The following information gives you the detailed process of making the most out of the Codification Tool. Please make sure that you take a look at the last two videos as these will complete the presentation in a constructive way.
The Codification Options screen provides a centralized overview of all codified problems (left half of screen) and their respective solutions (right side of screen). This section allows you to give codes to various hardware or software problems your company deals with, and codify their solutions as well. This is beneficial to your company as it would remove the repetition involved in retyping common problems and solutions. This data is also used to derive statistics.
Another aspect of the codification feature is that it allows the Head of the Department to create uniformity in problem solutions. Therefore by having a standard set of instructions, the solution for any technician dealing with a particular problem is specified through the codification and it applies to whosoever has been allocated a pending job. Confusion among different approaches of different technicians on a particular problem or simply waste of time can be effectively avoided.
As is obvious from the screenshot above, codes take the form of a prefix and a postfix with a dash in between, i.e PH-100. You have the ability to customize both prefix and postfix for your codes as will be described below.
From the very top left of the above screenshot, there is a strip available with buttons for print previewing of codes, printing of codes, deleting codes, prefix settings, and access to help.
Clicking the Prefix Settings button will launch the above screen. This section displays the Prefix Settings with default prefixes entered. You can change these to suit your company and it’s needs, and click ‘Save’.
With regards to the Problem prefixes, they are divided into Hardware and Software. You can use the default prefixes or you may devise your own to suite your particular needs.
With regards to the Solution prefixes, they are divided into Hardware/Software and Hardware/Software Fixed Charge. The difference here is that you can have different prefixes for solutions which will have varying charges (based on time spent by the technician) and solutions which will have a fixed charge (e.g. a computer format).
Problems are grouped into categories which can be customized. These categories appear as tabs a the top of the problems data grid . To add new categories, click the ‘Add New Category’ tab and enter the Category name and Type. This will create a new tab. To delete a category, first click on the category tab, click the red X at the top of the screen, and select ‘Delete Problem Category’ as shown in the screenshot below.
You will need to reassign all problem and solution codes belonging to the deleted category with either a new one or an existing one. In case the codes become obsolete, you can simply delete them. The video below demonstrates deleting a category followed by reassigning it’s problem code to another category, reassigning one of it’s solution codes to another category, and then deleting the other solution code.
To add new problem codes to your list, first click the ‘Add New Problem Code’ tab located on the bottom half of the screen. Enter the requested information and click ‘Add’. You can then add one or multiple matching solution codes. To do so, click the problem code on the data grid, and navigate to the ‘Add New Solution Code’ tab on the right side of the screen. You will notice that the Problem Code, Category, and Type fields will be pre-filled based on your problem’s attributes. Simply enter your solution code and it’s description and click ‘Add’. If you choose a Solution Code with a fixed charge prefix, you can enter the charge in the Fixed Charge field. You can also enter ‘Solution Instructions’ for the particular solution, i.e a step by step guide to solving the problem which will be accessible to the technician. We recommend creating matching problem and solution codes, for example, the problem code PH-100 can have solution codes of SH-100 or SH-100a and SH-100b.
You can edit an existing problem or solution’s information by clicking on the relevant problem or solution, choosing the ‘Edit Problem’ or ‘Edit Solution’ tab and making the desired changes to the fields displayed. Then click ‘Save’.
The video below demonstrates how to add a new category and create both a problem and solution for that category.
You are able to filter your problem and solution lists by clicking on the ‘Filter/Search’ tabs . Simply enter your search text in the text box and the results will be filtered in the data grid above.