Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

[ebuhrendorf]

Is it possible to have a recurring ticket appear in Dispatch? I have "Monthly Maintenance" for many of my clients that I would like to automatically appear in the dispatcher as Tickets to be scheduled when possible.

Thanks guys!
E

[Support Team]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

Hi ebuhrendorf,

If you use a monthly contract, you can link to it an activity template that automatically creates a maintenance ticket each time the contract is renewed for the following month. While setting up the activity template ticket, don't forget to go to the Details tab and mark the ticket for Dispatch. This way this ticket will be automatically created each month, and will appear in the dispatcher window.

For more information regarding activity templates, please click here.

Hope this helps.

Reno

[ebuhrendorf]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

That technically works but I use annual contracts that specify maintenance once a month. Any suggestions?
I don't want to have to batch copy contracts every single month.

[Support Team]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

Hi,

I have 2 ideas that could help:

1) You can make 12 tickets in the template, and set the due dates in recesses of 30 days from the start. (e.g. 30 days then 60 days then 90, etc.)

2) You can manage recurring maintenance visits/tickets by using recurring tasks for the customer you'd wish to maintain. You can go to the account window, or the contract window (of the service is in the contract level), and from the Pending tab, add the task. You can set the recurring flag, and also set reminders which will popup to remind you to open the ticket for this customer. When the task us due, you can then right-click the task and create a ticket from the task, which will already include the description, account, etc.

Would that work?

Hope this helps.

Reno

[jtfinley]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

We're looking for something similar. We need a recurring ticket for say, Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Semi-Annually, etc. I need to apply an activity template to it e.g.

Daily Checklist Ticket
Activity Template have items (Check bandwidth logs, review physical rack, review any video captures)

[Support Team]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

Hi jtfinley,

Thanks for this example. I think the best way to go about this in RangerMSP is to prepare a "maintenance" contract activity template that holds the predetermined tickets/tasks/appointments. E.g. create a monthly/weekly/semi-annually contract template that can be renewed each in period using the batch contract wizard. These contract templates can then be applied to as many contracts as you like.

You can read more about using Contract Linked Activity Templates, here.

Hope this helps.

Reno

[innervis]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

This sounds like allot of work to make a ticket recurring, it would be nice to just right click the ticket and choose recurring and then have all the options to set the dates and to set reminders if needed. That would be nice for a simple labor/service or item recurring ticket. And then of course it would be nice to have a list of all recurring tickets like regular tickets.

[Support Team]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

Hi,


Thank you for the valuable feedback. This is a great idea.

I'll mark this as a feature request. Please feel free to give us any other ideas you may have.

Doron

[racassel]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

Hi, this post was in Sept 2009. It is Sept 2013 and this is still a good idea :) +1

How to schedule recurring daily, weekly monthly activities in an activity template?

Example:
Daily: (1 ticket for the month, 1 appointment each work day, 10 minute duration)
"Check backup report and correct if necessary"
Weekly: (1 ticket for the month, 4 or 5 appointments per month)
"Check virus and malware scan reports and schedule necessary action"
"Check server event logs and schedule necessary maintenance.
Monthly:
"Apply security updates"
"Prepare client network status reports.
Quarterly:
Inspect server cooling fans.
Remove dust
Schedule Client Network Health Meeting

[Support Team]

Re: Possible Recurring Ticket instead of Appointment?

One way would be to just create recurring Tasks which you can do from the Calendar window. Tasks can also be converted to Tickets with a single click.

Alternatively you could perhaps use Contracts - define a contract-activity-template with the relevant task/appointment and link the template to the contract. When you renew the contract, the activity template is copied as well, creating the new task/appointment automatically.

You can find more details and instructions in Activity Templates.
Also see the Contract Linked Activity Template part to learn how to link to the contract and how do the activity entries get renewed with the Contract.

(Update from RangerMSP Team: the new Recurring Tickets feature was introduced in version 20.)