One Company Supporting Another

One company supporting another

Module: System → Companies, the self-service portal, the ticket reading pane · Raised in: #228 · From: the release after 4.11.0

Sometimes one company in FreeITSM gives IT support to another. Support Co looks after Acme's people, say - but Acme may have IT of its own too. This page explains the two ways to set that up, and which to choose.

• How the code works: Company support links - Developer Guide
• In the app: System → Companies → Help → One company supporting another

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First: each person belongs to one company

A requester in FreeITSM belongs to one company. That does not change. Almost everything on the portal follows a person's company - which Knowledge articles they read, the service catalogue, the mailboxes and categories they are offered, what their manager can see in Team tickets. A person in two companies would need a second answer to every one of those, and different organisations would want different answers.

So instead of putting a person in two companies, you link the companies.

The two ways - pick one

	1. Support Co's analysts work inside Acme	2. Acme's people send tickets to Support Co
Best when	Support Co simply is Acme's service desk	Acme has its own IT, and only some requests go to Support Co
Where tickets live	In Acme	Acme's own in Acme; the ones sent to Support Co in Support Co
How to set it up	Give Support Co's analysts (or their team) access to the Acme company - System → Analysts or Teams	Edit Support Co → Supports other companies → tick against Acme
New?	No - this has always worked	Yes

Setting up way 2

1. Open System → Companies and Edit the company that gives the support (Support Co).
2. Under Supports other companies, find the company it supports (Acme). There is one row for every other company.
3. Tick what you want. Each tick saves straight away - there is no need to press Save.

Tick	What it does
Don't warn	When somebody from Acme emails Support Co, the ticket is filed under Support Co - correctly. Without this, the reading pane says "Filed under Support Co, but the requester looks like Acme" and offers to move it. With it ticked, that is expected, so the warning is not shown. Only that way round: an Acme ticket from a Support Co person still warns.
Portal	Acme's people see a Raise with choice on the portal's New ticket page: Acme (their own, chosen to begin with) or Support Co. Choosing Support Co files the ticket under Support Co.

Untick both and the link is gone. Until you tick anything, nothing changes - an install that never uses this behaves exactly as before.

What Raise with changes - and what it does not

When an Acme person chooses Support Co:

Changes to Support Co's	Stays Acme's
The company the ticket belongs to	Their Knowledge articles and the catalogue
The mailboxes offered (replies go from Support Co's address)	Their profile, equipment and everything else on the portal
Categories, ticket types and the questions asked	Where the portal asks those questions (side panel or main form)
The ticket number's company code, the default department, ticket type rules	Who they are - still an Acme person

They see the ticket in My tickets like any other. Their managers see it in Team tickets too, because their people may now raise tickets there.

The choice is checked again when the ticket is sent. A company that is not offered - because the tick was taken off in the meantime, or because somebody edited the page - is ignored, and the ticket goes to their own company.

The wrong-company warning

On a multi-company install, the reading pane warns when the person who raised a ticket seems to belong to a different company from the one the ticket is filed under - worked out from their email address, using the company email domains and specific senders. It offers Move to … and Dismiss.

• Dismiss is now remembered. It hides the warning on that ticket for good - unless the warning would later suggest a different company. It used to come back every time the ticket was opened.
• For every ticket from a company you support, tick Don't warn instead of dismissing them one at a time.
• The warning is now translated like the rest of the screen.

Good to know

• Inactive companies are never offered under Raise with.
• It is one way. Support Co supporting Acme does not let Support Co's people raise tickets with Acme. Tick it on Acme as well if you want both.
• A requester with no company gets no Raise with choice.
• Before Database Verification has been run after upgrading, the section says so and nothing changes.

Related

• Multi-tenancy · Email routing & mailboxes · Staff cross-company access
• Self-Service Portal
• Company support links - Developer Guide