Requests, Requesters and Votes Count

The Requester is a special entity in Targetprocess that represents an external user. As Requesters, your customers and stakeholders can log into a standalone Service Desk integrated with your Targetprocess site. Requesters don’t require a paid user license.

The Service Desk allows Requesters to post Requests (aka tickets) with their Issues, Questions, and Ideas. It also allows them track the status of submitted Requests and related Bugs and User Stories. Requesters vote for existing Requests and communicate with your internal support staff via comments.

Requester-users doesn’t require a license. You can communicate with as many Requesters as you need and create a virtually unlimited number of Requesters.

Every Requester has a name, email address, password, list of associated Requests, and can be attached to a particular Company. Using Requests, Requesters, and Companies in Targetprocess, you can provide direct support to your customers.

Requesters can be created automatically as well. Whenever you receive an email from a previously unknown external user, his/her email is converted into a Request by the POP Email Integration plugin, and the sender email address is added as a new Requester.

Your regular users can also sign in to Service Desk with their Targetprocess login records and act as Requesters.

Votes Count

A public Request can have more than one Requester attached. In this case every Requester is regarded as a positive vote for this Request.

See Votes Count in Service Desk

In the Service Desk you can quickly sort Requests by votes count and filter them by product, type and state:

When users press the Vote button on a Request in the Service Desk, they are automatically attached as Requesters to this Request.

See Votes Count in Targetprocess

For Customer Care Managers and Support Agents we recommend using the Targetprocess application instead of Service Desk portal to manage both entities. Targetprocess helps to manage requesters and votes efficiently. You will need a view showing Requests as cards for this purpose.

Creating a Board View for Requests Management

1. Press + Create > Board button
2. On the Templates tab, please select Request Progress template to apply it
3. On the Setup tab apply filtering and sorting, set vertical and horizontal lanes, default projects and teams if required
4. Press Finish Setup button

A board view with Requests selected as cards and their states as columns helps to track progress of your requests:

List views for Requests are also supported.

See Requesters for a Request

If you would like to see who voted for an existing request, attach a new Requester, or detach an existing one, please do as follows:

1. Double click a Request
2. Open Requesters tab

The total count of votes is displayed in the tab header. The list of attached Requesters is shown below.

See Votes Count in Views

It is possible to show the Requesters count on the cards in your view. To select fields to be displayed on cards, create or open a view for Requests management, press Actions > Set up view button and open the Customize Cards tab in the settings of your view.

Here is how list view for Requests with customized columns looks like:

Sort Requests by Votes Count

Since Targetprocess v3.10.5 it is now possible to show Requests sorted by votes count in your views. It helps to build a view showing a list of the most popular and wanted ideas.

To configure the view, follow the steps below:

1. Press Actions > Set up view button in the view header
2. On Setup tab, press Sort button and select Votes option in dropdown. Select ascending or descending order.
3. Press Finish setup button to save view settings

Filtering Requests by Various Parameters

It is possible to filter Requests by multiple fields such as state, type and votes count. The following advanced filter helps to:

• Show Ideas only
• Hide Closed ideas
• Show only tickets having 5 votes and more

?EntityState.IsFinal is False and RequestType is 'Idea' and Requesters.Count >= 5

Merge Duplicate Requests

Starting with v.3.7.7 you can now merge duplicate Requests. When being on a Request detailed view, you may notice a Request Duplicates list directly below the entity state.

For any primary Request it makes possible to find and add other requests as duplicates. The search is performed by known keyword or numeric ID. Requests become connected with a Relation of special type called ‘Duplicate’.

As a result, duplicate requests are listed in "Request Duplicates" list of primary request and in Relations tab of both requests.

When you click the Merge button a few things happen. First, attachments from any duplicates that are not in the final state are added to the primary Request and then any descriptions and comments are copied as a comment tree to the primary Request. All unique requesters are transferred as well. All the duplicates are moved to their final state (literally, closed), tagged ‘merged’. Finally, a comment with a reference to the primary request is submitted to each of them automatically.

Manage Requesters

See the following article for more information on how to manage Requesters in Targetprocess.