Technology Product Support Case playbook stages and activities

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 7 minutes to read
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    Summary of Technology Product Support Case playbook stages and activities

    The Technology Product Support Case playbook guides agents through a structured process to research, diagnose, and resolve technology product support cases efficiently. It automates case creation, service selection, and provides a sequenced workflow with stages and activities designed to ensure thorough case management from intake to closure.

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    Intake stage

    In this initial stage, agents collect essential information about the customer, the issue, and impacted product instances. Activities include:

    • Gather details: Capture account, contact, product info, and a brief description.
    • Describe the problem: Document issue type, detailed description, reproduction steps, attachments, and watch list users.
    • Identify impacted instances: Select affected product instances linked to the customer account.

    Completing these steps transitions the case to the next stage.

    Triage stage

    Agents review and refine case information, assign or accept ownership, and send an initial response to the customer. Key activities include:

    • Review the problem: Verify customer issue details, affected instances, and attachments; update as necessary.
    • Send initial response: Use free text or response templates to communicate with the customer, optionally adding internal work notes.

    Sending the initial response advances the case to the Troubleshoot stage.

    Troubleshoot stage

    This stage supports in-depth investigation and diagnosis of the issue using integrated tools and workflows:

    • Diagnose: Leverage system-suggested tests to identify problems; only one test runs at a time to prevent conflicts.
    • Test results: Review outcomes, focusing on failed tests which trigger repair tasks.
    • Update action plan: Document investigation summaries, actions taken, and next steps, posting updates to the activity stream.
    • Related work: Access recommended actions like expert discussions, view related cases, and create repair or resolution tasks as needed.

    Agents can initiate Sidebar discussions for collaboration. Completing troubleshooting moves the case to resolution.

    Resolve stage

    Agents propose a solution by updating root cause and resolution codes, notes, and optionally adding resolution details to the case activity stream. If the Now Assist for Customer Service Management application is installed and configured, resolution notes can be auto-generated. Proposing the resolution changes the case state to "Solution Proposed" and advances to closure.

    Close stage

    Cases are closed when the customer or agent accepts the solution, the agent manually closes it, or the system auto-closes after a set period in the "Solution Proposed" state. Agents finalize the case by summarizing the issue, root cause, resolution notes, and adding any additional comments or work notes. After closure, post-case review records can be created.

    Save and Continue actions

    The playbook provides "Continue" to save data and move forward in the workflow, and "Save" to update information without progressing, enabling flexibility in managing case stages.

    Recommended Actions

    Within the Troubleshoot stage, agents receive recommendations such as "Talk to an expert," facilitating expert collaboration via Sidebar discussions. These recommendations help agents resolve cases more efficiently by leveraging internal expertise.

    The Technology Product Support Case playbook includes stages and activities that assist agents in researching and resolving technology cases.

    When an agent creates a technology product support case, the system opens a service selector modal and displays the services defined for the Technology Product Support case type.

    The agent selects a service and then selects Create to create a case. The system creates the case and launches the Technology Product Support Case playbook. This playbook includes the stages and activities described in the following sections.

    Intake stage

    During the intake stage, an agent gathers information about the customer, the issue, and the impacted instances.Intake stage.

    Table 1. Intake stage activities
    Activity Description
    Gather details The agent gathers information about the account and contact and the product and adds a short description.

    Select Continue to save the information and move to the next activity.
    Describe the problem The agent describes the issue type and the details and adds a case description and steps to reproduce. The agent can also add users to the watch list and add attachments.

    Select Continue to save the information and move to the next activity.
    Identify impacted instances The agent adds the impacted instances from a list of instances that belong to the account.

    Select Continue to save the information and move to the first activity in the Triage stage.

    Triage stage

    During the triage stage, the agent reviews the case information, makes changes as needed, and sends an initial response to the customer.tech-product-case-resolveTriage stage.

    Table 2. Triage stage activities
    Activity Description
    Review the problem The agent can review information about the customer issue, including the affected instances selected in the Intake stage and the sold product or product component.

    In addition to reviewing information, the agent can update the list of affected instances and the attachments.

    The following actions are available:

    • Assign to me: The agent can select this action to self-assign the case.
    • Accept: The agent can select this action to accept the assigned case.

    Once the case is assigned, the agent can select Continue to save the information and move to the next activity.
    Send initial response The agent can send a response to the customer by entering text in the Initial response field. If desired, the agent can use a template from the Response Templates tab in the contextual side panel.

    The agent can also enter text in the Work notes field to capture internal information.

    After entering text in these fields, the agent can:
    • Select Save to save the information in the fields without sending it to the customer.
    • Select Send and Continue to send the initial response to the customer, post the work notes, and move to the Troubleshoot stage.

    Troubleshoot stage

    During the troubleshoot stage, the agent investigates the customer's issue and updates their findings in the action plan. The agent can leverage tools such as search or recommended actions as part of the investigation. If the agent needs assistance, they can create case tasks or other types of records or initiate a Sidebar discussion.Troubleshoot stage.

    Table 3. Troubleshoot stage activities
    Activity Description
    Diagnose

    The decision table is provided with the Technology Product Support Case application. You can modify the conditions that have been defined, and the results to suit your requirements.

