Traktip: Process Orders on Escalations

 
 
 

It’s time for another Traktip!

You know Workflows (formerly called Escalation Rules) allow you to create alerts, add notes, and send emails if issues sit open or idle too long. However, it’s important to know more about setting the process order on those rules.

Timing is Key

A process order is the order that the rule fires off against the issue.

It seems simple, but there’s an important thing to bear in mind, and that’s the timeframe of your rules. Once a workflow runs against an issue, that issue doesn’t get looked at again until the next round of workflows run.

Let’s take an idle issue as an example. You want an automatic note to be added if the issue has no activity for two days, but you want a stronger note added if it goes three more days with nothing happening. So your rules might look something like this:

Rule                                                                                                                            Process Order

Escalate after 2 days of no activity and add a note                                                      1

Escalate after 3 days of no activity and add a stronger note                                      2

When workflows run, every open issue is scanned and compared to the list of rules. It goes by process order, with the lowest numbered rule that matches applied first, and then the system moves on to the next open issue. With the setup as described above, the second rule would never run. Instead, first rule would run repeatedly.

Instead, you want to set the process order for the 3-day rule to happen first. That way, when the rules look at your issues for workflows, they find the 3-day rule first, and if it matches, it escalates the issue. If not, then it looks to see if the 2-day rule applies.

Review your Workflow Process Orders

It’s never too late to make sure your workflows have the right process order. You can make adjustments at any time. To review and modify your existing escalation rules:

  1. Navigate to the upper right-hand corner of your Issuetrak site and select the gear icon
  2. Under the "Automation" section, select "Workflows"
  3. The Workflows page will show all rules, their process order, and whether they’re listed as active
  4. Click “Edit” next to any rule you want to change
  5. Scroll down to the bottom, update your Process Order value
  6. Click “Update”

Best Practice

Process orders are unique values, so no two rules can have the same one. We recommend setting your process orders in numbered increments of five or ten. That way, you can create a couple of rules now, and still have the flexibility to add rules later, without having to modify all your process orders.

As always, if you have questions or would like to see this in action via a quick demo, don't hesitate to contact your Account Manager. We’re happy to help! 

Topics from this blog: Traktips

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