The following was taken from the old HelpMaster discussion board.  The information is still relevant, so I thought I'd post it here.

From 2005...

Here at PRD Software, our job status codes are divided into 2 categories, depending on whether the onus, or responsibility of the next action to be performed on a job lies with the helpdesk (us), or our clients (you). This also forms part of the naming convention for the status code. This makes it very easy to determine which state each job is in, as well as giving an indication of where the responsibility for the next action of the job lies.

For example.

If the job is to be actioned next by a helpdesk member (us), the job status will start with "Staff : ...."
If the job is the actioned next by the client that reported the job, the job status will start with "Client : ..."

So, status codes might look like this if the responsibility for the next action lies with our helpdesk.

Staff : Being researched
Staff : Awaiting action
Staff : On hold

On the other hand, status codes might look like this if the responsibility for the next action lies with the client.

Client : Resolution provided, awaiting confirmation
Client : Awaiting further information
Client : Awaiting confirmation of job status


There are others, however this "us" and "them" job status gives us a workable and practical insight into who, how and when to action each job. Basically, if a job is in a "Client" status, then the ball is in their court so to speak. The converse is also true.

Job Escalation and Service Level Agreeement (SLA)

Once jobs have been classified in this manner, it allows some very powerful escalation rules to be created via the use of the Priority Manager.  For example. If a job has been in the "Client : Resolution provided, awaiting confirmation" for more than 2 days, an automatic email can be sent to ask for an update etc.

So basically, our job status codes through the use of a naming convention along with a description of the state of the job allow us to see...

1. Who is responsible for the next action
2. What state the job is in

Hope this helps someone to plan a better helpdesk.

I would love to hear how others have configured their HelpMaster Job Status codes.  Please post any comments on this forum.