Support configuration reference

This page is the administrator's map of the support desk. It lists every place you configure it, what each setting changes, and the order to set it up in. The desk runs on records you create: business hours decide how time is counted, SLA policies decide what is promised, queues and resource groups decide who is offered work, resource skills narrow routed work, and the shipped case business rules shape the case lifecycle. The detailed procedures live on the topic pages linked from each section. This page tells you which one you need.

Overview

Support is configured in three places:

• Support → Settings, a page of cards inside the Support app. It holds the records the desk depends on.
• Setup, for the screens that serve several modules: queues, macros, deduplication rules, mailboxes, numbering and business rules.
• Setup → Design Studio, for picklists, forms and lists.

The Support → Settings cards

The cards list the same records you can reach from the App Launcher. A card is a shortcut, not a separate copy.

Setup screens the desk uses

When to use it

• Before go-live, follow the Procedure from top to bottom. Calendars come first, because SLA policies point at them. Queues come last, because they point at resource groups.
• When a promise changes, edit or add an SLA policy. Policies attach when a case is created, so the change applies to new cases only.
• When the team changes, edit the resource group and the person's resource. Routing reads membership fresh each time, so the change applies to the next item routed.
• When the case lifecycle doesn't fit your desk, review the Status picklist and the shipped business rules together. Many of the rules name status values, so changing one without the other breaks the lifecycle.

How xMatix handles it

• Each setting takes effect at a different time. The SLA policy is picked once, when a case is first saved, and is never matched again. Routing reads the queue, pool, presence and skills at the moment each item is routed. Numbering runs when a record is created. Business rules run on the saves that trigger them. The module switch takes effect on the next page load.
• The settings page is restricted, but the records are not. In the shipped setup only System Admin sees Support → Settings. But Standard User, Sales Executive and several other profiles have full access to SLA policies, business hours, queues and the other setup records, so they can open and change them from the App Launcher. If only administrators should change your promises and pools, remove that access from the other profiles (see Permissions).
• Numbering replaces typed names. SLA policies, milestone configs, business hours, holidays and resource skills are numbered when they are saved, and the number replaces the Name you typed. Pickers then show codes such as an SLA or BH number. For resource skills this matters most: skill-based routing matches the resource skill's Name exactly, so numbered rows match nothing.
• Switching the module off hides navigation only. With Enable Support off, the Support apps leave the launcher and menus for everyone. Records, layouts and links stay as they are, so a direct link to a case still opens. Setup stays reachable, so you can switch the module back on.
• The acknowledgement email is fixed. Every new case writes a Case acknowledgement email activity to its timeline. When the case has a Contact Email, the email is sent after the save, through your organization's outbound email. The subject and wording are built in: there is no template or switch to change or turn off. If sending fails, the activity still shows as sent.
• Some lifecycle values are not shipped. The shipped business rules mention the statuses Waiting on Customer, Waiting on Third Party and Escalated, and the Escalated cases list filters on Escalated. None of these is in the shipped Status picklist. Add them if your desk uses them.

Prerequisites

• The System Admin profile, or a profile with the Support → Settings page grant and access to the setup records.
• For the Setup → Telephony → Queues screen: the Telephony product and the Manage telephony (CTI) capability.
• Users for every agent, so you can link each agent's resource to a user account.
• Outbound email set up for your organization, if the acknowledgement and emailed articles should reach customers.

Procedure

Step 1 — Check that the module is on

Open /setup/featurehub/modules/support/settings. Enable Support is on by default. Leave it on; when it is off, the Support app disappears from the launcher for everyone.

Step 2 — Decide on numbering

Open Setup → Feature Hub → Platform → Document settings. For each setting below, decide whether you want the generated number or the name you type. Switch off a setting to keep typed names on new records.

• SLA Policy Name Setting (series SLA) and Milestone Config Name Setting (series ML)
• Business Hours Name Setting (series BH) and Holiday Name Setting (series HO)
• Resource Skills Name Setting (series RS). Switch this one off if you route by skill.
• Case Name Setting (series CS). Keep this one: it gives every case its number.

Records saved while a setting is on keep their number. Rename them after you switch the setting off.

Step 3 — Create the calendars

1. Open Support → Settings → Business Hours and create one calendar per working pattern you promise against. Fill in the time zone, the working days and both the day start and day end. A calendar with any of these missing counts as 24×7.
2. Open Support → Settings → Holidays and add the year's holidays. Link each one to the calendar it blocks. The standard Holiday form has no Business Hours field, so add it to the form in Design Studio first, or set it with an import.

See Business hours for the minute and weekday values to enter.

