Request Fulfillment and LiveTime

The Service Desk, as the single point of contact for customer issues, often receives requests for new passwords, provisioning and purchases. These types of requests, known as Service Requests, tend to be numerous in nature and result in small changes to customer items which are low risk, low cost and have the potential to occur frequently.

A Service Request is the generic term that describes the numerous and varied demands placed on the service and support organization. Alternatively, they may simply be a customer asking for information. The lifecycle of a Service Request is managed by the Request Fulfilment process, as the scale, frequency and low-risk nature of these Requests make it preferable not to handle them within Incident or Change Management.

Request Fulfillment in LiveTime Service Manager allows the Service Desk to easily manage Service Requests by pre-selecting the Workflow, appropriately skilled support Technicians, service targets and escalation paths.

Managing Service Requests in LiveTime

Within LiveTime Service Manager, Service Requests are logged against Items in the Service Catalog and follow Workflows that ensure that each Request is handled with consistency. The  Workflows define the actions required to correctly implement any changes to the Service and define the responsibilities, authorization and timescale expected to manage the changes that may result from a Service Request.

For minor changes, a Workflow is assigned to the Service Request and routed to an appropriate Technician based on Service Request Workflow State. After a Technician completes their assignment, the Request is forwarded to the next User based on the configuration of the next State, or closed if it is a request for information.

To cater for the diverse nature of Service Requests and for reporting purposes, LiveTime suggests a minimum of two Workflows for Request Fulfillment. One to handle requests for information and the other to manage simple changes. The Workflow used to manage simple changes can also have Approval States assigned to it, enabling Managers to approve any changes as required. 

When Service Requests are raised for Configuration Item issues, LiveTime allows them to be easily associated with an Incident within the Analysis tab of the Request. Alternatively, if the Service Request results in a change to an Item that is not in the Service Catalog, a Change Request can be generated within the Service Request.