Service Desk Express and Traffic Light Style Quick Views Based On Due Date

Ever since the release of Service Desk Express colour coded Quick Views have been supported. However, the examples that were always demonstrated related to colour coding based on Urgency ID rather than date/time (i.e. rather than approaching due date etc.). BMC subsequently created a knowledge base article that detailed the basics of how to color-code Quick Views based on the due date and whilst this article does give the basics, I thought it may be helpful to provide a bit more detail and a slightly more appropriate (well at least in my opinion) example.

The example I want to implement is a completely dynamic one whereby, the colour of the ticket (incident, work order, problem or change) will be:

• Green: If the current date and time is before the recommended fix date calculated as a result of the urgency selected.
• Orange: If the current date and time is between the recommended fix date and the due date calculated as a result of the urgency selected.
• Red and Bold: If the current date and time is after the due date calculated as a result of the urgency selected.

So the advantage here is that different urgencies can be selected as a result of SLAs etc. and the Quick View will automatically colour code based on the appropriate recommended fix duration and due date – nothing is hard coded.

As per the knowledge based article, to do this we need to create a calculated field in the relevant ticket module (in this example we will do it for Incidents). So, log into DB Admin and right-click on the Incident module and select Add Field…

Select Calculated as the Field Type from the drop down list and enter the following values in the appropriate textboxes:

• Alias Name: Due Date Status
• Column Name: DUE_DATE_STATUS
• Display Name: Due Date Status
• Formula: CASE WHEN GETDATE() > “RECOMMENDEDFIX_DATE:” AND GETDATE() < “DUE_DATE:” THEN ‘Warning’ WHEN GETDATE() > “DUE_DATE:” THEN ‘Critical’ ELSE ‘Normal’ END

Click the button to Test the formula which will prefill the type as varchar. Click the Save icon.

Log out of DB Admin as that is you done in there.

Now we need to create the Quick View as discussed above. Log into Service Desk Express and open the Quick View manager. Expand the Incident Management node and right-click on Incidents assigned to members of my group (Predefined Queries) and choose Copy Query. Enter a sensible name for the query and click OK. The Quick View wizard should appear with the query appropriately populated.

Click the Output link and click on the Due Date Status field from the Available Display Fields listbox and click the arrow to make it appear in the Selected Display Fields listbox.

Now click the Formatting link followed by the Advanced >>> button in the bottom right hand corner. We are going to add the three conditions specified above:

• If Due Date Status = Critical Then Background Color = Red and Text Attribute = Bold
• If Due Date Status = Warning Then Background Color = Orange
• If Due Date Status = Normal Then Background Color = Green

So assuming that these have been added correctly your Quick View should look something like the image below:

Click Review/Save followed by the Save button and your done. Your incidents will now be automatically colour coded based on the Recommended Fix and Due Date of the incident.

As always, any comments (positive or negative) always welcome.

• Service Desk Express
• traffic lights