Service chains and operational catalogs

Chains organize how reports move between roles. Catalogs define the options people choose when creating, prioritizing, suspending, or completing work.

Availability: configuration for owners and administrators of a Company organization; general catalogs are also used in Professional with a simplified flow. Level: Advanced.

Purpose

Use a chain when several roles must receive or transfer reports in an ordered way. Keep types, urgencies, and reasons active so forms offer current choices without losing earlier history.

Requirements

Company mode to configure chains, lines, and routes.
Active roles to add as lines.
Owner or administrator to modify chains and catalogs.
A Company can create reports without a chain, but they have no line and do not participate in line routing or line queues.

Configure the primary chain

Open Settings, Service chain, and create a chain if none exists.
Add L1, L2, and later lines, each linked to a role. A role can appear only once in the same chain.
Create routes from an origin line to a destination line.
Enable Create to let reports created by the origin role enter the destination; enable Transfer to allow that movement from the origin line.
If no creation route applies, the report enters L1. If the chain has no active routes, L1 is the default receiving line.

Catalogs

Report types: name, optional readable identifier, description, and status.
Urgencies: name, optional identifier, level from 1 to 9, description, and status.
Suspension reasons: name, description, whether a part is required, and status. Selecting a reason that requires a part offers request creation in the same step.
Completion signatures: disabled, optional, or required, with configurable declaration and additional data.

Initial choices are created automatically when an organization is created. They can be adapted or deactivated. Deactivation prevents new selections but does not alter historical reports.

Rules and effects

Inserting or removing a line reorders positions and rebuilds routes by line number; review the outcome because the connected pair of roles may change.
A route can allow Create, Transfer, or both.
Chains describe flow between roles, not hierarchy between sectors.
The current signature policy applies to each new resolution cycle; it does not rewrite earlier evidence.

Required and optional information

Required: chain name; role for every line; origin and destination for a route; name for report types and urgencies; urgency level. Optional: using a chain, adding routes, type and urgency identifiers —generated from the name when omitted—, descriptions, deactivating choices, marking that a reason needs a part, and enabling signatures.

Practical example

The chain places Service Desk in L1 and Technician in L2. A route allows transfers from L1 to L2. Requesters enter through L1; Service Desk classifies and transfers cases that need technical intervention.

Current limits

Although multiple chains can be created and selected, adding or removing lines and routes operates on the primary chain. Alternative chains are visible but cannot be fully configured through the interface.
Chains cannot currently be renamed, deactivated, or deleted from the page.
To change an existing route's options, remove and recreate it.
The interface allows saving a route without Create or Transfer; it provides no useful flow and should be avoided.
New chains are general; the page cannot associate them with a specific report type.