The Basics of Ticketing Systems: Spiceworks

In this article I will be taking a look at Spiceworks free cloud based ticketing system and talking about the role ticketing systems play in the everyday IT environment. This article is intended for those who are new to the IT industry and need a quick look at one of the most important tools that IT professionals use every day.

What is a ticketing system?

A ticketing system is a piece of software that acts as a log book of current and past issues and incidents. It is an essential tool that allows IT professionals to organize, maintain, and resolve user issues in a time efficient manner.

So how are ticketing systems actually used?

Well, all ticketing systems have the same basic functions. The most basic of which, is creating a ticket. A ticket, is simply any question or request made by someone. Depending on who you’re supporting, the person making the request or asking the question could be a fellow coworker in a different department or someone who works at a completely different company. Obviously no two requests are of the same nature or urgency, ticketing systems are designed to document each ticket precisely to specifications of the end users needs. It might just be easier to show you how its actually done, so lets hop into Spiceworks.

Creating a ticket in Spiceworks Ticketing System

The basic layout of all ticketing systems should look similar to the image below. On the screen you should see a couple of different options, the most important being the “+ New Ticket” button. Click on that.

You should have a menu pop up that shows you the basic format of what a ticket will be composed of. As you can see on the Spiceworks ticketing system, there are a few required fields you need to fill out. It’s important to note that tickets can usually be created through two different ways: end user portal or ticketing management system. The example I am showing you in this article is through what I will refer to as a ticketing management system. This is important to understand because there will be times when the IT professional creates a ticket FOR an end user and times when an end user creates the ticket themselves. In this example, we as the IT professional are creating the ticket.

Now lets go over the various fields within the above image.

• Organization: In this case, it was auto filled as the name of my made up business. This would remain the same in the case that someone who works at your company but from a different department needs to create a ticket.
• Contact: This field is for whoever is making the request, not necessarily always the person creating the ticket. For example, lets say an end user calls you saying that they are having an issue with their mouse. Since you’re the IT support, you will be creating the ticket on behalf of the end user. When you’re filling out the “Contact” box, you would type in the name of the end user.
• Summary: Give a summary of the issue that the end user is having.
• Description: This is where you can enter a more detailed report on the issue.
• Assignee: This is where you would type in the name of the IT support member who will be trying to resolve the issue. Usually it is left unassigned, that way anyone can see and accept the ticket themselves.
• Priority: Some ticketing systems are more granular in their priority levels, Spiceworks is fairly simple. This is mainly detailing the urgency and sometimes the scope of the issue. Each company should have their own definitions of what low, medium, high priority issues look like. It’s important to note that these priority levels often come with SLA timers.
• Category: This is where you would categorize the issue. For example, an end user is having an issue with their mouse, therefore you would categorize the issue under Hardware.
• Attach a file: This is where you can attach any additional documentation material to provide more info on the issue.

Here is an example of what a ticket might look like.

Accepting/Updating a ticket

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Once the ticket is created, you can always return to the ticket to update it with any new info regarding the issue. As I said before, if the ticket is left unassigned then anyone in the IT department can view the ticket and manually assign the ticket to themselves. In Spiceworks this can be done two different ways.

Method 1: Simply click the accept button under the Assignee category at the top of the Open tickets list.

Method 2: Click on the ticket itself to view more info. On the right hand side there is an Accept button, click on it to assign the ticket to yourself.

You will notice that in the extended view of the ticket there are a few things you can see.

• All, Comment, History: This section allows you to keep track of all changes made to the ticket. Additionally, with the Comments tab, it allows you to communicate with the end user that is dealing with the issue. The comments section is very important as it is usually the first place to start when establishing communication between you and the end user.
• Status: This shows what the progress of the ticket is. In other ticketing systems it may be more detailed, in Spiceworks there are only three status options: Open, Waiting, and Closed. Open: ticket is currently open and a tech maybe working on the issue. Waiting: The tech is waiting to receive a response from the end user. Closed: The ticket has been open for too long without resolution or has been resolved.
• Due Date: A due date can be given to a ticket.
• Related Devices: This is where you can attach a piece of equipment in your companies inventory to the issue. For example, the end users specific workstation. Please note that this info could also just be added in the description section of the ticket.
• Tasks: This is where you can add additional tasks to the ticket or chunk the steps you take to resolve the issue into smaller tasks.
• Time Spent: This is where you can record how long you spend working on the ticket.
• CC’ed users: Used to CC any user related to the ticket or anyone you would like to be able to see the ticket.

As you can see, there are many options to customize a ticket to provide a clearer understanding of the issue. It’s important to remember to continuely check on and update the ticket as it is being resolved. This is because documenting the steps you take to resolve the ticket can be stored in your companies knowledge base, thereby preventing you and other support technicians from having to trouble shoot the same issues in the future.