An inquiry is one of the core components that end-user face when communicating with the service desk department. Inquiries are used when the end-user cannot classify their issue type correctly, whether it is an incident or a service request.
Creating an inquiry
You can create an inquiry in two ways:
- via the Self-Service Portal
- via the agent interface.
via Portal
To create an inquiry, please complete the steps below:
- Navigate to your Self-Service Portal and click Ask a question.
- Fill in the fields.
- Click Save.
Inquiry form fields
| Field | Mandatory | Description |
|---|---|---|
Urgency | Y | Measure time until the inquiry impacts the business. Available options:
|
| Subject | Y | Brief description of the inquiry. |
| Description | N | Detailed description of the inquiry. |
After this form is saved, a record is created in the Inquiries (itsm_inquiries) table. The newly created inquiry is still unprocessed and waiting to be processed by a service desk agent.
via agent interface
To create an inquiry, please perform the following steps:
- Navigate to Inquiries → All Inquiries.
- Click New and fill in the fields.
- Click Save or Save and Exit.
Inquiry form fields
| Field | Mandatory | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Y | Inquiry number. This field has the INCXXXXXXX format. This field is populated automatically. |
| Contact Type | Y | The source from which the request is received. Available options:
|
| Caller | Y | The originator of the inquiry. |
| Company | N | The company to which the inquiry is related. |
| Related Tickets | N | Related configuration items affected by the inquiry. The inquiry is connected automatically to a related record and displayed on its form. |
| Subject | Y | Brief description of the inquiry. |
| Description | N | Detailed description of the inquiry. |
| State | N | This field displays the work state and progress. Available states:
|
| Urgency | Y | Measure time until the incident impacts the business. Available options:
|
Inquiry converting
Inquiries State Model
The newly created inquiry is in the Unprocessed state. If it is classified by a service-desk agent, its state changes to Processed. Another possible state is Dropped. Erroneous or spambot inquiries should be dropped.
Once an inquiry is created, it should be processed by ITSM agents. The inquiry process includes its classification as one of the specific issue types.
The following issue types are available:
- Incident
- Problem
- Change Request
- Service Request.
To classify a inquiry, an agent should complete the steps below:
- Navigate to Inquiries → Unprocessed.
- Open the necessary inquiry.
- Click on the UI action named by the needed issue type.
into Incident
Inquiries can be converted to incidents after analysis. For more information about this, please refer to the Inquiry to Incident conversion article.
into Problem
- Navigate to Inquiries → Unprocessed.
- Open the necessary inquiry.
- Click Problem at the top of the form.
- Fill in the mandatory fields in the problem form:
- Service
- Impact
- Assignment group
- Assigned user.
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.
As a result:
- Original inquiry state is changed to Processed.
- A new Problem record is created in the Registered state.
into Change Request
An inquiry can be converted to a change request after analysis. To do this, an agent should complete the steps below:
- Navigate to Inquiries → Unprocessed.
- Open the necessary inquiry.
- Click Change Request at the top of the form.
- Select a previously created change template from the dictionary. This field is mandatory.
- Click Create to finish the conversion or Skip to cancel.
- Fill in the mandatory fields in the request form:
- Service
- Impact
- Assignment group
- Assigned user.
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.
As a result:
- Original inquiry state is changed to Processed.
- A new Change Request record is created in the Registered state.
into Service Request
- Navigate to Inquiries → Unprocessed.
- Open the necessary inquiry.
- Click Service Request at the top of the form.
- Select the previously created request model from the dictionary.
- Leave the field empty if this request is classified as non-typical.
- Fill in the mandatory fields in the request form:
- Service
- Impact
- Assignment group
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes
- Click Create to finish the conversion.
As a result:
- Original inquiry state is changed to Processed.
- A new Service Request record is created in the Registered state.