Step 4 — Create the SLA policies

1. Open Support → Settings → SLA Policies.
2. Create your specific policies first, each with a Match Formula (for example Priority == "High"), a high Rank, a Business Hours calendar and the First Response (min) and Resolution (min) targets.
3. Finish with one catch-all policy: Active and Default on, Match Formula blank, the lowest rank.
4. Optionally add Milestone Configs for extra promises on a policy.

A new case with no matching active policy gets no SLA status. See SLA policies and milestones.

Step 5 — Set up the people

1. Make sure every agent has an active resource linked to their user account. Routing assigns work to that user.
2. Open Support → Settings → Resource Groups and create one group per pool of agents. Add the members.
3. If you route by skill, open Support → Settings → Skills and Resource Skills, and give each resource skill exactly the name your routing asks for, at Proficiency Level 1 or higher.

Step 6 — Create the queues

1. Go to Setup → Feature Hub → Service → Telephony → Queues and choose New queue.
2. Enter a Name, choose a Routing model, pick the Agent pool (the resource group) and leave Active on.
3. Open Setup → Process Studio → Business Rules and edit the shipped rule Set Case Queue To High Priority. It names a queue that does not exist in a new organization. Point it at one of your queues, or switch it off.
4. If cases arrive by email, set the mailbox's default queue under Setup → Feature Hub → Platform → Mailboxes.

See Queues and omni-channel routing for what makes an agent eligible for an offer.

Step 7 — Fit the case lifecycle to your desk

1. Review the Case picklists (see Case picklists) in Setup → Design Studio → Entities → Case. Add Waiting on Customer, Waiting on Third Party or Escalated to Status if your desk uses them.
2. Review the shipped case rules in Setup → Process Studio → Business Rules. Edit or switch off the ones that don't match how your desk works.
3. If agents should have buttons for Close, Reopen, Escalate, Pause SLA or Resume SLA, add them to the case page header. See Design a form layout.

Step 8 — Add knowledge, macros and duplicate rules

1. Write and publish the first articles under Support → Settings → Knowledge Base.
2. Build macros under Setup → Feature Hub → Service → Macros. The Macros drawer appears only for agents set up for telephony; see Build and run macros.
3. If the built-in duplicate matching doesn't suit you, add a case rule under Setup → Feature Hub → Platform → Deduplication rules.

Step 9 — Restrict who can change the setup

Open Security profiles and remove create, edit and delete access to SLA Policy, Milestone Config, Business Hours, Holiday, Queue, Resource Group, Skill and Resource Skill from the profiles that should not change them.

Step 10 — Test with one case

Create a case with a contact email and a priority your policies cover. Check the SLA tab for the policy and OnTrack, the timeline for Case acknowledgement, and the case's queue.

Case picklists

These are the shipped values. Change them in Setup → Design Studio → Entities → Case. Values that business rules or SLA policies name must stay spelled exactly as the rule expects.

Shipped case rules

All of these are shipped on the Case entity under Setup → Process Studio → Business Rules.

The four status-setting rules run on every save. Because Assigned To and First Response Date stay filled, these rules can overwrite a status an agent picks by hand on a later save. If your agents change status by hand, add a condition to these rules or switch them off. See Cases for the full lifecycle and Queues and omni-channel routing for how often Auto-route new cases creates work.

Example

A regional appliance-repair company opens a support desk with two promises and two teams.

1. The administrator leaves Enable Support on, and switches off the SLA Policy Name Setting and Resource Skills Name Setting in Document settings, so typed names are kept.
2. Under Business Hours they create Weekdays 9–6: the office's time zone, Monday to Friday, day start 540 and day end 1080. They add the Business Hours field to the Holiday form and enter the year's public holidays, each linked to Weekdays 9–6.
3. Under SLA Policies they create Critical faults (Severity == "Critical", rank 10, 60-minute first response, 480-minute resolution) and a catch-all Standard (blank formula, Default on, rank 0, 240 and 2,880 minutes). Both use Weekdays 9–6.
4. They create two resource groups, Level 1 and Level 2, with the agents' resources, and queues of the same names on the Setup Queues screen. They edit Set Case Queue To High Priority to use Level 2.
5. They add Waiting on Customer to the Status picklist, so agents can pause the clock while waiting for a reply.
6. They remove edit access to SLA Policy and Queue from Standard User and Sales Executive.
7. A test case with Severity Critical gets the Critical faults policy, an acknowledgement on the timeline and a 60-minute first-response due time counted in working hours.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox where you are System Admin:

1. Open Support → Settings and count the cards.
2. Open Setup → Feature Hub → Platform → Document settings and find the SLA Policy Name Setting. Note whether it is active.
3. In Support → Settings → SLA Policies, create a policy named Practice with a blank match formula, Active on and Rank 0.
4. Reopen the policy.
5. Open Setup → Process Studio → Business Rules and find Set Case Queue To High Priority on Case.

