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Getting Started With SugarBPM for Sugar Serve

Overview

Sugar Serve includes several features that can be used in SugarBPM™ to automate Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and route cases to customer service agents. The first of these is a stock SugarBPM template that sets case follow-up dates on new and in-progress cases according to your organization's SLAs. To use this SugarBPM template in your Sugar instance, you must first perform several actions:

  • Create, configure, and assign business centers to allow SugarBPM to make business hour calculations based on your service centers' operating hours.
  • Determine appropriate values for the Account module's Service Level field and modify the dropdown options via Studio as needed. Then, specify a service level for each account to be used by SugarBPM for calculating follow-up dates. 
  • Determine appropriate values for the Cases module's Priority field and modify the dropdown options via Studio as needed. Then, as cases are created, specify a priority for each case to be used by SugarBPM for calculating follow-up dates.
  • Determine appropriate values for the Cases module's Status field and modify the dropdown options via Studio as needed. Ensure, as cases are created, that the status values are used consistently by customer service representatives.
  • Configure Sugar Serve's stock SugarBPM templates to work with your organization's business processes including case statuses, SLAs, business centers, and email templates.

The second feature that can be used in SugarBPM is workforce management via shifts and round-robin assignment by availability. To take advantage of this feature within the Round Robin action, you must first do the following:

Business Centers

Business centers represent your company's centers of operation and specify a time zone, operating hours, and holidays so that a concept called "Business Hours" can be leveraged in SugarBPM. SLA management is achieved in Sugar Serve by stock SugarBPM templates leveraging related business centers to calculate case follow-up dates. To make use of business hours in case follow-up date calculations, business centers need to be created and added to your Sugar records as described in the following sections.

Creating Business Centers

System admin users or Business Center Administrators must create a business center record for each service region where different operating hours and holidays are used. You must specify hours and holidays for each as described in the Business Center documentation.

Using Business Centers

Once your business centers are created, you must decide how you want SugarBPM to access business center information. By default, Sugar Serve's SugarBPM templates use the business center related to each case record when calculating follow-up dates. For this to work, each account record that could possibly be related to a case must have a business center selected. Both admin and regular users can accomplish this by setting the accounts' Business Center field when creating or editing the account. When a new case is created, it inherits the business center assigned to its parent account. The business center assigned to each case's account is used in SugarBPM business hour calculations, including the stock Sugar Serve templates. Please keep in mind that if a case does not specify a business center at the point of creation, the stock SugarBPM templates for Sugar Serve will terminate the process without calculating a follow-up date. For more information, refer to the Business Centers and Cases documentation.

Alternatively, if your organization only has one business center applicable to a particular process, SugarBPM can use a static business center when doing business hour calculations. If your customer service organization only uses one set of business hours and holidays, you can adjust the stock Sugar Serve templates to use a static business center specified in the process definition. With this adjustment, business centers do not need to be set on your accounts or cases. To make this change to the Sugar Serve templates, refer to the Process Definition Setup: Case Follow-Up Date Management article.

Account Service Levels

Each account in Sugar Serve has a Service Level field that captures the tier of service the account is contracted to receive. Sugar Serve's stock SugarBPM templates use the Service Level field from each case's related account when calculating case follow-up dates. When no related account or service level is specified, the stock business rule uses fallback values. Because each account's Service Level field is used for SLA management and not just informational purposes, it is important that its dropdown values match your organization's service tiers. An admin user can add, remove, or edit the options for the Account module's Service Level field's dropdown list via Admin > Studio. For more information, refer to the Dropdown Editor documentation.

To fully leverage the power and flexibility of the SugarBPM templates, best practice is to set the Service Level field for each account in your instance. Once the Service Level dropdown options match your business practices, set each account's service level, and perform regular audits to make sure service levels continue to be set accurately. In addition, an admin user can make the Service Level field required to ensure users populate it when creating accounts. For more information, refer to the Making a Field Required or Unrequired article.

If changes are made to the Service Level field's dropdown values, the stock SugarBPM templates for Sugar Serve will need to be updated as described in the Stock SugarBPM - Case Follow-Up Date Management article.

