Linking a solution to a closed case
I’ve talked in the past about the functionality and benefits of linking solutions to cases, and I’ve shown how we’ve simplified the process in Dovetail Agent.
One scenario that’s come up more often, especially around here, is the need to link a solution to a closed case.
A common workflow we see here is:
1. A case is opened for a customer
2. We work with the customer to figure out a resolution to the issue
3. Customer uses SelfService to indicate that the resolution solved the issue, and the customer closes the case (and you know how much I love when a customer closes their own case)
Now that we know that the resolution we provided did indeed solve the problem, we can create a solution, so this knowledge can be reused, should the same issue arise in the future.
4. Create a new solution
So we’ve created a solution, but we can’t link the solution to the case because the case is closed.
So, we:
5. Reopen the case
6. Link the case to the solution
7. Close the case again
In general, once a case is closed, there shouldn’t be any more changes made to it.
It seems kind of silly to have to reopen a case, just to link it, so then you can just close it again.
We had a few discussions around this, and decided that it should be OK to link a solution to a closed case.
So off we went to make the change to Dovetail Agent.
Solution Form
The solution form looks the same – the Link this Solution to a Case button is still there:
which opens a lightbox with the list of your open cases.
We’ve added a new checkbox, which allows you to include my recently closed cases:
clicking that checkbox now includes your recently closed (but not yet linked) cases:
and there’s an icon there as well that indicates that it’s a closed case:
So now you can link a solution to one (or more) of your closed cases.
So what do you mean by “recent”?
Notice that I said it shows your recently closed cases.
Obviously, we don’t want to show all of your closed cases – that could be hundreds or thousands.
What we decided on was showing the closed cases modified in the last 30 days, up to a maximum of 25.
Are these values exactly right for all customers? No. Was there some exact science here to figure this out? No.
But, we think it’s a good place to start, and we can always change based on customer feedback.
Plus, since Dovetail Agent is so easy to customize, any customer can modify these parameters to be specific to their implementation, if needed.
Rule breakers
Even though Clarify “rules” dictate that a closed case shouldn’t be modified (and in general, we follow those same rules), this is one case where we feel a rule change is warranted.
This change will be available in the upcoming Dovetail Agent 4.5 release. Hope you find it useful.
