Service console: layout, milestones, linked cases and time
The service console is where whoever answers spends the day. This page covers the four things you can now decide about it, and one thing the console can now do that it could not before.
The service console is where whoever answers spends the day. This page covers the four things you can now decide about it, and one thing the console can now do that it could not before.
Choose which panels the agent sees, and in what order
Go to Settings, Service console, Console layout. The right column of the case is a list you reorder and switch on and off: SLA clocks, milestones, entitlement, case properties, customer context, linked cases, time, reply by channel, asset, incident, field work, catalog request, wrap-up, calls, follow-up, swarm and the AI panels. The same page controls which module tabs appear and which floating utilities are on.
You can save one arrangement for everyone and one per role. Someone with two roles sees the union of what both roles show: taking away a panel that another role grants would remove something the permission matrix gave them.
Two things worth knowing before you start:
- Hiding a panel is ergonomics, not permission. Every panel keeps its own gate, so hiding the cost panel does not stop anyone who has the permission from seeing cost elsewhere, and showing it does not give the number to who cannot see it.
- A panel that a future version adds shows up at the end of your list, visible. Nobody loses a feature for having configured this page months earlier.
- Case properties cannot be hidden. Without it the agent has no way to change status, priority or owner, and would find that out in the middle of an answer.
Milestones that stay true after you change the policy
The three clocks in the console show the deadline as it stands right now. Milestones show what happened: the moment the first reply went out, and the target that was in force at that moment.
That difference matters. Before this, tightening a first response target from thirty minutes to fifteen made every past case that answered in twenty look breached, including in a report already sent to a customer. Now, when a milestone happens it is recorded, and later policy changes do not rewrite it.
The three factory milestones read the targets your SLA policy already resolves. You can rename them, reorder them, and add your own: a milestone of your own is a status reached within a deadline in minutes, counted from the moment the case was opened.
Deleting a milestone takes its recorded facts with it. If you only want it out of the panel, deactivate it.
Link cases: duplicate, related, blocks, caused by
On the case, the Linked cases panel ties two cases together and says how. Both sides see it: the case that blocks reads "blocks", and the blocked one reads "blocked by". This is different from parent and child, which is hierarchy, and from an incident, which groups many cases under one.
Split a case
When a customer replies to an old case asking for something new, the Split button next to Merge moves the messages that belong to the new subject into a case of their own. The messages MOVE, so the attachments go with them, and both sides are left linked and with an internal note saying what happened. At least one message has to stay: a case with no messages loses the text that opened it.
Time spent on the case
Start and stop a timer, or log minutes by hand, on the case itself. The total is per case and per person, and it counts hours logged from the project timesheet against the same case, so there is one number, not two.
Corrections do not edit the entry: a correction is a new line that subtracts, and the list shows it. That is what keeps last month's report from changing on its own.
Case types
A case type is a value of the case category, the same one your SLA policy already matches. The type says which priorities it accepts and which fields it requires, so a defect report cannot be saved without the description. Tenants with no case type configured are not affected at all.
Reply on the channel the case came from
If the case came from a WhatsApp, SMS or chat conversation, the console now shows a Reply by channel panel. It sends through the same path as the inbox, with the same 24 hour window and approved template rules, and mirrors what was sent into the case conversation. The panel only appears when there is a conversation attached to the case, and it tells you before you type whether the window is open.