Using External Tasks

An external taskA task that is acted upon by an outside organization, usually with whom you have a contract for services. is a task that is acted upon by an outside organization, usually with whom you have a contract for services. For example, if your business provides a web hosting service, you might be able to provide some services internally (such as web development or email), but you might have an agreement with an outside vendor to provide various levels of access for your customers (fast, medium, or normal, for example).

Defined external task costs can be tracked, while ad-hoc task costs cannot.

Accessing the External Task Workspace

1.

Log into the Service Desk Console as an administrator, then open the External Task workspace. The list of external tasks appears.

2.

To see details, do one of the following:

• Double-click a task.
• Click the vendor name link.

Creating an External Task

1.

From the External Task workspace, click New External Task. A blank form appears.

2.

Enter information into the fields.

--fields--

Field	Description
Summary	Subject or title of the task.
Details	Details of the task.
Job Item	This field is automatically generated by the system.
Unit Price	A price for each occurrence of the task.
Unit Quantity	The number of time you want to charge for the task.
Total	This field is automatically generated by the system, and is a product of the Unit Price and Unit Quantity fields.
Status	The status. The default status of logged is generated when the task is first saved.
Priority	The priority. Choose from the drop-down list: 1 (lowest priority) to 5 (highest priority).
Service	The service. Choose from the drop-down list.
Vendor	The vendor. Depends on the selection in the Service field. Choose from the drop-down list.
Contact Name	The name of the vendor contact.
Email	The email address of the vendor contact.
Phone	The phone number of the vendor contact.
UC	The underpinning contract. This field appears if the selected vendor has a current underpinning contractAn Underpinning Contract is a Contract between an IT Service Provider and a Third Party. The Third Party provides goods or Services that support delivery of an IT Service to a Customer. The Underpinning Contract defines targets and responsibilities that the Service Provider will use to determine Service Level Targets and Packages.. Choose from the drop-down list. If there is only one item on the list, it is automatically selected.
Task Catalog	This field appears if the selected vendor has a current underpinning contract for the service. Choose from the drop-down list. See Underpinning Contracts.
Vendor Case #	The case number for the vendor, if they have one.
Response Target	This automatically appears for each case based on priority and urgency.
Resolution Target	This automatically appears for each case based on priority and urgency.
Attach file	Attaches any images or documents related to this record. If this option does not appear, then you do not have privileges to attach files.
Comments	Comments. Click Create, then choose a comment type (such as email, notes, or voice activity) to add comments to the record.
Team	The team. Choose from the drop-down list.
Owner	The owner. Choose from the drop-down list.

3.

Click Save from the toolbar.