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Ticketing

Meet HaloITSM

HaloITSM is our new cloud-based ticketing solution.

Halo is a fast, simple and fully configurable system with a modern end-user portal and a fully optimized mobile app. Halo will be our central hub for incident and change management. It will also host our service catalogue. Check out our Features tab to learn more about all the incredible things Halo has to offer.

Introducing "My Tickets" to the Halo Self-Service Portal

Hi Agents, we are happy to announce that we've added a "My Tickets" section to Halo's self-service portal. Now users can get a one-click of all their open and recently closed tickets and can even perform simple actions like adding comments and closing tickets. Check out the video below, where we provide a quick overview […]

How much faster is HaloITSM?

We've covered a lot of Halo's benefits in our previous articles, but it's time to share some actual performance. With the Halo launch date less than a week away, we wanted to show how much faster HaloITSM is than our old ticketing system. We completed a side-by-side test submitting the same ticket in both systems […]

Customizing your dashboard in Halo

It's time we take a look at the first thing agents see when they log in to Halo: the dashboard. While undoubtedly an aesthetic upgrade to what we already know from ticketing dashboards, the Halo dashboard also brings improved customizability and utility. Halo allows for customizable dashboard graphics that visualize essential data, as well as […]

HaloITSM: Reporting done right

Our last few articles covered Halo’s updated look and feel and how it handles ticket classifications and searching. This week, we cover something that combines all those aspects: reporting. We are excited to share how reporting works in Halo and how you can get the most out of it. With only a few clicks, you can access your reporting library […]

HaloITSM: Reimagining ticket classification

In the past, we've talked about Halo's improved look and feel, but those improvements aren't just cosmetic. When we talk about ticket classification, the changes to look and feel are both functional and exciting. Some of the first steps we took when improving our ticketing system were reimagining how we classify our tickets and redesigning our […]

The search features we’ve been looking for

Take a look at ticket searching in Halo Last week we told you that Halo was coming and shared some look and feel improvements over our current Cherwell solution. Today, we are showing off one of Halo’s most exciting upgrades—one we think will make you all very happy: improved ticket searching.  Gone are the days of […]

Meet our new ticketing system!

As some of you already know, we've been working hard to replace our old Cherwell ticketing system. Well, the time has come for us to show off its successor: HaloITSM. Halo is a significant upgrade to Cherwell and makes ticketing easier, faster and all-around better. But don't just take our word for it; check out […]

How-Tos

  1. Go to: https://askus.yorku.ca
  2. Log in using your PY credentials
PPY login

Please visit the Help and Training tab to learn more.

To switch between the agent and end-user portal:

  1. Select your profile in the top-right corner of the window
  2. Click either the Switch to Agent Application or the Switch to End-User Portal option
Profile

If the end-user you are searching for is not in the system, type "Not System" in the end-user details search bar and select the "Not in System" option.

end user details

To add a signature to your outgoing emails in Halo:

  1. Go to the top corner of the Halo screen and click on your initials.
  2. Select the My Account option.
  3. Click Edit in the top left corner.
  4. Navigate to the Preferences tab.
  5. Scroll down and expand the Email Signature area.

You are now ready to add your signature.

preferences

Service Requests have an action button on their top banner called Classify as Incident and Incidents have one called Classify as Service Request. Click either of these buttons to reclassify your ticket.

classify as incident
classify as request

Halo agents cannot create new ticket templates. To create a new ticket template, you'll need to submit a service request.

Security

Yes, Halo is protected via Passport York which includes 2FA (Duo Authentication).

Halo has three instances: IT, HR, and PB. Any agent belonging to an instance can search and view every ticket in that instance. For example, any IT agent can see all tickets in the IT instance.

When you create a new note it is private by default.

Other agents in your Halo instance (IT, HR, PB) can see private notes attached to tickets.

Customers can't see the private notes you add; however, once the self-service portal is added in a later phase of the Halo deployment, notes set to public will be visible to end users.

No. Agents cannot delete files attached to tickets. To delete an attachment, contact client services and request the help of a Halo admin.

Features

Halo leverages powerful search features that enable agents to search in many ways: including by status, date, body content, submitter, team, department, etc.

Halo searches go back to the first ticket and will even return cancelled/closed tickets results.

Visit our Help and Training tab or check out our feature post on ticket searching to find out more.

Halo has an Agent forwarding feature that allows Agents to forward emails sent to them by customers to askit@yorku.ca. When an agent forwards one of these tickets, Halo creates it under the customer's account, not the agent's.

For example, if Faculty Member Colby emailed CS Agent Sam requesting help, CS Agent Sam could forward that email chain to askit@yorku.ca. Halo would then create a ticket with the contents of the email chain and set Faculty Member Colby as the owner of that ticket.

Halo employs Azure AD's auto-logout policy, which states that after 5 minutes of inactivity, an agent will be logged out of the system automatically.

It is possible to open multiple tickets or lists at the same time

Canned text is prewritten saved text that can be used throughout the ticketing process to save time. Canned text can even include attachments and hyperlinks.

Any agent can create canned text. This text can be restricted to individual agents, teams, departments or even shared globally (though we don't recommend creating global canned text).

To create canned text:

  1. Click your profile in the top right corner of the window.
  2. Click My Account
  3. Navigate to the Preferences tab.
  4. Select the Edit option in the top left of the window.
  5. Scroll to the bottom and expand the Canned Text dropdown.
  6. Click on the Add option.
  7. Create your canned text
  8. Choose which individuals, teams, departments or groups you'd like to restrict it to.
  9. Click Save.

To find out more on canned text, visit our Help and Training tab.

Yes! Halo is a cloud-based solution.

Halo has a helpful option to add/remove yourself as a ticket follower. Visit our Help and Training tab to find out more.

Halo uses child tickets to handle dependencies. To learn more about child tickets, visit our Help and Training tab.

There is no "Undo" function in Halo. You can visit the "Audit Log" tab to see any changes you've made or actions you've performed.

Yes! It is possible to duplicate a ticket using the Clone option on a ticket. Visit our Help and Training tab to find out more.

In Halo, you cannot close a parent ticket with open child tickets. If you attempt to do so, you will receive a warning message referencing the child tickets that need to be closed first.

Yes! A To-Do list can be created when a ticket template is being used to create a ticket.

No. To-dos are reminders and don't need to be completed before you resolve a ticket.

All linked child tickets will be resolved if the linked Parent ticket is resolved. If a child ticket is resolved, only that child ticket is resolved, and the other child tickets will be resolved separately.

Yes! To save a custom report, click on the Save as New button at the top of the report. This will save the report with the filters that you have specified.

save as new button

You can easily create new filters and save them. Click on the pencil beside the current filter and click the New button under the list of existing filters.

"new" button

Yes! You can schedule reports to be emailed out to specific recipients whenever you like.

Yes, and as part of the Halo implementation, we've increased our concurrent licensing by ~30%.