to the users.

You have decided to employ a Kaseya server to help you manage all computers at SCIS, MR, GL, and CEC. Your Kaseya server is now installed and is fully operational. In addition, you have successfully deployed agents on some of the machines under your management.

While deployed agents provide extremely useful information regarding the state of all managed machine, facilitating regular automated system maintenance tasks, your team must still perform sporadic maintenance tasks, based on random user requests and daily sever problems reported by agents. In addition, all such tasks must be performed in a manner that minimizes overall disruptions in the work environment. However, the large number of managed machines and users, and different levels of severity associated with reported problems has forced you to adopt an ad-hoc respond approach, which has proven not to be efficient when it comes to providing adequate and timely user support. Without an automated system to organize and prioritize user support requests, the user support task becomes tedious and unmanageable. In addition, relying on email as the only communication medium between the user and maintenance technicians creates an unorganized environment where the number of service requests greatly exceeds the technicians’ capacity to handle the requests. Therefore, you decided to use the Kaseya’s ticketing system and pair it up with your already in-place email system to keep requests organized and prioritized, and to document the progress

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Fig. 8.12: A logical diagram

of FIU’s network.

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towards the completion of each request.

Kaseya’s Ticketing module enables you to manage service requests. It also allows you to create, distribute, edit, or resolve ticket submissions.

Your dedicated virtual environment includes the computers and network devices depicted in Fig. 8.1 and further described below:

• NAT Router: 192.168.0.1 & 192.168.1.1 & 192.168.2.1 & 192.168.3.1

• SCIS: ws1.scis.fiu.edu - 192.168.0.100

• MR: dc.scis.fiu.edu - 192.168.0.10 & 192.168.1.10 & 192.168.3.10

• GL: guest1.gl.fiu.edu - 192.168.1.100

• CEC: pc1.cec.fiu.edu - 192.168.2.100 & laptop1: laptop1.cec.fiu.edu - 192.168.2.200

Note: This virtual environment includes only a limited number of representative servers and workstations physically housed in the four buildings.

Management wants a ticketing system implemented to facilitate user support requests.

The ticketing system must be customized to adequately fit into the rest of your support environment. The individual tickets must have two status fields: “Awaiting Customer Feedback” and “Awaiting Customer Approval”. This will greatly help you measure the effectiveness of the support you are providing. In addition, priority or urgency of tickets must be set to medium by default and the ticket creation process must allow the submitter to select the priority of the ticket. The submitter should also be allowed to view the SLA (Service Level Agreement) type to select whether the issue is server or workstation related. You need to be notified when new tickets are created. The submitter must be notified when a note has been added to their ticket. Kaseya needs to be configured for automation of future tickets. Support-request emails must be directed to the corresponding support group. If a ticket is created, or if a new note was added to a previous ticket, the submitter should automatically receive an email. Due dates should be automatically set to expedite tickets, especially server tickets due to their importance. If any ticket is overdue, Kaseya should automatically send an email to you, as the head technician.

To test the ticketing system you are to create five tickets reporting different issues on different machines. Creating the tickets will make sure the settings are working and will give you a general understanding of how the ticketing module works.

The ticketing system needs to be configured adequately before implementation. Management is requiring the addition of two status fields into the ticketing system, “<USERNAME>-Awaiting Customer Feedback” and “<USERNAME>-Awaiting Customer Approval”. Also, the default value of the Priority field must be set

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to “Medium”. In addition, you need to allow ticket submitters to select the priority level themselves and allow them to choose the SLA type. Moreover, you need to configure Kaseya to send you an email when a new ticket is created within your organizational group. Finally, you must make sure to inform the submitter when a note has been added to their ticket.

Note: As the new fields added into the ticketing system by any technician will have a global impact (all the other technicians and end users will see that too), to make sure that you were able to finish this exercise, we are asking you to include your username (indicated as <USERNAME>) to the beginning of the fields that you add. Of course, in a production environment, only one technician would need to configure the ticketing system.

Allow tickets to contain the status fields, “<USERNAME>-Awaiting Customer Feedback” and “<USERNAME>-Awaiting Customer Approval”.

