Ticket Categories

1. Overview
   1. Right-Click Options
2. Adding Information Base/Ticket Categories
3. Editing Information Base Categories
4. Deleting Information Base Categories
5. Assigning Ticket Categories to Monitors
6. Overriding Ticket Categories
7. Additional Notes
8. Document Revision History

Overview

Ticket categories are used to classify tickets and will be leveraged by the ConnectWise® plugin to route common types of tickets to different service boards in ConnectWise®. Ticket categories have been added to the existing Information Base categories within LabTech and should not have any effect on your information base, if you are utilizing that feature. By default the Information Base has five categories, with IDs of 1-5. The new ticket categories that have been added start with an ID of 100.

Ticket categories are passed from the monitor through the alert template to the defined ticket or script alert action on the alert template. In other words, if the called alert template has the ‘ticket’ alert action, then the ‘ticket’ alert action handles creating the ticket and setting the ticket category on the ticket. If the called alert template has the ‘script’ alert action, the ‘script’ alert action passes the ticket category as the @TicketCreationCategory@ parameter to the called autofix script. Then, if the autofix script calls any ticket creation via script functions or the script’s Time Recording tab, the defined @TicketCreationCategory@ variable is used to automatically set the ticket category at ticket creation time. If the called alert template does not use the ‘ticket’ or ‘script’ alert action, then the ticket category tagged on the alert will not be used.

Many monitors, by default, have been assigned a ticket category (e.g., performance, service, etc.). The ticket categories that have been assigned can be viewed and/or edited by opening the monitor and selecting the Alerting tab. Tickets generated by monitors or scripts will have the associated ticket category and when tickets are sent to ConnectWise®, the ticket category is used to map it to the desired service board. Any tickets that are created in LabTech, the ticket category can be selected from the Category drop-down so the ticket is sent to the correct service board.

Fifty default ticket categories are included in LabTech. Additional ticket categories can be added or modified to fit your needs.

To access the ticket categories:

1. From the Control Center, select Dashboard > Config > Configurations > Information Base Categories.

Figure 1: Information Base Categories Screen

Table 1: Information Base Categories Screen Field Descriptions

NOTE: Click the Refresh List button to display changes on the Information Base Categories screen.

Right-Click Options

Right-click in the Information Base Categories screen to display a menu with the following options:

Table 2: Right-Click Menu

Adding Information Base/Ticket Categories

To add information base/ticket categories:

1. Enter the name of the category in the Name field.
2. Enter any keywords that will be used to search for the category in the Keywords field. Separate multiple keywords with commas.
3. Select a Category from the drop-down in order to change the location of the category in the menu. Select 'Top Level' to view the category at the top level of the menu.
4. Select the Hide from Category List checkbox if you would like to keep the new category from showing up in the menu.
5. Enter the full path to an image to be associated with the category in the Image field, if desired.
6. Enter a description of the category in the Description field.
7. Click the Add button. The entry will be immediately added to the list.

Editing Information Base Categories

To edit information base categories:

1. Select a category from the list. The information for the selected entry will be populated in the fields.
2. Make the desired changes to the entry. Note that the Add button has changed to a Save button.
3. Click the Save button. The entry will be immediately updated with the saved changes.

Deleting Information Base Categories

To delete categories:

1. Select the desired categories from the list. You can select multiple categories by holding down the [Shift] key or by using the [Ctrl] key.
2. Right-click and select Delete from the menu.
3. A prompt will appear asking you to confirm; click Yes to delete the categories. The categories will be immediately removed from the list.

Assigning Ticket Categories to Monitors

There are multiple methods to access monitors; however, the following steps will only provide instructions for accessing monitors via the group.

NOTE: Ticket categories should always be set at the group level on remote monitors so all group members are affected. Internal monitors that return computers as their results should always be defined at the group level as this will override the global config; however, if the internal monitors do not return computers as their result then alerting/ticket categories should be defined at the global level because only computers can be a member of a group.

For additional information on accessing or using monitors, please refer to the Internal Monitors and Remote Monitors documentation.

To assign or modify existing ticket categories on group monitors:

1. From the Control Center navigation tree, expand Groups > Group > Sub-Group (e.g., Service Plans – Windows Servers).
2. Double-click on the sub-group (e.g., Managed 24x7), if applicable.
3. Click on the Internal Monitors or Remote Monitors tab.
   Figure 2: Sample Monitor Ticket Categories
   

• For Internal Monitors: Double-click on the monitor. A small window will display with the current monitor settings. Select the desired Ticket Category from the drop-down and click Save.
• For Remote Monitors: Highlight the monitor. The monitor settings will display in the current screen. Select the desired Ticket Category from the drop-down and click Save.

Overriding Ticket Categories

Ticket categories can be overwritten on an individual remote monitor applied to a group member by using the Override Settings option on the remote monitor and then making modifications to the monitor. Refer to the Overriding Group Remote Monitor Settings documentation for more information.

Additional Notes

• Autofix and ticket consolidation scripts created will have the @TicketCreationCategory@ variable from the generating monitor appended to the alert message. The script engine will pick up this value and pass it directly to the script requiring no changes to the called scripts. This enables you to modify the ticket category on a monitor and have your changes pushed out to the called script without any further effort.
• A new sub-script, 'Get Ticket Info CategoryID' sets @TicketCreationCategory@. This has been added to all stand-alone (non-monitor driven) scripts that create tickets, specifically Exchange, MS-SQL, Active Directory and Role Control tickets to tag each ticket with a new ticket category for routing using the ConnectWise® plugin. This will allow you to drive low-level information tickets to low priority service boards in ConnectWise®.
• The property '_sysTicketInfoCategoryID' holds the ticket category ID used for script generated informational tickets. This allows for tagging informational tickets to route them to a low service board or queue in the PSA monitor mapping. If using the LabTech Ignite® plugin, this property will be named 'Info Ticket CategoryID' under the Ticketing tab.

Document Revision History