Technician Web Access
(TWA) -
How does it work?
The Technician Web
Access (TWA) site is an AJAX enabled ASP.NET
2.0 application and provides a rich set of tools and
interactivity with the live data in the exchange folder. Unlike other traditional
web-based helpdesks, TWA site in SupportCalls does not
require a database. Instead, the support cases data are
sourced from your Exchange server via the Outlook client
add-in. The SupportCalls add-in on
Outlook serves requests coming from TWA site and it behaves like a server and the web access
website as a client. That is why, at least one technician
needs to be running SupportCalls in Outlook to serve support
cases and helpdesk specific operations when requested by
remote technicians coming from the web access. The
idea behind the TWA is not to substitute the SupportCalls
add-in functionality, rather it is to complement the support
of a web interface from where remote technicians that do not
have access to the MS Exchange resource, can easily work on
support cases, thereby not handicapping the helpdesk
operation, when some technicians are offsite.
Technicians with valid web
access rights will be prompted to enter user credential when
logging in to the TWA website. The password required here is
defined by the helpdesk managers for each technician in the
SupportCalls technician list. Apart from the password,
helpdesk managers also can also specify if a particular
technician can login to the TWA, by
toggling the 'admin access' switch for each technician.
Once logged in, the technician
will be taken to the 'Member' section where he/she can
decide what to perform in the TWA web interface. That is,
either, each technician can choose to access only their
cases, or load other cases based on criteria such as case
ID, technician name, caller etc. Technician can also choose
to create a new support request case, that will be submitted
to SupportCalls add-in on Outlook for further processing and
storing the support case in the exchange folders.
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Going to the 'My Cases' section would load all the
support cases assigned to the current technician (eg.
alfred.cary@someXYZCompany.com) , both ongoing and
resolved, from the SupportCalls Exchange folders.
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Log in a new support request case. A web form would
load up (similar to the one used in Outlook) that
would enable you to post a new Outlook case item in
the SupportCalls folder in Exchange directly from
the web. You can pick an existing caller, instead of
filling manually, upload and add as many
attachments, assign technicians and due date, tag
existing asset or associate with a new asset.
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Make a search on any support cases in both resolved
and ongoing cases folders. Alternatively, just
select a drop down value (caller, technician etc)
and query SupportCalls folders for relevant support
cases that are related to that specified value.
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End the current session and close Outlook.
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