1. Open the Ticketing module. Go to Configure Ticketing > Edit Fields.

2. Type “<USERNAME>-Awaiting Customer Feedback” in an empty Field Label textbox.

3. Select “List” in the adjacent dropdown box.

4. Select “<Edit List>” in the adjacent dropdown box.

5. Click on “Add New” three times. This will create three separate textboxes.

6. Type in “More Information Needed”, “Yes”, and “None” in the three separate textboxes.

7. Click on “Apply”.

8. Click on “Done”.

9. Repeat steps 2-8 for the “<USERNAME>-Awaiting Customer Approval” status.

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Set the default value of the Priority field to “Medium”. Allow the ticket submitter to select the priority themselves and allow them to view the SLA type.

10. Select “Medium” in the dropdown next to Priority.

11. Open the Ticketing module. Go to Configure Ticketing >Access Policy.

12. Select “Full Access” in the Priority dropdown box.

13. Select “View Only” in the SLA Type dropdown box.

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Note: As indicated before, changes in configuration of the ticketing system have a global impact. As you may be sharing the Kaseya server with other technicians/students, you may observe that the requested changes have already been set in VSA. This is perfectly fine and if this was the case, you are expected to just make sure that the settings are correctly selected. Otherwise, you are expected to change the settings as explained in this exercise.

Define the email notification policy for all groups within the fiu organization. Also be sure to notify the ticket submitter when a note was added.

14. Open the Ticketing module. Go to Configure Ticketing > Notify Policy.

15. Select all groups within the “fiu-<USERNAME>” organization.

16. Select the Ticket Creation checkbox.

17. Select the Notify Ticket Submitter when note added checkbox.

18. Verify everything else is unchecked.

19. Type in your personal email in the Email List textbox.

20. Click on Update.

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Createfivetickets:

1) A closed ticket with one hour spent on server maintenance, which is assigned to you. The purpose of the ticket is to report a network problem.

2) A ticket awaiting customer feedback with two hours spent and assigned to you with a high priority on laptop1. The purpose of the ticket is an application problem.

3) A not resolved ticket with four hours spent and assigned to you on laptop1. The purpose of the ticket isworkstationconfiguration.

4) A not resolved ticket with four hours spent and assigned to you on pc1. The purpose of the ticket is workstationconfiguration.

5) 5) An open ticket on guest1. The purpose of the ticket is printing problems.

Note: When creating tickets, the Summary and Note textboxes are required before creating the ticket, feel free to choose on your own what should be included in the textboxes. Also, feel free to add in other information not required for this exercise.

Create a closed ticket. Set the Hours Worked to one hour, assign the Assignee to you, assign the ticket to the dc machine, and assign the Category to “Network Problem”.

21. Open the Ticketing module. Go to Manage Tickets > Create/View.

22. Click on Select association.

23. Select “machine” in the dropdown box.

24. Select the “dc.mr.fiu-<USERNAME>” radio button.

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25. Type in the ticket summary in the Summary textbox.

26. Select “<USERNAME>” in the Assignee dropdown box.

27. Select “Network Problem” in the Category dropdown box.

28. Type “1” in the Hours Worked textbox.

29. Type in the ticket notes in the Enter new note textbox.

30. Click on Submit.

31. Select “Closed” in the Status dropdown box.

Create a ticket awaiting customer feedback. Set the Hours Worked to two hours, assign the Assignee to you, assign the ticket to the laptop1 machine, assign the Priority to “High”, and assign the Category to “Application Problem”.



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35. Select the “laptop1.cec.fiu-<USERNAME>” radio button.



38. Select “Application Problem” in the Category dropdown box.

39. Select “High” in the Priority dropdown box.


41. Select “Yes” in the <USERNAME>-Awaiting Customer Feedback dropdown box.



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-Create a ticket waiting to be resolved. Set the Hours Worked to four hours, assign the Assignee to you, as-sign the ticket to the laptop1 machine, and assign the Categoryto“WorkstationConfiguration”.




47. Select the “laptop1.cec.fiu-<USERNAME>” radio button.

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50. Select “Workstation Configuration” in the Category dropdown box.




Create a ticket waiting to be resolved. Set the Hours Worked to four hours, assign the Assignee to you, assign the ticket to the pc1 machine, and assign the Category to “Workstation Configuration”.



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57. Select the “pc1.cec.fiu-<USERNAME>” radio button.



60. Select “Workstation Configuration” in the Category dropdown box.




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Create an open ticket. Assign the ticket to the guest1 machine, and assign the Category to “Printing Problem”.




