Different transitions from "Waiting for customer", based on previous status

[Rob Driessen]

Hi community!

Here's my conundrum that I'm trying to solve.

Normal behaviour: A ticket with status "Waiting for customer" will transition to "Waiting for support" when the customer leaves a comment (either via email or via the portal)

However, we have a workflow for tickets that require extra eyes, including a "Waiting for Second Approval" status. It happens regularly that the second approver has additional questions for the reporter, in order to reach a verdict on the approval.

Rather than having to unnecessarily complicate the workflow by having the ticket jump to "Waiting for support" and relying on the service agent to see that second approval has not been given yet (and putting the status on Waiting for Second Approval manually), I'm looking for a way to achieve the following:

WHEN status = "Waiting for Customer" AND Customer added comment AND previous status = "Waiting for Second Approval" THEN transition to status "Waiting for Second Approval"

WHEN status = "Waiting for Customer" AND Customer added comment AND previous status != "Waiting for Second Approval" THEN transition to status "Waiting for Support"

Is this possible?

[Gualter Augusto]

Hi,

Let me see if I understood. There might be some tickets that require your Someone (JSD Agent?) to approve if all info / messages provided by the customer in the reply are enough to make the ticket transit to "Waiting for Support" and allow it to be worked upon by your JSD Agents.

Is this correct?

[Rob Driessen]

Hi Gualter!

Let's say that a purchase needs to be approved by a reporter's manager AND by the head of finance.

Reporter creates a purchasing ticket > Ticket goes to "Waiting for Approval"

Manager approves ticket > Ticket goes to "Waiting for Second Approval"

Head of finance approves > Ticket goes to "Waiting for Support" and a service agent resolves the purchase.

It happens that the service agent needs to ask the reporter a question for clarification. So the agent puts the ticket manually on status "Waiting for customer", with the question in a comment.

The reporter gets an email message about the status change, and replies to the question in the email, at which point the reply automatically gets added as a comment to the ticket and the ticket automatically transitions back to "Waiting for Support".

But now let's go back a few steps. What if the head of finance has a question for the reporter in order to approve or decline the Second Approval? He'll put the status on "Waiting for customer" while waiting for a reply. But when the reporter replies to the Head of Finance's mail, this will automatically transition the ticket to "Waiting for Support" even though the second approver has not yet approved nor declined. 

That's the situation I want to prevent. I want both an agent and a second approver to be able to put a ticket on "Waiting for Customer", and I want JSD to be able to distinguish the difference so that the status of a ticket can automatically transition to either "Waiting for Support" OR "Waiting for Second Approval" depending on the status that a ticket had BEFORE being put on "Waiting for Customer". 

[Gualter Augusto]

Understood!

Well, I would change the default rule that transits the issue to "Waiting for Support".

By default I believe JSD triggers this if "Customer Replies". In your case is a bit more complex. I would probably store the previous state into a custom field and use this to create the rule.

You will need to split this into 3 rules:

If customer replies and PREVIOUS_STATE is WHATEVER_STATE_BEFORE_PREVIOUS

this rule to match every case you want to filter.

This is just myself thinking, I have not yet tested this. However it is a good use case and I will test this later on.

Cheers

[Rob Driessen]

A good night's sleep made me come up with an easier alternative. I'm going to add a new status "Approval Question" that only transitions to and from "Waiting for Second Approval". This will replace the transition from "Waiting for Second Approval" to "Waiting for Customer".

This will give the Second Approver three options: Approve, Decline, Question, and this will make sure the status returns to Waiting for Second Approval when the reporter responds to the approver's question.

How's that sound?

[Gualter Augusto]

Sounds good. I have something similar when my tickets go back and forth between Customer and Agent:

- When the ticket is in Agent side, the Agent can simply post a "quick reply" (for example letting customer know we are on it) without transiting the ticket to "Waiting for Customer" because the issue might still be on the Agent side.

Regards