    To enable the diagnostic activity in the troubleshoot stage, select the case category in the decision table as Issue, the diagnostic activity field is field is updated to True.

    The status can be changed to False by the agent. For more details on updating decision tables, see Decision Tables.

    The agent can view and do the following actions in these tabs:
    • Available test
      1. In the Available tests tab, open a list of records showing the tests waiting to be run.

        The system automatically suggests one or more tests relevant to the details described in the service problem case to diagnose the issue. These tests are the test definitions defined when configuring Customer Service Problem Management. For more information, see Setting up test definitions.

        Note:
        To avoid conflicts, the system allows only one test to run at a given time. This is true even if you have multiple client test runner windows open.
      2. Select Run in front of the test that you want to execute to diagnose the problem.
      3. In the test dialog box, select an option either to run the test now or to schedule it for later, and then select Run test.
    • Test results
      1. Select the Test results tab and review the results of the tests conducted in the previous step, checking whether each test is passed or failed.

        The failed tests indicate that issues causing the service problem are identified and needing repair.

        A Repair task is created for all failed test cases related to the diagnosed service problem. For each unique service and test specification, only one repair task is created. The agent can then work on it and close this repair task.

      2. Select the View Details icon for a specific test result to review its details.
      3. Select the Rerun test icon for a specific test result to run it again.
    • Diagnostic tasks If needed, the agent can create the diagnostic tasks manually and view the diagnostic tasks.
    Update action plan The agent investigates the issue and adds information to the following fields:
    • Issue summary
    • Actions taken
    • Next steps
    Selecting the Update and continue action:
    • Saves the information in the action plan.
    • Posts the information to the activity stream.
    • Moves the agent to the Related work activity.
    Related work

    The agent can see the action status of the case, if available, and can update the Needs attention field.

    The Related work activity includes a Recommended Actions card, Talk to an expert, that agents can use if they need assistance.
    • Select Start discussion to initiate a Sidebar conversation.
    • Select Dismiss to close the card.

    The Related work activity shows lists of related case records. The agent can expand these related record lists and view the record cards or create records.

    • Update action plan: returns the agent to the Update action plan activity so they can update information.
    • Continue: completes the Troubleshoot stage and moves the agent to the Resolve stage.
    • Create repair tasks: Create a repair task and assign to the agent.

    The Related work activity includes Resolution Tasks, that agents can use If the test fails and manually create the resolution task to solve the issue. The agent can expand these Resolution Tasks lists and view the list of resolution tasks or create one.

    Resolve stage

    In the Resolve stage, the agent proposes a solution to the customer.Resolve stage.

    Table 4. Resolve stage activities
    Activity Description
    Propose resolution
    The agent updates the following fields:
    • Root cause code
    • Resolution code
    • Cause
    • Resolution notes
    The agent can also enable the Add resolution notes to comments check box to add the resolution information to the case activity stream.
    Note:
    If the Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) application is installed and the resolution notes generation skill has been configured, the Resolution notes field is automatically populated. For more information, see Using Now Assist for CSM to generate resolution notes for a case.
    • Propose resolution: Completes the activity and moves to the Close stage. The case state changes to Solution Proposed.
    • Save: Saves the information in the activity.

    Close stage

    A case can be closed in the following ways:
    • The customer accepts the proposed solution.
    • The agent accepts the proposed solution on behalf of the customer.
    • The agent closes the case.
    • The system auto closes the case after it remains in the Solution Proposed state for a certain number of days.

    In the Close stage, the agent updates the case with a summary of the issue and provides any additional comments or work notes.

    The case record is read-only when the state is Closed.Close stage.

    Table 5. Close stage activities
    Activity Description
    Close case
    The agent updates the following fields:
    • Issue summary
    • Root cause code
    • Resolution notes
    • Add resolution notes to comments
    • Additional comments
    • Work notes
    • Accept Solution: Saves the changes and posts the content in the Additional comments and Work notes fields to the activity stream. The case state changes from Solution Proposed to Closed.
    • Reject Solution: Saves the changes and posts the content in the Additional comments and Work notes fields to the activity stream. The case state changes from Solution Proposed to Work in progress.
    • Save: Saves the changes to the activity.

    After the case is closed, the agent can select Create Post Case Review to open a post case review record in a sub-tab.

    Save and Continue actions

    When a stage is in progress, the Continue action saves the information in the stage and moves the agent to the next activity in the flow. This can be the next activity within a stage or the first activity in the next stage.

    When a stage is complete, the Save action is also available. This action saves the information in the stage but does not move the agent to the next stage. The Save action enables agents to update information in completed stages.

    Displaying Recommended Actions in playbook activities

    Recommended actions can be configured to appear inside playbook activities. By default, the Talk to an expert recommendation appears in the Related work activity in the Troubleshoot stage.

    The Technology Product Case Troubleshoot recommended actions rule:
    • Provides the recommendation for an agent to discuss a case issue with an expert. This recommendation.
    • Includes the following actions:
      • Start discussion: starts a Sidebar discussion.
      • Dismiss: dismisses the recommendation card.

    For more information, see Recommended Actions.