An escalation is the moving of a ticket from one resource to another resource. An escalation can be performed manually to transfer a ticket to specialized staff. An automatic escalation is primarily used to transfer a pending ticket - or a ticket that has not been taken in process - to the next higher instance, for example. This is to ensure that a ticket does not accidentally remain unprocessed due to illness, vacation, training or similar. The escalation time set in priority specifies how long a ticket can remain unprocessed until it is escalated.

A ticket is considered not in process if it holds one of the following statuses:

• New order - status number=100
• Read order - status number=103
• Manually escalated order - status number=101
• Completion overdue - status number=102.

If the ticket has a different status due to an editing step, for example In Progress with status value 200, then escalation no longer takes effect.

Example: A dispatcher authorizes a user request with priority "medium" and sends the request to Resource A. The escalation time for priority "medium" is set to 72 working hours. If resource A does not respond within these 72 hours of working time, the job is automatically sent to escalation Resource B.

Note: If escalation is not desired for a particular priority, the escalation time can be set to 0.

Note: The escalation resource - that is, the target resource of the escalation - is stored in the General settings of a resource. Again, if no escalation resource was stored, no escalation will take place.

In this example an escalation after 20 hours is set for the priority medium. These are the pure working hours of the resource of the ticket. The escalation resource is the Resource B.

• The ticket is authorized to the Resource A on Monday at 11:30 sharp.
• The Resource A is available during the period Mo-Fr from 9:00 to 16:00.
  • Mon from 11:30 to 16:00 → 4.5 h
  • Tue from 9:00 to 16:00 → 7h + 4.5h = 11.5h
  • Wed from 9:00 to 16:00 → 7h + 11.5h = 18.5h
  • Thu from 9:00 to 10:30 → 1.5h + 18.5h = 20h
• On Thursday, few minutes after 10:30, the ticket will be automatically escalated by i-net HelpDesk to Resource B if this one has not been handled by Resource A.

To enable the holidays feature, the Default-Feiertage.txt file must be edited. The file is located on the i-net HelpDesk server in the i-net HelpDesk application data directory. The holidays that apply in the region and any company vacations are entered here. The file must now be renamed to: Feiertage.txt.

It is not necessary to restart the i-net HelpDesk service. The i-net HelpDesk auto process will read the changes after 10 min at the latest.

Note: The syntax is explained in the comment of the Default-Feiertage.txt.

When approaching the time of an automatic escalation of the ticket, a warning light can be configured. The time intervals are defined in the configuration of tickets. These settings also apply to any auto-mails that may be sent at each warning level. The configuration is done in the auto email configuration.

For the warning function of the automatic escalation there are three warning levels: Green , Yellow , Red . The warning level changes when the remaining working time reaches the next escalation time. In the ticket list, the corresponding columns Escalation (Image) and Escalation can be shown.

The requirements for an automatic escalation are:

1. The status of the ticket is one of the above mentioned statuses.
2. An escalation time must exist for the priority of the order.
3. The resource of the job must have an escalation resource in the resource definition.

Note: Jobs that have been put into work - for example, have status "In work" or "Email sent" - will not escalate automatically anymore. A customer response by email, on the other hand, leads back to the status "Confirmed", which means that the escalation time starts all over again.

Note: After escalation has taken place, the display in the columns Escalation (Image) and Escalation of the ticket list is reset.

In this example, an Escalation after 18 hours is set for the priority medium. These are the pure working hours of the ticket's resource. By default, each resource has a working time from Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 17:00, which in the example would be two working days. Furthermore, we have set 2 hours as Threshold to Warning Status "Yellow" and 1 hour for Threshold to Warning Status "Red".

• The resource is assigned a ticket on Friday at 10:00. This results in the following Tuesday at 10:00 for the date of automatic escalation.
• At 08:00, the warning level indicator switches from green to yellow .
• At 09:00 the "traffic light color" changes to red .
• At 10:00 the ticket automatically escalates to the escalation resource.