Configuring agents as L1, L2 etc

[Sandeep Sekhar]

Is there an easy (and maybe an obvious way that I am missing) to configure agents as L1, L2 etc. in JIRA SM Cloud?

We would like all incidents & requests to come to L1, and then be escalated to L2 based on complexity and priority. How can I specify certain agents as L1, and others as L2?

Additionally, when an L1 escalates it to L2, can I setup an "unassigned L2" bucket, from where the L2 can pick things up from and work on based on priority and their skillsets?

Thanks

[Esther Strom · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Sandeep Sekhar

JSM doesn't really have the concept of multiple levels of agents. The simplest way to manage this is to just have an initial queue that all tickets start out in, and then a second queue based on the Escalated workflow status (or the value of a field that you're using to indicate that a ticket has been escalated.

To create queues, just go to Queues -> Manage Queues and click the Create New Queue button in the modal. Each queue is essentially a saved search, just like a filter, so you just need to know what your search criteria are for each. 

For the initial queue that brand-new tickets display in, your query would look something like this:

You can also use the Switch to JQL link at the right if you'd prefer to write your queries. For your second queue, assuming you're basing "escalation" on the Escalated status, your queue's JQL would look like this:

You could also then have separate queues for each agent, using the Assignee field, to allow agents to view everything that's currently assigned to them.

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If you want certain users to be notified when new tickets come in (i.e. your L1 team), you can do that a couple of different ways. 

Method 1

This way assumes that you're a Jira admin (not just a project admin), or that you know someone who is. Add a Project Role called L1 in your system settings. (Be aware that will make this role available to all projects.) In your service desk's notification scheme, add the L1 role to the Issues Created event. Then add all your L1 people to the service desk's Project Settings -> People section with the L1 role. (If they're already using the project, they're probably already there with the Service Desk Team role, so you can just add the additional L1 role to them.) This will result in the L1 team receiving the default Jira notifications whenever a new ticket is submitted.

Method 2

If you want to be able to customize your message, and you don't have access to a Jira admin, as long as you have Project Admin access to your service desk you can set up an automation rule. Go to Project Settings -> Automation, and create a new rule using the Issue Created trigger and Send Email action. You can also add conditions, if you want (i.e. only send the notification if a specific field has a specific value).

You can also set up multiple conditional sets, for example if you wanted tickets from a specific customer to go to a specific agent. See the answer I posted to this question for more info on how to do that.

If you're not looking at notification, but just want to assign tickets to a specific L1 user based on a condition (for example, all tickets from customer A go to Agent Smith, and all tickets from customer B go to Agent Jones), you can do that with a similar rule as described in the linked question; you'd just change the action - instead of sending an email, you'd use the Edit Issue action and set the Assignee field.

And of course, you can then create a second automation rule to notify/assign to L2 users when tickets are escalated.