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​Ask the Expert ft. Vish ❓ | Mastering Freshservice to drive success in 2022 | Ask our in-house expert

​Ask the Expert ft. Vish ❓ | Mastering Freshservice to drive success in 2022 | Ask our in-house expert
rashmi.nag
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Hey Everyone,

Wishing you all a wonderful New Year (16 days late! :smile: )

*Drumroll please* 

We are all set to kick off 2022 with Ask the Expert session ft. Vish, as we take on all things Freshservice.

What were your challenges, opportunities, doubts, and wins with Freshservice? The month of January is a great time to reflect on last years work and identify areas of improvement for the year to come. To help you do that, we've open the floor to your questions on how you can get better and work more efficiently with Freshservice, and make delight easy for your employees and in turn yourselves.

Topic: Mastering Freshservice to drive success in 2022

An introduction to our host, Viswanatha Mehta (aka Vish) @viswanatha.mehta, is a Technical Account Manager at Freshworks - Freshservice. With a keen eye and great attention to detail towards solving problems. He has been a great asset to our customers and the Freshworks community. Beyond work he's interested in technology, cars and spending time on the beach, surfing.

As conversations progress, you will be able to connect with and learn more about our in house product specialist. Watch out for him in the comments.

Start your year with helpful tips, tricks, and hacks from our in-house experts and your peers. Vish is available from January 17 until January 26, answering your burning questions. So, fire away in the comments below… 

A few cues to get you started:

  • What are some key metrics I should look into to measure my ServiceDesk success?

  • How can we better utilise automation within Freshservice to improve the overall experience?

  • How can we extend ITSM capabilities to other business functions?

  • What features within Freshservice can we better utilise in 2022 to delight my employees?

  • What was the most used Freshservice feature last year?
That’s Vish right now, all ready to chat with you!

PS: This is a text-based conversation open till January 26. Add your questions down below, and Vish will respond with a solution at the earliest. Peers are certainly allowed to help each other. That’s what our community is all about!

Cheers, Rashmi || Team Refresh Community

42 replies

viswanatha.mehta
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Hello Everybody!
I hope everyone is staying safe and bringing in this Year full of vim and vigor. 

I sure am :blush:

Ask me anything on how Freshservice can help drive success this year and I will be happy to help! 

Talk to you all soon.
 

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
J
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How can startups look into using a service desk for more than just the IT requirements?

 

Thank you in advance @viswanatha.mehta 

BrynCYDEF
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Hi @viswanatha.mehta - thanks for the chance to ask a question!

In Fresh Service, I’d really like to be able to build a Dashboard with widgets to share with client users when they log in to the service portal.  No reason you couldn’t use basically the exact same technology that works for Agents - just extend it to Contacts that have been selected by the Admin.

I find the analytics reports have a ton of weaknesses but the really big issue for me is due to the PDF format (only way to email a report to a client user) the list tables are restricted to the single page (no pagination) so the lists are always truncated.

Thanks for considering!

Bryn at CYDEF.ca

cybersecurity specialists

pporcari
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I need to create a workflow that incorporates an attached word doc.  The word doc needs to be sent to a non agent ti fill out and then reattached to the ticket.  How can this be done?

viswanatha.mehta
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How can startups look into using a service desk for more than just the IT requirements?

 

Thank you in advance @viswanatha.mehta 


Hi @Jadespire45,
Glad you asked!
Having recently graduated out of the Startup phase, We realize how important the right products are for Startups.

The Freshworks Startup Program -  An initiative where we engage with curated startup communities globally to give back to the ecosystem and also help startups scale efficiently with our products. 
Please visit our landing page here and feel free to write to us at startup@freshworks.com

I you have specific questions on how Freshservice could service your growing business needs, Let me know.

All the best!!

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
viswanatha.mehta
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Hi @viswanatha.mehta - thanks for the chance to ask a question!

In Fresh Service, I’d really like to be able to build a Dashboard with widgets to share with client users when they log in to the service portal.  No reason you couldn’t use basically the exact same technology that works for Agents - just extend it to Contacts that have been selected by the Admin.

I find the analytics reports have a ton of weaknesses but the really big issue for me is due to the PDF format (only way to email a report to a client user) the list tables are restricted to the single page (no pagination) so the lists are always truncated.

Thanks for considering!

Bryn at CYDEF.ca

cybersecurity specialists


Hi @BrynCYDEF 
How are you today?