Expected result: step 1 shows nine record cards plus Lead Allocation and Case Allocation. In step 2 the setting is active in a new organization. In step 4 the policy's name is an SLA number, not Practice, unless the numbering setting was switched off. In step 5 the rule is active and names a queue your sandbox doesn't have.

Quick reference

• Settings cards: Support → Settings (System Admin only, out of the box).
• Create and rename queues on Setup → Feature Hub → Service → Telephony → Queues.
• Set up in this order: calendars, policies, people, queues, lifecycle.
• A calendar needs working days, day start and day end, or it counts as 24×7.
• Policies attach at case creation and are never re-matched.
• Numbering replaces typed names on policies, calendars, holidays and resource skills.
• Fix Set Case Queue To High Priority before go-live.
• Waiting on Customer, Waiting on Third Party and Escalated are not shipped Status values.
• The acknowledgement email can't be changed or turned off.

Permissions

A user without the Settings page grant doesn't see the entry, but can still open any setup record their profile can access through the App Launcher. A user with no access to an entity sees nothing for it in pickers. Change all of this in Security profiles. Case permissions and action grants are covered on Cases and in the Support overview.

Configuration

Common problems

There is no Settings entry in the Support app

Only System Admin has the Settings page in the shipped setup. Grant the page on the user's security profile, or open the records from the App Launcher.

Our SLA policies and calendars show codes instead of the names we typed

Numbering is on for these records, and the number replaces the typed Name when the record is saved. Switch off the setting in Setup → Feature Hub → Platform → Document settings, then rename the records.

Work on a skill-based queue always stays Pending

The resource skills carry RS numbers instead of skill names, or the names differ from what the routing request asks for. Matching is exact. Switch off the Resource Skills Name Setting and rename the rows. See Skills.

High-priority cases show a queue that doesn't exist

The shipped rule Set Case Queue To High Priority names a queue your organization doesn't have. Point it at one of your queues, or switch it off.

The Queues form under Support → Settings has no Name field

That form doesn't show Name. Create and rename queues on Setup → Feature Hub → Service → Telephony → Queues.

SLA due dates ignore our holidays

The holidays are not linked to the policy's calendar. Add the Business Hours field to the Holiday form, link each holiday, and remember that cases already open keep their earlier due times. See Business hours.

An agent's status change is undone when they save

A shipped status rule set it back. Set Case Status To Assigned and Set Case Status to In Progress run on every save while Assigned To or First Response Date is filled. Add a condition to these rules or switch them off.

Customers don't receive the acknowledgement email

The case had no Contact Email, so the activity stayed a draft, or outbound email isn't set up for your organization. A failed send is not reported on the case.

Common questions

In what order should a new support desk be configured?

Calendars first, promises second, people third. Create business hours and holidays, then SLA policies with a catch-all at the bottom. Then set up resources linked to users, resource groups, and resource skills named for routing. Create the queues last, because they point at resource groups, and then fix the shipped rule that names a high-priority queue. Finish with the case picklists, macros, duplicate rules and permissions, and test with one case before go-live.

Why do my changes to an SLA policy not show on open cases?

The policy is chosen when a case is first saved, and its due times are worked out then. Edits to a policy's targets, formula, rank or calendar, and to its milestones' targets, apply to cases created afterwards. Open cases keep what they started with. Two things are read again on open cases: the policy's Pause Statuses, on every save, and a milestone's Completion Formula. There is no re-match action, so if an open case is on new terms, record the new commitment on the case itself.

Can one agent pool back several queues?

Yes. Queues point at resource groups, and several queues can share one group. The agent's work limit counts everything they hold across all queues, so sharing a pool doesn't overload anyone. Use separate groups when the queues need different people, or when you want each queue's members managed on their own.

Can I change the acknowledgement email?

No. Its subject and wording are built in, it is written for every new case, and there is no template or switch for it. It is sent only when the case has a Contact Email. If you need a different message, send your own email from a business rule, and accept that the built-in one will still be sent.

Do I need queues at all?

No. Queues are for offering work to whoever is free. A desk that assigns cases by hand, or with the Case Allocation console, can skip queues. A case without a Queue is never routed, and everything else (numbering, SLA clocks, acknowledgements) works the same.

Related topics

• xMatix Support overview
• Cases
• SLA policies and milestones
• Queues and omni-channel routing
• Business hours and Holidays
• Resource groups and Skills
• Build and run macros
• Deduplication rules
• Troubleshooting the support desk
• Security profiles