Track business processes with a SharePoint issues list

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12/22/2008

Track business processes with a SharePoint issues list

If your department manages issues that take multiple steps to resolve, a SharePoint issues tracking list can help you stay on top of them.

Some examples are customer service and technical support issues, in which you might need to track progress with follow-up steps and comments. This way, you know who responded when, and what actions they took.

Issue

After you create an issue, you or other members of your department can provide comments. The comments and other changes to the issue are tracked with versions, so that you can see all the follow-up steps.

Comments

For example, your employees could submit a technical support issue. The support staff could then comment on any follow-up steps or phone calls and show when the issue is resolved.

To fine-tune the process, you can assign your own categories, such as Customer Returns. You can also assign your own priorities, such as Priority 1 or High Priority.

To help move the issue through different business processes or departments, you can add a Three-State Workflow.

Another helpful feature is being able to associate new issues with existing issues. This may help reduce duplicate efforts and wheel-spinning, especially for issues that have the same root cause.

Related issues

If you have permission to create or design a Web site or list, you can create an issue tracking list. If you need to set up a list, and don’t think you have the right permissions, contact the person who owns your site.

Here’s how to create an issues tracking list:

You start by creating the list, similar to the way you create other lists: Click View All Site Content, and then click Create on the All Site Content page.

Tip: In most cases, you can use the Site Actions menu instead to complete this step.
Under Tracking, click Issue Tracking.
In the Name box, type a name for the list. The list name is required. It becomes part of the Web address for the list page, so you might not want to make it too long. It also appears in navigational elements that help users to find your list.
In the Description box, type a description of the purpose of the list. The description is optional, but it can help others understand the purpose of your list.
To add a link to this list in the navigation, such as the Quick Launch, click Yes in the Navigation section.
Click Create.

At this point, you’ll have the skeleton for an issues tracking list, but you’ll want to set up a few columns, such as the Category column, before anyone enters any issues.

The list comes equipped with a Category column, but it just has placeholder categories, such as Category 1, Category 2, and so on.

You’ll want to add categories that make sense for the issues you are tracking such as Bug or Feature Request for technical support issues, or Returns or Damaged in Shipping for customer service issues, and so on.

Here are steps to customize columns:

From the page that contains your issues tracking list, click Settings , and then click List Settings.
Under Columns, click the column that you want to change, such as Categories.
Make the changes that you want, and then click OK. For example, if you are changing the Categories column, select a placeholder category and then type the choice you want over it.

Repeat this for each choice, and then add more categories at the end if you want.

If you’ve found interesting ways to use the issues tracking list in your organization, please let us know.

Thanks!

Toni
SharePoint End-User Content Team

Posted at 12:08 AM by | Category: Business Processes; Productivity | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (4)

Comments

Send email with comments?

This is a great post on how to add new comments to an issue tracking list as the issue is worked on.

In my company we're looking at using the SP issue tracking list to manage issues currently handled with our customers through email.

Our issues frequently involve a lot of dialog and Q&A with our customers. Is there a way to send them an automatic email with the text of the new comment included so they don’t need to go to the extra effort to go to the website?

Thanks,
Hermione

at 9/2/2009 11:12 AM

Purpose of 'Current' Column in Issues list

In SharePoint wss2 the issues list had a column called 'Current'. Its purpose was to filter the list for the most 'current' version of the issue. One could modify a view and remove the filter on this column and one would see all the iterations prior to the current version of the issue. Within MOSS the column is still there but removing the filter has no effect. How does one create a view which shows all the previous versions? (Would link to via Access after that).

Any suggestions?

at 12/7/2009 10:52 AM

Related Issues?

I was recently asked how to filter the related issue section so only unresolved issues show up in the list. I can imagine this list can become cumbersome with hundreds of issues listed. If an issue is closed, it should be removed from the list. Any ideas?

at 12/8/2009 2:19 PM

Related Issues?

Design a custom Workflow and check with the status of the issue.

if the status is Closed then move it to another list

Your problem is sloved

at 1/6/2010 10:16 PM

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