The current iteration of the Dashboard module was designed primarily with Agent productivity in mind vis-à-vis it being limited to only the Admin portal. 

This is great feedback and if you could reach out to us at support@freshservice.com, we will process this feature request and once it is picked up for development, we will reach out you. 

Please also subscribe to our newsletter here if to stay updated with our monthly releases. 

A possible workaround the truncated PDFs would be to schedule each Widget in the Analytic Module individually instead of the entire Report. This way you can export all the data as a CSV; Catch here being that the output is not formatted as a Table, but as a CSV. 

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
viswanatha.mehta
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I need to create a workflow that incorporates an attached word doc.  The word doc needs to be sent to a non agent ti fill out and then reattached to the ticket.  How can this be done?

 

Hello @pporcari,
Great Question! 

Freshservice does not support reattaching a Word Doc via workflows to the same Ticket.

The non-agent must use an API call to add a note to the ticket with the attachment. Even this might not be ideal since the non-agent will need to use an Agent’s API key. 

There might be two workarounds for your use-case: 
1. Are you trying to capture information from a external/third party vendor about the ticket?
If yes, you could just forward the conversation to the Third Party and their reply will get added as a Private Note, keeping the information away from the Requestor. 

2. Use our super powerful Orchestration Apps in Workflows to send templated Envelopes to external third parties for verification. 

We support DocuSign and Adobe Sign.
 

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
pporcari
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OK, Thanks

 

Tryan
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The Analytics and reports are very helpful in Freshservice but they are also one dimensional (can’t drill down or easily view the details of the underlying data). What is the recommended approach to investigate and take action on an analytical report? Specific example: a report is created to show all service requests that are not fulfilled and have not been updated in 14 days by agent. You want to look at the tickets for the agent with the highest number of stale tickets, what is the most efficient way to browse that set of data?

I’m familiar with the trick of going into edit mode to interactively drill down, but that can be cumbersome and you risk inadvertently modifying the report.

brad.dunn
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Hi, a couple of questions on the Workflow automator:

  1. How can we use variables?
  2. If we split a workflow, how can we merge it again to complete the workflow?

 

rashmi.nag
Userlevel 7
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Thank you @Jadespire45 @BrynCYDEF @pporcari @Tryan @brad.dunn for your questions! Our expert @viswanatha.mehta has responded/ will be responding to all your questions! Feel free to add your thoughts/ suggestions and tag your colleagues who’ll benefit from this discussion.

 

Tagging a few folks who can contribute here with their questions for Vish and with their thoughts: @zachary.king @danwrite @keefe.andrews @JiriGrohmann @raymondcanilao @lavjoson @Bex @Denise.S.P @Krystal A @manns @Jovita @mmccoy @i.cameron @KeithW 

Cheers, Rashmi || Team Refresh Community
Glavin Crasta
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I need to create a workflow that incorporates an attached word doc.  The word doc needs to be sent to a non agent ti fill out and then reattached to the ticket.  How can this be done?

@pporcari you could also try this. Store the word doc in public cloud and create a service catalog. In the service catalog you can have a URL field that stores the link of the document. You can add instructions in catalog itself to use link, download document, fill the details and upload as an attachment to the same request and submit. To incorporate this in workflow you could add the link to the service request via an email trigger.

Glavin Crasta
oudehinkel.andy
Rank

Hello,

we got the growth plan where we can create CSAT. But we cant report anything from the CSAT because of the standard reports. There is no standard report for CSAT. Or do we really have to change to pro for only CSAT reports?

 

 

oudehinkel.andy
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Hello again,

is it possible to select all month with one click and also save the month when the number of date is changed?

J
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How are customers associating software assets to incidents?

oudehinkel.andy
Rank

Hello again,

is it possible to select all month with one click and also save the month when the number of date is changed?

Sorry i forgot to write where i want to select all month for example. In the planer for Tickets, i have to select every single month.

raymondcanilao
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Userlevel 4
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I need to create a workflow that incorporates an attached word doc.  The word doc needs to be sent to a non agent ti fill out and then reattached to the ticket.  How can this be done?

@pporcari you could also try this. Store the word doc in public cloud and create a service catalog. In the service catalog you can have a URL field that stores the link of the document. You can add instructions in catalog itself to use link, download document, fill the details and upload as an attachment to the same request and submit. To incorporate this in workflow you could add the link to the service request via an email trigger.

