Ninja Ticketing Best Practices and Automations Webinar Notes

Introduction

• The webinar aims to provide a starting point for using Ninja Ticketing automations.
• Common issues during onboarding include being overwhelmed by the automation capabilities.
• Interactive session with Q&A at the end.
• Recording will be available 3-5 business days post-webinar.
• $100 gift card giveaway.

Presenters

• Pete Bretton: Director of Customer Product Marketing at Ninja.
• Jeff Hunter: Lead Sales Engineer on the MSP side at Ninja One.
• Jeff handles most of the heavy lifting in the webinar.

Key Concepts

Boards

• Definition: Pre-filtered views of tickets with specific permissions.
• Usage: Route tickets to the right technicians and restrict sensitive information.
• Types of Boards: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, networking, backup and recovery, on-site project planning, etc.
• Important Considerations: Balance segmentation and number of boards. Consider permissions using role-based access controls.

Tags

• Definition: Labels that help identify and add context to tickets.
• Usage: Central driver of automation and ticket routing.
• Best Practices: Standardize tags, avoid too many variations, consider flat vs. hierarchical tags.
• System Tags vs. Technician Tags: Example of a system tag for automation and other tags for technician use.

Forms

• Definition: Structured set of custom fields for data collection on tickets.
• Usage: Enforce specific information collection for different types of tickets (e.g., new employee setup).
• Benefits: Improves communication efficiency and helps technicians respond effectively.
• Designing Forms: Balance required information to avoid slowing down technicians.

Automations

Overview

• Five examples provided to illustrate framework rather than specific use cases.
• Goal: Allow participants to adapt concepts to their own environments.

Examples

1. Routing Tickets by Parsing Subject Line

   • Example: If 'password' is in the subject line, route to Tier 1 with a 'password' tag.
   • Application: Can be adapted for other use cases such as file restore or new employee.

2. Autoreply Outside Business Hours

   • Example: Autoreply if urgent outside business hours and escalate accordingly.
   • Usage: Configure business hours and set up different responses for urgent and non-urgent tickets.

3. Automatic Reminders and Ticket Closure

   • Example: Remind requester after 24 hours and auto-close ticket after five days if no response.
   • Tags: Use system tags to manage eligibility and state.

4. One-Click Ticket Escalation via Response Templates

   • Example: Clicking to escalate a ticket adds/removes tags and sends a template response.
   • Benefits: Streamlines escalation and standardizes responses.

5. Approval Workflow with Custom Fields

   • Example: Route tickets requiring approval to specific personnel based on custom fields (e.g., software requests).
   • Usage: Custom forms and fields to drive multi-pronged approval workflows.

Specific Q&A Topics

Managing Failed Automations

• Check for conflicting automations impacting each other.
• Ensure all conditions for automations are met.

Creating Tags

• Tags can be created within ticket editor or during automation setup.
• Important for managing and routing tickets.

Viewing Device Information in Board View

• Customizable board views allow adding columns to display associated devices.

Assigning Locations Automatically

• No current support for automations to assign locations based on users.
• Workaround: Use location-based tags.

End User Portal for HR Involvement

• HR can use the end user portal to submit tickets using forms designed for new employee requests.
• Forms ensure all necessary information is provided when submitting tickets.

Future Improvements and Roadmap

• Reports: Significant changes expected for better reporting capabilities.
• Tag Management: Expected improvements in future releases to delete/manage tags.

Conclusion

• Encouraged to think about structure when setting up automations.
• Reach out to account managers for additional questions or clarifications.
• Stay tuned for recording and blog post for step-by-step guides.