Why are Issue Types important?

Pearson’s Law: “That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.” – Karl Pearson “When performance is measured, performance improves.

How long will it take to deploy a new workstation? You have done it plenty of times before, you have the data. You can pull it from your PSA if the tickets for deploying a workstation are easy to filter out some way. The Issue and SubIssue type fields are there for exactly this reason. If you code the tickets correctly, you gain a wealth of actionable data to help improve your skills, your processes, and your value.

Additionally, you can then use your PSA to help out your techs. Have you ever forgotten to install the printers when you set up a workstation. Then the user calls in, so you drop whatever your doing and finish the job. Distractions like that rob you of your productivity. You cant get rid of all distractions, but you can prevent some re-work type surprises by following a process. A process that in this example includes installing printers. Why not have your PSA automatically present a checklist to help your techs do a fantastic job consistently. Now that you have good Issue and SubIssue types, you can.

A Starting Point

You will likely want to alter this list to better suit your company. But this will serve as a great starting point. You should notice that each Issue / SubIssue is something that can have a distinct process to go along with it.

Issue	Sub-Issue	Notes
Computer	Hardware	Hardware issues, stuff like “[Sound,Keyboard,Mouse,Monitor] isn’t working”, Computer is making funny noise, etc.
	Configuration	Local firewall is preventing something, Help with some config issue, etc. Installing run-of-the-mill applications can go here but LOB apps go in Application issue
	Deployment	Prepare a computer for a new user
	Refresh	Erase computer and get it ready for deployment
	Retire	Mothball a computer, or wipe and dispose.
	System Performance	System Performance issues
Server	File System	Working with files or shares on a server
	Active Directory	Changes in AD not related to a user. See “User” Issue Type
	Hardware
	DNS
	DHCP
	etc,	What else do you commonly do?
User	Onboarding	What it says on the tin
	Offboarding	What it says on the tin
	Workstation Migration	Moving a user to a new workstation (Performed after a Computer / Deployment or Computer / Refresh)
	Password Reset	Resetting a password
Email General	Inbound Failure	Expected email was not delivered
	Outbound Failure	Sent email was returned or recipient said they didnt get it
	Exclaimer (or other Sig product)	Changes to Signatures
Office365	Exchange Online	Issues with Exchange online
	Sharepoint / OneDrive	Onedrive not syncing, cant access a particular site, etc.
	Teams
	Etc.	What other O365 features do you support?
G-Suite	Mail
	Docs
	Etc
Remote Access	VPN
	RDP
Printer \ Copier	Consumables
	Scan to Email
	Scan to SMB
	Scan to Cloud
	Driver Installation
	Hardware
	Printing
Security	AV Alert	Antivirus alerted on something, check it out.
	Threatlocker Request
	Conditional Login Alert
	SaasAlerts
Network	Wired Failure
	Wireless Failure
	Firewall
	Other
Phone /VOIP	Deploy Phone
	Hardware
	System Configuration Change
	Phone Configuration Change
Application	Quickbooks
	AutoCad
	UltraTax
	Add other LOB applications
Backup	Backup Failure
	Restore File
	Restore Mail / Cloud
Power / UPS	Hardware
	Battery
Monitoring Alert	RMM Monitoring	This is where your monitoring tickets will accumulate. If an issues becomes more prevalent, think about separating it out.
Website / Cloud	Hosting
	DNS	External DNS
	SSL
Non-Issues	Phone/Conference Call	Sometimes clients just want us around as a security blanket.