 

or what you can do is, just create a service request and add all the needed fields based from your  the doc file.  I suggest to have it directly in the freshservice so you have one repository and better tracking of the request. 

viswanatha.mehta
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Userlevel 3
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I need to create a workflow that incorporates an attached word doc.  The word doc needs to be sent to a non agent ti fill out and then reattached to the ticket.  How can this be done?

@pporcari you could also try this. Store the word doc in public cloud and create a service catalog. In the service catalog you can have a URL field that stores the link of the document. You can add instructions in catalog itself to use link, download document, fill the details and upload as an attachment to the same request and submit. To incorporate this in workflow you could add the link to the service request via an email trigger.

 

or what you can do is, just create a service request and add all the needed fields based from your  the doc file.  I suggest to have it directly in the freshservice so you have one repository and better tracking of the request. 



Another advantage of keeping it all within Freshservice is that you can use our Analytics Platform to report and dissect the data!

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
viswanatha.mehta
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Userlevel 3
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Hi, a couple of questions on the Workflow automator:

  1. How can we use variables?
  2. If we split a workflow, how can we merge it again to complete the workflow?

 

Hi @brad.dunn 
Excellent Ideas! While we do not support Variables in in our Workflows yet, have you taken a look at Custom Objects to identify if that could probably solve your use-case?

Edit: Please sign up for our Product Updates; Exciting things around Expression Builders for workflows are slated for this year :grin:

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
viswanatha.mehta
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Userlevel 3
Badge +3

The Analytics and reports are very helpful in Freshservice but they are also one dimensional (can’t drill down or easily view the details of the underlying data). What is the recommended approach to investigate and take action on an analytical report? Specific example: a report is created to show all service requests that are not fulfilled and have not been updated in 14 days by agent. You want to look at the tickets for the agent with the highest number of stale tickets, what is the most efficient way to browse that set of data?

I’m familiar with the trick of going into edit mode to interactively drill down, but that can be cumbersome and you risk inadvertently modifying the report.

Hi @Tryan 

You should check out our latest Release Notes for the January, 2022 ERM Release! 

You might like what you find under the following two headings: 
Quick Filters and Group-bys for Widgets & Interactive Filters as Widgets :wink:

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
viswanatha.mehta
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Userlevel 3
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Hello,

we got the growth plan where we can create CSAT. But we cant report anything from the CSAT because of the standard reports. There is no standard report for CSAT. Or do we really have to change to pro for only CSAT reports?

 

 

Hi @oudehinkel.andy 
Please reach out to your Account Manager, there might be something we can do to add Analytics Pro on your Growth plan. 


 

Hello again,

is it possible to select all month with one click and also save the month when the number of date is changed?

Sorry i forgot to write where i want to select all month for example. In the planer for Tickets, i have to select every single month.


@oudehinkel.andy  Do you mean Our Ticket Scheduler Option? I’m afraid we cannot select all the months at a go.
I understand this might a bit tedious to select every month but this allows for more flexibility;
For example, you can create multiple Schedulers, which will help you create a the ticket on different Dates on different Months solving your primary use-case :grin:

Cheers, Vish | Delight Made Easy
jlox
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Userlevel 2
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I need to create a workflow that incorporates an attached word doc.  The word doc needs to be sent to a non agent ti fill out and then reattached to the ticket.  How can this be done?

This is a good idea! 

jlox
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I want to utilize the password reset via Orchestration but we cant just open the password reset Service Request to Public without having security questions to confirm that its the real owner that is requesting the password reset.

Bewitchingmaker1
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Userlevel 1
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What are the best practice methods to store and send documents as part of workflows.? We are getting rid of Box long term so we will want to use SharePoint or OneDrive. Is it is easier to connect to use one vs. the other? Is there a difference is behavior?

 

Use case- After onboarding, a new manager needs access to a set of documents stored in a shared location. The documents are specific to the location, and we have several locations so the correct document (or link) needs to be sent to the new person along with attached documents to sign indicating they have been given access to the docs. They can reply with the signed doc (or esign) and we want to store it in the same location.

oudehinkel.andy
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We use the “Asset Label Designer” and create for each Asset an label. We print an QR Code which only shows the asset unique number. I think the much better option where to open an online ticketform after scanning the qr code with an smartphone. The online ticket form already knows which hardware and maybe user wanted to create an ticket. So every user could create very easy and fast an ticket for his / her Hardware.

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