Implementation, Integration, Customization

The Cove Systems Stream V Incident and Actions system is a powerful and versatile tracking system that can be used for a variety of tasks within a support and service organization. The Stream V implementation of the Incident and Action System allows for the integration of the CRM, Technical Services, RA tracking, and Technical support areas of your business.

The use of customized, user specific, multi-parameter browse technology allows the client to define exactly the functionality they would like for their system. All codes for Incidents, Stages, and Actions in the system are fully definable by the client company to allow the software to function by utilizing their workflow and processes.

The system allows the customer to be selected either Company centric or Contact centric, thereby allowing for the filtering of client support; either by the parent company or the specific company site utilizing your support services.
Incidents are free flowing and can either be predefined with stages and actions coming from the stages or as simple as a single action per incident.

All billing information is contained within the incident and is integrated with the accounting system to avoid the problems associated with batch systems that allow for billings to be missed due to lack of communication between various, and often disparate, systems.

Features - Incidents

An Incident is defined as an activity undertaken by a company to ensure Customer satisfaction and the smooth flow of activities throughout the company. All incidents have a defined number of stages that delimit the actions that will be undertaken in support of that incident. See Stage/Actions tables at the end of this document. A typical incident could be a support call, a repair or repair/replace call, or a customer service issue.

Incidents are defined in the tables set up by the administrator at the client company as are the stages involved in an incident. A stage defines the actions involved in a particular incident and may be as simple as dispatching a technician to as complex as tracking a service call through RA, return from vendor, loaner and reinstalling original component at the customer site. All of this is possible with serial number and lot number visibility.
Incidents can be tied to item/serial/lot numbers or allow free form subjects. The Incident System helps companies make informed service and support decisions based on parameters tracked within the system. System management tools allow the system administrator to make instant improvements to the workflow.

Email, appointment, and task integration with MS Outlook are available.
Incidents can be of single instance duration or can track support for a particular customer through a month, quarter or year. Every time an action is initiated within a particular incident, it is attached and tracked from that moment on, regardless of who is handling the individual action.

Reporting

• Customer report by incident, by actions or by technicians.
• Technician reports by customer, by incident and by action or technician utilization.
• Technician profitability tracking can be obtained from the SKU representing the technician with a standard cost which posts to an offset of the payroll account.
• All Cove reports can be run through the available job processor allowing email, file, or print delivery to the appropriate receivers.
• Ad hoc reporting is available through use of a SQL interface to the database.
• Crystal Reports is also available to further refine the reporting.

Dispatching

Automated dispatching is supported using workflow rules developed by the client company. Technicians are assigned either by skills, area of responsibility, or client preference. Stages within the incidents spawn the required actions saving the dispatcher time and your company training.

CRM Integration

All incidents are visible to the entire enterprise using the Cove CRM module. This allows Sales, Accounting, Service personnel, and Management to have an instant view of what is occurring at every customer, and the status of the Incidents that are active. This allows Sales specifically to be "on top of it" when calling clients for other reasons. They can immediately communicate to the client what is going on without the usual "hold on while I check" that occurs when using disparate applications for these functions.

The information available on Incidents is up to date and real time. There are no batch processes involved, so when an incident or action is updated, that information is available to anyone who needs to know the status up to the moment.

Incidents track the actual time utilized so far to the estimated time that was entered in the initial setup of the Incident. As actions are updated or closed the actual time in the incident is updated to reflect the total so the operator, technician, technical management, or sales person doesn't need to sort through the actions taken so far to determine the actual total amount of time utilized.

Comments both from the actions and the incident itself are available in a master panel. Comments can be date and time stamped to allow for a chronological flow of the incident. This allows for tight timelines if questions ever arise as to what service was performed, by whom and when.

Multi-Parameter Browse

Parameter files allow you to determine the data fields or columns which will be displayed when each sort sequence is selected. Security may be set up at the menu, program or field level on an operator, group, or global basis. Fields may be set up as required fields and driven from a user defined table to ensure consistent data entry. Records may not be saved until all required fields have been filled in. Multiple types of field validation are available (restricted by table, fill in required but free form entries allowed, select from table, or leave blank). This flexible design allows each field to be set up and validated based on how you use it.