Checking Freshdesk [MERGE]
Freshdesk is a critical tool for the support and management of our clients. It should be seen as the primary means of communicating with clients on all matters related to active tasks and projects. In some cases, it may also be used to connect with clients on other account-level matters, such as billing or logistical requests.
Checking Freshdesk
Throughout the day, it is your responsibility to check for responses to tickets assigned to you in Freshdesk. This can be done in the #_support Slack channel or simply using the 'New and my open tickets' filter in the Freshdesk system.
New Tickets
When a new ticket is sent to the support desk, it will be assigned by the project manager to the appropriate team member. This assignment will likely be discussed in Slack or potentially during the morning stand-up before it is confirmed.
In some cases, depending on the nature of the task, engineers are welcome to self-assign a Freshdesk ticket. However, this must be documented in Slack and mentioned in the following day’s morning stand-up to confirm the assignment.
Open Tickets
If a client has responded to an active ticket it is recommended that you reply either to confirm you have read and understood their message or, ideally, to move the task forward and eventually mark it as complete.
If tickets remain unresolved for a significant period, the project manager will raise the issue during the morning stand-up. However, it is not uncommon for certain tasks to remain open for weeks or even months. This should be an edge case, and we are persistently working to improve the support desk to prevent lingering, outdated tasks.
Ticket Responsibility
Once a ticket has been assigned to you, it is your responsibility to ensure that the task is completed, even if parts of the work have been delegated to other team members or if you are working in a small team to complete the task.
This is especially important if a task is ‘stuck’ in the Code Review or QA process. Even when waiting for internal review or testing the assigned team member is still ultimately responsible for actively following up to ensure that the work progresses and is completed so the ticket can be updated or resolved.
In some cases, a ticket can be reassigned to a different team member. This is a common practice and should always be outlined and discussed in Slack before any changes are made. Once the reassignment has been finalised, the responsibility for the ticket shifts to the new team member.
On-call
If you are on call, congratulations! It is now your responsibility to monitor the support desk, both during and outside of working hours and during the weekend.
When monitoring the support desk outside of hours, please ensure you check Freshdesk at least every hour and that you promptly address any new tickets. If tickets are of significantly low priority, they can simply be discussed and addressed during the morning stand-up.
If no one is available, follow the escalation procedure in the on-call documentation to ensure the issue is resolved quickly. (note that as of September 2024, this has not yet been documented)
Monday morning
As the project manager is not available on Mondays, the on-call engineer has increased responsibility to manage the support desk until the next day. It is therefore the on-call engineer’s responsibility to review and check the support desk for activity. The engineer should reach out to key team members via Slack to follow up and ensure they have been successfully assigned to any new tickets.
This is especially important due to our ‘no meetings Monday’ policy. Additionally.
From Tuesday through to Friday, the management and responsibility for Freshdesk will be shared with the project manager, in alignment with their working hours.