Service Management setup guide

This page walks through 10 steps to set up Service Management, in the order the in-app Setup assistant recommends. Each step lists what to prepare, the questions to answer first and the screen to use.

1. Prepare

Optional

What to have ready before setting up Service Management: base currency and cleaned-up files of customers, services, contracts and SLA commitments.

2. Service process controls

Required

Choose the checks every service document must pass: service order and project approval, tickets and SLA, billing and contract renewal, service categories.

Prepare first

• A short description of today’s service flow: contract, ticket, service order, timesheet, billing, renewal.
• The approval rule agreed with management for service orders and service projects: always, only discounted, or above an amount.

Questions to answer

• Which service orders and service projects need approval: always, only discounted or large ones?
• Do you commit response and resolution times (SLA) to customers, and should breached tickets escalate automatically?
• Must every ticket belong to an active contract? Do customers follow their tickets on a portal?
• How do you bill: time and material, fixed price, milestones or retainers? Must the customer confirm a statement before invoicing?
• Are contracts renewed automatically, and who must be reminded before they expire?
• Is the service business split into categories (managed IT, consulting) with different owners or approvers?

3. Service people

Required

Choose who runs the service business: the service manager, agents, category managers, first-line support and the customer success manager. You cannot remove a person’s last role here.

Prepare first

• The list of service managers, agents/technicians, support staff and approvers — each must already be invited as a user.

Questions to answer

• Who heads the service business, who are the agents, and who approves service orders and timesheets?
• Should an agent see only their own tickets, their team’s, or all?

4. Service lists

Optional

The choice lists used on service forms: ticket types, channels, catalog categories, billing units and cancellation reasons. Open a list to fill it with the standard values, rename, hide or add values.

Prepare first

• The ticket types, channels, catalog categories, billing units and cancellation reasons the business really uses (Vietnamese and English names).

Questions to answer

• Through which channels do customers raise requests, and which ticket types do you distinguish?
• How is the service catalog grouped, and in which units do you bill (hour, day, visit, month)?

Lookups to review (Settings → Lookups):

• Service Billing Units (service_billing_units)
• Cancellation Reasons (service_cancel_reasons)
• Service Catalog Categories (service_catalog_categories)
• Service Channels (service_channels)
• Service Ticket Types (service_ticket_types)

5. Document numbering

Optional

Number format of service contracts, amendments, projects, tickets, service orders and billing statements. Changing the format after numbers were issued leaves two code styles in the books.

Prepare first

• The numbering format the business wants (prefix, year, number of digits).

Questions to answer

• Do you want a specific numbering format for contracts, tickets and service orders, or keep the defaults?

Document types to configure numbering for (Settings → Document numbering):

• SM_CONTRACT
• SM_CONTRACT_AMENDMENT
• SM_PROJECT
• SM_TICKET
• service_order
• SM_BILLING_STATEMENT

6. Approval workflows

Optional · After step: Service process controls, Service people

Every document that must be approved needs an active workflow or, where allowed, a person who approves directly. Timesheets always need approval; projects and contracts are approved only through a workflow.

Questions to answer

• Should service orders and projects go through a multi-step workflow, or does one manager approve directly?
• Who approves agents’ timesheets before they are billed?
• Must new service contracts be approved before they become active?

Approval workflows to enable (Workflow → Template library) — see Workflow templates:

• service_order
• sm_project
• sm_timesheet
• sm_contract

7. Catalog, agents & SLA

Optional

Set up what you sell and who delivers it on the existing screens: service catalog items, agent profiles with tier and skills, and SLA policies. Counts update from real data.

Prepare first

• Create the service catalog first, then the agents with their tier and skills — assignment checks match the two.

Questions to answer

• How many services do you sell, and which skills or tiers does each require?

8. Import data

Optional

Bring customers, contracts and projects in with the existing import screens. Each button opens the import with its template; the counts update from real data.

Prepare first

• Import in this order: customers → service contracts → service projects. Contracts must exist before tickets and service orders can reference them.
• Fill the old-system code column so re-importing the same file updates rows instead of duplicating them.

Questions to answer

• Where are customers and service contracts kept today, and how many of each?

9. Open documents

Optional

Tickets and service orders still open on the cut-over date are imported with the existing import screens; closed ones stay in the old system.

Prepare first

• Agree the cut-over date: tickets and service orders still open on that day are brought into XBuddy; closed ones stay in the old system.

10. Go-live check

Optional

Run one real service case end to end with the key user before go-live. Tick each step once its result is checked.

Prepare first

• Use one real customer with one real contract; agree with the key user who checks each result.

Next

See the feature pages of this app in the left menu, or the setup guides of every app.