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Use this process if your support organization has several support levels. Your SAP experts support SAP applications in the SAP Solution Manager Help Desk. You can use an external help desk from a third-party supplier to support non-SAP applications and to report general IT incidents. This process describes how the two help desks work together.

IT Service Management in SAP Solution Manager can use several external help desks.

Prerequisites

  • You have configured SAP Solution Manager IT Service Management.

  • You have assigned the appropriate user role to the users:

    For more information, see the SAP Solution Manager Security Guide in the SAP Service Marketplace, under   http://service.sap.com/instguides   SAP Components   SAP Solution Manager <current release>  , under 4 Operations.

  • You have connected an external help desk to your SAP Solution Manager system.

  • You have displayed the assignment block External Help Desk in the WebClient UI.

Process

Scenario A: Starting from the External Help Desk

  1. The customer, user, or reporter reports an incident in the external help desk.

  2. A member of the support unit responsible processes the message in the external help desk.

  3. The external help desk staff classify the message as an SAP application problem and forward it to the SAP Solution Manager IT Service Management.

  4. The system creates a corresponding message in SAP Solution Manager.

  5. The SAP expert processes the message in SAP Solution Manager.

  6. If necessary, the external help desk staff send additional processing information.

    The system copies the information automatically.

  7. The SAP expert sends the message back to the external help desk with a proposed solution or for further processing.

  8. The external help desk processor puts the message back in processing.

  9. The external help desk processor sends the message to the reporter with a proposed solution.

  10. The reporter tests and confirms the solution.

    The system closes the message in both the external help desk and SAP Solution Manager.

Scenario B: Starting from IT Service Management in SAP Solution Manager

  1. The customer, user, or problem reporter reports an incident in SAP Solution Manager.

  2. An SAP expert processes the message in SAP Solution Manager.

  3. The SAP expert decides that the message is not an SAP application problem, and forwards it to the external help desk.

  4. The system creates a corresponding message in the external help desk. SAP Solution Manager shows the processing status of the message as In External Processing.

  5. The external help desk staff process the message in the external help desk.

  6. If necessary, the SAP expert sends additional processing information.

  7. The external help desk staff send the message back to SAP Solution Manager, with a proposed solution, or for further processing.

    The system updates the message in SAP Solution Manager.

  8. The SAP expert processes the message in SAP Solution Manager again.

  9. The SAP expert sends the message to the reporter, with a proposed solution.

  10. The reporter tests and confirms the solution.

    The system closes the message in both the external help desk and SAP Solution Manager.

More Information

For more information about working with the assignment block External Help Desk, see External Help Desk.