Template scope

Designing templates for different business use-cases

All templates within HelpMaster have an “operating scope” that they will work in.   Each template type contains a number of attributes that are used to define the scope of its use throughout the HelpMaster product suite.  For example, some Job templates may be specifically designed to be used by external clients via the Web Portal, or other may be designed to convert email into tickets via the Email Manager. Other templates may be designed to be part of a bigger workflow scenario. eg. You may design a job template that will be logged as a “child” job of another job as part of a workflow process. 

Templates that are designed for automation

Automation in this context refers to the HelpMaster Email Manager, Priority Manager, Triggered Events and the Web portal.  Each of these HelpMaster modules rely on various templates in order to operate. 

When one of these processes uses a template that is only partially filled in (ie. some fields do not have a value, for example the “Priority” field on a job template may be blank.) the automation process will use the special “Undefined” code to provide a value which can later be adjusted to a more suitable classifcation/code.  Read more about Undefined codes

The one exception to this behaviour is when logging new jobs via a Job Template.  In this case, the associated Action Template MUST have a valid “Assigned To” value.   Every-other field may be left blank in both the Job Template and the Action template except this value. This is because HelpMaster cannot “guess” who to assign the job to, or provide an Undefined field for this.  Remember, you may design the Action Template to assign the job to a person, a Skillgroup, or to use an assignment algorithm within a skillgroup.

Note: A template does not have to contain full details about a particular entity.  It may contain partial or incomplete information.  If such a template is created and then used, the incomplete data fields will need to be manually filled-in by the current user. 

See Also

Undefined codes

Automatic assignment algorithm

Convert email into jobs via the Email Manager

Using the Priority Manager to complete an Action Template