ITSM & ChaRM – Reminder / Escalation emails using Date Management (Dates and Durations) Part 1

In few of my previous projects, I have come across the requirement to send an Automatic Reminder or Escalation email. This email has to be sent automatically when the allowed time limit exceeds. There are Standard Reminder/ Escalation email Actions available under the Service Request management for SLA escalations. However, for General Reminders/Escalations on delays in Processing, etc., there is No Standard functionality currently available in Solution Manager – ITSM & ChaRM. I hope this blog would help to handle such requirements.

I have used a sample requirement for the context of this Blog. It goes like this -- When an Incident has been forwarded, the requirement is to send a Reminder/escalation email after a specific wait time if the Status is still unchanged.

Below are the Steps to do this:

Update the applicable Date profile with the Custom date types, date rules, and duration.

The Custom duration is for saving the Maximum allowed time before the email could be sent.

The below date types are for calculating the Clock Start Time and the Time it exceeds the allowed wait period.

The Custom date rule is to calculate the maximum allowed/ wait time. In this example, it is for calculating ZFWD_LMT_MAX.

The XML code for the date rule is updated as below.

***If you want to use a different set of Date rules for your situation then you can refer the Blog written by Deepa Madyalkarin the CRM space Creation of Date rule using XML rules. - CRM - SCN Wiki

Assign the new Custom date types, date rules and durations to the applicable Date profile.

The Duration can be assigned with a Default value (here I have assigned it as 24 hours) if the maximum Time limit is Fixed.

In order to maintain the duration as a variable value and make it available for edit in the CRM UI of the document check the ***Part 3 blog***.

ITSM & ChaRM – Reminder / Escalation emails using Date Management (Dates and Durations) Part 3

The Settings related to SLA Escalation can be used for updating the duration.

The Current Date and time is assigned to the date type ZFWD_LIMIT when the status is changed to ‘Forwarded’. The below setting will do that. Then based on the date rule and the duration (Z_FWDDURA) the ZFWD_LMT_MAX will be calculated for the trigger point for the escalation or reminder email.

***The Configuration related to the PPF Action and conditions for the Escalation or Reminder email are explained in Part 2 blog***

ITSM & ChaRM – Reminder / Escalation emails using Date Management (Dates and Durations) Part 2