Re-open Requests?

[bistr]

Hi,

Currently in our system, we have quite a few Requests that have been re-opened due to the fact that the Request was thought to have been completed, but in reality it had not been completed. Therefore, as a result, these calls have then been re-opened, however once re-opening the request, this then causes a bit of confusion to the stage properties of these calls and then the workflow of the stages and state don't seem to correspond anymore.  

Is there any procedure/implementation that can be implemented to enable a request and its associated RITM/Tasks to be re-opened? In addition, all our items in ServiceNow have been created using the item designer (not too sure if this would make a difference).

Thanks

RB

[Brad Tilton]

I don't think there's a great way to do this without adding rollback activities to your workflows. Once a workflow runs through and completes, you're done with it. I think if there was an issue and it needs to run back through the workflow people typically just re-request the item.

[williamsun]

I have to agree with b-rad, there is no clean way to do this.

I have implemented a strict policy in my organization where if something is closed by error (or any other reason) it needs to be re-requested.

Theoretically, either the request was misunderstood, the requester accidentally requested something wrong, or the analyst closed without validating with the requester.   In any of these cases, I would much prefer someone re-request this and have it go through the entire workflow again just to make sure the same mistake is not made again.   What I do that seems to calm people a bit is to have them reference the RITM # that was not fulfilled as expected.

[Uncle Rob]

Best I've seen is one of the following

1)   A final task at the end of every workflow for a QA group to validate completion.

2)   A mechanic similar to Incident, whereby the request stays open in a non-active "complete" state waiting for user feedback, and auto-closes after a certain number of days if no feedback is given.

Its important to understand where the *real* problem lies though.   Your service provider is saying "all done" and your customers are saying "no you're not".   The tooling isn't going to help this much.   This is a massive process issue.