67. Select the “guest1.gl.fiu-<USERNAME>” radio button.

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69. Select “Printing Problem” in the Category dropdown box.



Creating automated tasks within the Ticketing module will greatly help in creating and organizing tickets. Kaseya provides a way to retrieve email from an account and organize the email requests into tickets. This allows the technician to create a company email and ask ticket submitters to direct their requests to the designated email address. If emails come from your personal email address, Kaseya should automatically store them in its own group. To help in expediting tickets, due dates are required based on priority:

1) For servers, high priority requires completion within two hours, normal priority requires completion within four hours, and low priority requires completion within eight hours.

2) For workstations, high priority requires completion within four hours, normal priority requires comple-tion within one day, and low priority requires completion within three days. If a ticket becomes over-due,anotificationwillbesenttoyouremail.

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Examine the settings selected and the options available for Email Reader.

72. Open the Ticketing module. View the contents of Configure Ticketing > Email Reader. Note what settings can be set.

Note: You were not asked to change the settings in the Email Reader as this exercise is dependent on correct settings in this section and any mistake will impact all the other technicians/students who are sharing this Kaseya server with you. However, please do careful attention to what options are available to you so that you may use them to customize your production environment based on your specific needs.

Under the organization name “FIU-<USERNAME>”, create machine group “support”.

73. Open the System module. Go to Orgs / Groups / Depts > Manage.

74. Verify if the Organization “FIU-<USERNAME>” is checked.

75. Click on Machine Group on the right hand side of the module.

76. Click on New in this section.

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77. Create a group by typing its name “support” under Machine Group Name. Click Save.

Map emails to the “support” group if they come from your email address.

78. Open the Ticketing module. Go to Configure Ticketing > Email Mapping.


80. Select group in the dropdown box.

81. Click on the “fiu-<USERNAME>.support” group.

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82. Type in your personal email in the Email Address or Domain textbox.

83. Select <USERNAME> in the Assignee dropdown box.

84. Click on Create.

Note: For this exercise, your own personal email should be used. However, in a production environment application, a ticket submitter’s email would be used.

Create a due date policy for all tickets. For servers, high priority requires completion within two hours, medium priority requires completion within four hours, and low priority requires completion within eight hours. For workstations, high priority requires completion within four hours, medium priority requires completion within one day, and low priority requires completion within three days.

85. Open the Ticketing module. Go to Configure Ticketing > Due Date Policy.

86. Type “<USERNAME>-server-high” in the Policy Name textbox.

87. Select “2 hours” in the Resolve Time dropdown.

88. Select “High” in the Priority textbox.

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89. Select “Servers” in the SLA Type.


91. Repeat steps 86-90 for “medium” and “low” priorities.

92. Type “<USERNAME>-workstations-high” in the Policy Name textbox.

93. Select “4 hours” in the Resolve Time dropdown.

94. Select “High” in the Priority textbox.

95. Select “Workstations” in the Priority textbox.


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97. Repeat steps 92-96 for “medium” and “low” priorities.

Edittheemailnotificationpolicyforthescis,mr,gl,andcecgroupswithinthefiuorganization.

98. Open the Ticketing module. Go to Configure Ticketing > Notify Policy.

99. Select the scis, mr, gl, and cec groups within the “fiu-<USERNAME>” organization.

100. Select the Overdue Ticket checkbox.

101. Type in your personal email in the Email List textbox.

102. Click on Update.

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Itwouldbebesttocheckiftheticketsareconfiguredsuccessfully.Todoso,youwillrelyonInfoCentertoproduce a report on your newly created tickets.

103. Open the Info Center module. Go to Reporting > Reports.

104. Click on your Private folder, “myReports-<USERNAME>”, choose New Report and a new window will open up.

105. Under Template Category choose Ticketing.

106. Under Report Template choose Ticketing.

107. Click Next.

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108. Click on the Parameters tab.

109. Select “<USERNAME>” in the Assignee Filter dropdown box.

110. Click on Save.

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111. Select the newly created report under your folder then choose Run Report.

112. Choose “fiu-<USERNAME>” next to Organization in the new window.


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114. Once the scheduled report is done, a green icon will appear on top of a clipboard in the Schedule window. Click on the icon to view your report.

Note: Use the report to check and see if the tickets are configured successfully. The report can be printed out for record keeping; however, this is not necessary for this exercise.

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