Case Priorities

Each case in Sugar Serve has a Priority field that captures the urgency of the problem or request. Sugar Serve's stock SugarBPM templates use the Priority field from when calculating case follow-up dates. Because each case's Priority field is used for SLA management and not just informational purposes, it is important that its dropdown values match your organization's urgency levels. An admin user can add, remove, or edit the options for the Case module's Priority field's dropdown list via Admin > Studio. For more information, refer to the Dropdown Editor documentation.

To fully leverage the power and flexibility of the SugarBPM templates, best practice is to meaningfully set the Priority field as each case is created. Once the Priority dropdown options match your business practices, set each open case's priority, and perform regular audits to make sure priorities continue to be set accurately.

If changes are made to the Priority field's dropdown values, the stock SugarBPM templates for Sugar Serve will need to be updated as described in the Stock SugarBPM - Case Follow-Up Date Management article.

Case Statuses

Each case in Sugar Serve has a Status field that captures the urgency of the problem or request. Sugar Serve's stock SugarBPM templates use the Status field from when calculating case follow-up dates. In some situations, the process definition also updates the case's status. Because each case's Status field is used for SLA management in addition to internally tracking cases to completion, it is important that its dropdown values match your organization's statuses. An admin user can add, remove, or edit the options for the Case module's Status field's dropdown list via Admin > Studio. For more information, refer to the Dropdown Editor documentation. Once the Status dropdown options match your business practices, set each open case's status, and perform regular audits to make sure statuses continue to be used consistently.

If changes are made to the Status field's dropdown values, the stock SugarBPM templates for Sugar Serve will need to be updated as described in the Stock SugarBPM - Case Follow-Up Date Management article.

Additionally, the Case module's Status field determines which cases are included on the Cases tab of the Service Console included in Sugar Serve. The case counts and list of cases include any case, assigned to the current user, which is not in a status of "Closed", "Duplicate", or "Rejected". If you have added other statuses to the dropdown values of the Case module's Status field, the counts and list will include cases in those custom statuses. Additionally, the custom statuses will be color-coded blue in the prioritized list view. For more information, refer to the Service Console documentation.

Finally, several of the dashlets included by default on the Overview tab of the Service Console filter cases based on the Status field. These dashlets may need to be re-configured to account for any added or removed Status dropdown values. For more information, refer to the Service Console documentation.

Stock SugarBPM Templates

Case SLA management incorporates a number of variables when calculating appropriate follow-up dates. Sugar Serve's stock SugarBPM templates will need various adjustments before they will work with your instance. This is particularly true if the Service Level, Priority, or Status fields' options have been modified as described in this article. The Stock SugarBPM - Case Follow-Up Date Management article covers making these necessary changes. Once the templates are configured and have been tested in a development environment, enable the finalized process definitions in your production environment to begin using them.

Shifts, Shift Exceptions, and User Holidays

The Shifts module allows you to set up shifts during which your customer service agents are available to take on more work (e.g., be assigned a new case). Combined with shift exceptions (e.g., paid time off, annual leave) and user holidays, you can define your workforce's availability on any given day. This is especially important when using the Round Robin action in SugarBPM process definitions to route cases to agents within a specific team based on the agents' availability. This action takes into account who is currently on shift and has enough time left in their day to handle another case, which ensures that cases are assigned in a logical manner within a team and are not assigned in a way that puts meeting their SLA at risk.

Teams

If you organize your customer service agents into teams, these teams can be used to route cases to the appropriate subset of agents, for example based on region, subject matter, or priority. The Round Robin action in SugarBPM process definitions assigns records to users within a team in a logical order and, if configured, takes into account their availability based on shifts. As a result, it is important to set up your teams of agents before using round-robin assignment.

Round Robin Action

When configuring a Round Robin action in a SugarBPM process definition to assign cases based on user availability, you will need to make two decisions:

  • Determine the minimum amount of remaining time that an agent must have in their shift to be assigned a new case. You will specify this value in the "Set 'Assigned To' by availability" field. For example, you may decide to ensure that an agent has at least two hours left in their shift before the case's follow-up date before assigning to that agent.
  • Decide which user in your instance will be the default assignee of cases when no agents are available. In the event that no agents within a team are eligible to take a new case, there must be a default user to be selected as a fallback option.