You can setup an Automation rule that will fire up what's called child incidents once the main one is created. Make sure that the category used for the main incident is something used ONLY in the case of a new hire -I would even go as far as not listing it with your normal categories.-

Let me know if you need help setting up your Automation rule.

We have done this for our new hires, terms and transfers. I created a category of Account Admin\Master. Then my automation rule criteria is category=Account Admin\Master and Comment=hardware, for example, to create a new child ticket for the hardware request.

Use of the WORKITEM macro will help you pass values from the parent ticket to the child ticket. I also will be happy to share info with you if you need more.

Thank you for your quick response and offer to provide additional information. You make it sound easy...

We would appreciate your help setting up the Automation rule. Please forward

Thank you

Allison
Escambia County Florida

We just went live with Helpdesk a few months ago and are looking at setting up the same thing as Allison...One incident that involves multiple tasks. Any pointers would greatly be appreciated. Thanks, Sally

I'm new with Altiris Helpdesk and I'm also looking for help on this subject like setting up the same thing as Allison...One incident that involves multiple tasks. Thanks for your help.
MaYeu

For my environment, we used a single MASTER category of Account Admin/Master. When this is the category, and other conditions are met, a child ticket is created. The parent ticket remains open until all child tickets are closed, then it closes automatically using an Incident Rule.

For example, if a request comes in for a computer setup and also install additional software such as Visio, there would be 2 child tickets created from the master/initial request...one for assets and one for the software install. Each child ticket can then act independantly of the others and use the standard incident, validation, and notify rules you may have specified.

The first step is to set up your master category that will only be used for this purpose. You may need additional validation rules to restrict who/how the master tickets are created.

Here is an example of one of my child ticket automation rules.

 
<Helpdesk>
<AutomationRules xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <AutomationRule>
    <Name>New Cell Phone or Wireless Card - Child Ticket</Name>
    <Description>Creates a child ticket for a new Cell Phone and/or Wireless card from ETMS or Stand-alone</Description>
    <Status>active</Status>
    <Rank>2</Rank>
    <IsTerminal>no</IsTerminal>
    <LogToIncident>no</LogToIncident>
    <ApplyTo>onlynew</ApplyTo>
    <Urls>
      <UrlParam type="url" name="New Cell Phone or Wireless Card - Child Ticket" base_url="~/AeXHD/WebService.asmx/ProcessWorkItem" method="1" impersonate_user="false" user_data="url_incident" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="id" param_value="new" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="workitem_title" param_value="New Cell Phone or Wireless Card - Child Ticket" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="workitem_link_parent_number" param_value="WORKITEM(workitem_number)" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="workitem_link_type_lookup_id" param_value="200" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="serviceWorkerGuid" param_value="FCA7F0B7-B61B-4979-946E-C921B85F2A39" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="workitem_assigned_to_worker_id" param_value="11" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="workitem_comment" param_value="WORKITEM(workitem_comment)" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="workitem_category_tree_value" param_value="Asset Request\New\Cell-Wireless" />
      <UrlParam type="param" param_name="workitem_contact_id" param_value="WORKITEM(workitem_contact_id)" />
      <UrlParam type="script" />
    </Urls>
    <Criteria>
      <Criterion field="workitem_category_tree_value" op="optSameAs" value="Account Admin\ETMS Master" type="text" />
      <Criterion field="" op="" value="1" type="group" />
    </Criteria>
    <Criteria or_together="true">
      <Criterion field="workitem_comment" op="optContains" value="Wirelesscard" type="text" />
      <Criterion field="workitem_comment" op="optContains" value="Blackberry" type="text" />
      <Criterion field="workitem_comment" op="optContains" value="Cell Phone " type="text" />
    </Criteria>
  </AutomationRule>
</AutomationRules>
</Helpdesk>

Notice the use of the WORKITEM macro to retrieve data elements from the workitem view.

You will also need the following Incident Rule to close the parent after all child tickets are completed. Inherit status from parent, which should already be there by default. There are also 2 default automation rules that work with the Incident rule above: Push status to Parent and Push status to Children. All 3 of these rules should be active.

I created an Article that talks about the whole process. Check this link for the details.

Hi mabdelnabi,
I went to check that link and it must have not transfered over from the juice. Any chance you an post it again?

Thanks

I did a search on "create" "child" "incident" and you can find it here:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/creating-child-incident

Guido

Looks good. Thanks!!