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Setting up help desk appointments

Besides helping users solve problems themselves, BMC Digital Workplacealso makes it easy to get help from support, human resources, and other company staff by scheduling in-person appointments and by contacting IT.

The help desk is one part of assisting users. For additional ways to assist users, see Use-cases. The following diagrams illustrate the enablement tasks for assisting users.

report issues enablement overview.png

Related topics

Setting-up-phone-contacts-and-the-Contact-IT

Integrating-Digital-Workplace-with-BMC-HR-Case-Management

Calendars for appointments

The availability calendar enables theBMC Digital Workplaceadministrator to set availability times and capacity so that users can see what time slots are open for requesting appointments. If you use BMC HR Case Management, you can set up calendars for HR appointments. If you use BMC Remedy IT Service Management, you can set up calendars for IT appointments. You can set up multiple calendars to reflect different campuses and situations.

Before you begin

You must add room assets before you can set up calendars. For details about how to add room assets, see Adding-assets.

To set up or update a calendar

  1. In theBMC Digital WorkplaceAdmin console, go to Help Desk > Calendar Configuration.
  2. Select an existing calendar to modify, or click Add Calendar to create a new calendar.
  3. In the Appointment Generates section, select whether an appointment generates an incident or a request.
    Although this field is lower on the screen, this option affects other options. 
  4. (Optional) If you select Request, select one of the following request categories: 
    • HR Cases for an HR appointment calendar
    • SRM Items for an IT appointment calendar 

    In the Available requests list, select the applicable HR solution (for an HR appointment calendar) and service request (for an IT appointment calendar).

5. In the Create Calendar or Edit Calendar section, enter or update the required information, as follows:

Note

The Associated Location, Days Available, and Time and Duration fields cannot be changed after the calendar has been created.


Field

Additional information

Name

You can name the calendar after the campus location (for example, San Jose) to communicate the geographical association. If you are setting up calendars for both IT and HR appointments, indicate whether the calendar is for HR or IT.

Enable Calendar

You can disable the calendar if, for example, the location or campus with which it is associated does not use the BMC Digital Workplace calendaring system for scheduling appointments.

Associated Location

If you do not specify a location, you must specify Time Zone for the calendar in the Time and Duration section.

Default Room

Specify the location of the in-person help desk.

Assigned Group

If the appointment generates a request, this field is hidden.

Days Available

Specify the days when the calendar is available.

Users can schedule appointments up to x days in advance

The value x represents calendar days, not business days.

Users can schedule appointments a minimum of x hour(s) in advance

The minimum value is one hour (to prevent users from attempting to schedule appointments seconds after encountering their problems and to allow for efficient management of help desk resources).

6. In the Time and Duration section, specify time slot parameters.

7. In the Email options section, specify specific contact email addresses and the BMC Digital Workplaceemail subject.

8. Click Save.

Note

After a calendar has been created, it cannot be removed; it can only be disabled. As a result, the BMC Digital Workplace administrator cannot remove a calendar that has appointment data. Changing the selections for a calendar does not change data for existing appointments.

After calendars are set up, you can add information about resource availability in the Availability Calendar tab.

To set up a weekly schedule for HR or IT staff

  1. In theBMC Digital WorkplaceAdmin console, go to Help Desk > Availability Calendar.
  2. Select a calendar from the Calendar list.
  3. Select the Every Week Default Schedule tab.
  4. Select a day of the week by clicking the < or > button.
  5. Select a time slot for the given day by selecting the appropriate check box and clicking Edit Availability.

  6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for other days of the week.

    Tip

    You can select multiple time slots to edit simultaneously, or you can select the check box at the top of the column to edit the entire day.

To set up exceptions to the weekly schedule

  1. In theBMC Digital WorkplaceAdmin console, go to Help Desk > Availability Calendar.
  2. Select a calendar from the Calendar list.
  3. Select the Specific Date tab.
    The schedule for a specific date is displayed.
  4. To select another date, click the calendar icon and select the date in the calendar.
  5. Update the schedule for the chosen date by selecting the appropriate check box and clicking Edit Availability. 
    You can also make the whole date unavailable.
  6. (Optional) Enter comments in the Notes field to keep track of your reasons for the exception.

To view staff capacity

To view how many HR or IT staff members are scheduled to work with employees and how many are free, on the Availability Calendar tab, select the Current Usage tab.

  • The date is displayed at the top of the calendar; you can change it by clicking the < and > buttons.
  • Time indicates the time slot for that day.
  • Staff Used indicates how many people will be busy with appointments scheduled inBMC Digital Workplaceon that day at that time.
  • Staff Remaining indicates how many people are available to take appointments on that day during that time slot.
  • Total represents the total number of HR and IT staff members available to take appointments on that day during that time slot.

You can adjust the staff capacity in the Every Week Default Schedule and Specific Date tabs of the Availability Calendar tab.

To change your default schedule

To change your default schedule, you must create a new calendar and set it up with new parameters. You might need to make such a change if, for example, on the first day of the next month, your help desk hours will change from a 9:00 A.M. start time to an 8:00 A.M. start time.

Begin this process at least N+1 days before the switchover date. N is the number of days that users can schedule appointments in advance. For example, for a 5-day lead time, perform this procedure at least 6 days (5+1) before the transition.

  1. Set up a new calendar with the new start and end times.
  2. Click Availability Calendar, and select the new calendar.
  3. Click the Specific Date tab, and manually set the availability for the first day that you want the calendar to be available and each business day for several days or weeks.
    The number of business days you should set is based on the lead time, and it should be several days more than the lead time. (In the 5-day lead time example, theBMC Digital Workplaceadministrator should set the availability for two weeks of business days.) You must manually define each date.
    Do not use the options on the Every Week Default Schedule tab to set up the availability for this transition process.
  4. Click Availability Calendar, and select the current calendar (the calendar you want to phase out).
  5. Click the Specific Date tab, and click Make whole date unavailable for each date you defined in step 3.
    You now have two overlapping calendars, but on the transition date, availability is turned off for the current calendar and turned on for the new one. End users can set up appointments on the current calendar up to the point when the new calendar is available.
  6. When the transition date (for example, the first day of the next month) and before the lead time for the new calendar expires (for example, 5 days), perform the following steps:
    1. Click Availability Calendar, and select the new calendar.
    2. Click the Every Week Default Schedule tab, and set the default schedule.
    3. Click Calendar Configuration, and select the current calendar (the calendar you want to phase out).
    4. Clear the Enable Calendar check box.

At this point, the older appointments on that calendar should have been completed, and new appointments should be using the new calendar.

To synchronize the availability calendar with the end user's BMC Outlook calendar

  1. In theBMC Digital WorkplaceAdmin console, go to Configuration > Application Features.
  2. In the Providers table, select the Exchange pluggable provider check box.
  3. Select the Exchange pluggable provider row to configure the settings for the end user.
  4. In the Username field, specify the end user's username.
  5. In the Password field, specify the end user's BMC Outlook password.
  6. In the URL field, enter https://webmail.bmc.com/ews/exchange.asmx.
  7. Click Update settings and then click Reload Providers. 
    The user must specify their BMC work email in user preferences.
    As a result, when the user makes an appointment inBMC Digital Workplace, they can select the Only show available times from my calendar check box to see only those time slots that do not overlap with the events in the end user's BMC Outlook calendar.

Where to go from here

Setting-up-self-help-resources

 

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