Schoolworks Support - Best Practices and Process

Owned by Brett Talbot
Last updated: Apr 18, 2024 by Richard Turnbull
6 min read

  • This article explains how to best contact Schoolworks Support for a quick resolution to your issue.

  • Prior to contacting Schoolworks Support, please assess all other support options available to you:

Schoolworks Technical Support

  • Schoolworks Technical support is included with your Schoolworks licensing fee and is for help related to a feature of Schoolworks which is not working - typically a bug or system malfunction.

    • Additional support such as training, help with reporting, document creation, setup of Schoolworks (products, pricing, templates) integrations will typically incur additional time based fees or a premium support package.

    • We will advise if this is the case.

  • Technical support requests can either be made via our Support Portal or via an email request to support@schoolworks.io

  • In either case, we will need to have a user account setup in our Support System (Atlassian) so that your email address is recognised by our ticketing system.

  • If you have not submitted a request before or you have just joined your school please ask your manager or HR department to send an email with your details - first/last name, department and email address to support@schoolworks.io so we can set up a support account for you.

Support Ticket Best Practices

  • So that we can provide fast and efficient support and avoid unnecessary to and fro messages, please consider the following best practices:

    • Please consider the nature of the support request and if the support is covered by your plan

    • Email to: support@schoolworks.io

      • This automatically creates a TICKET for your request - (please see process below)

      • Please avoid emailing Schoolworks staff directly as this won’t create a TICKET acknowledgement and will slow down our ability to provide assistance

    • Email Subject

      • The email subject is used in our ticket name in our support desk to identify your specific issue

        • Please use a short descriptive in the email subject to help distinguish your ticket from everyone else's and to avoid confusion

          • e.g. Teacher (Bob Smith) cannot login - Urgent is much better than Help needed

    • Email body/content

      • Please describe your problem with as much information as possible

        • e.g. For Student ST-65241 we can’t book the GE Course for 2 weeks from 4th May 2023 to 10th April 2023 is much better than Enrolment screen is not working

      • Please describe all the steps we need to follow to replicate the problem you are having

        • We test for most situations so it is likely you may have found a very specific problem that requires more complicated steps to reproduce

      • Please describe both the error but also what you expect to see

        • e.g. Finance for the Booking ID 2323 should be £2499.50 but the screen is showing incorrect as £2200.50 is much better than Finance is incorrect

      • Please describe the urgency of your request

        • If your issue is preventing you or a group of users please help us prioritise your request

        • Please also advise if your request is not urgent or ideally when you would like your issue resolved

          • This will help us assign our resource to those who really need it

    • Use screen shots where possible

      • A picture tells a thousand words and will help us see what you are seeing

        • Please include a FULL screenshot of your screen rather than just a snippet of the screen, as this may help us to better understand the context of the issue

    • Use URL links to the records in your Schoolworks

    • Pleases (and thanks in advance!)

      • Please send a new email, new subject line for your new request.

        • Please don’t forward a long email chain or discussions from multiple people as it may take longer for us to process or understand it, or we may ask you to resubmit a request

      • Please make further replies or follow ups regarding the same issue with the TICKET-XXXX in the subject - see further communications below

        • This avoids creating multiple new tickets for the same issue

      • Please avoid using coloured text (we can’t see it on the ticket)


    • Best Practice Email example:

Further Support Communications (on the same issue)

  • Please respond to further communications about your support ticket either via the support portal OR by replying to the specific support email with the TICKET-XXXX in the subject line

  • Please don’t use coloured text in your reply as we can’t see it in our support system

  • Please don’t ‘reply’ to questions further down the original/previous message

    • Instead, please reply with a new content, at the top of the email as otherwise we won’t see your response

  • Please don’t reply to different support ticket emails or forward on older support emails

    • These may add your response to a different ticket or that ticket may already be closed in which case we may not see your response

  • Example of a further communication email:

Support Process

  • The following are the triage steps for support resolution

  1. Submission of support request

    1. Auto acknowledgement email confirming we have received your request:

      If you don’t receive an (almost) instant reply from our system with a TICKET-XXXX in the email, it means we have not received your request and are unlikely to action it. The typical reason is you have not been setup in our support desk (please see earlier about registration)

  2. Issue and Priority Assignment

    1. Within 30 mins (business hours) your Issue will be assigned to a support consultant and priority assigned and you will receive a confirmation email with those details and when you can expect a further response

    2. If you feel the priority level is not appropriate please reply stating your desired priority and rationale

      1. Much as we would like to resolve all requests as quickly as possible we use priority to ensure the most urgent requests are dealt with first

  3. Our Priority and corresponding reporting and resolution levels are

    1. Critical

      1. User or Users severely impacted and unable to perform usual functions and no work arounds exist

      2. Initial response within 1 hour

      3. Hourly updates

      4. We aim to resolve within one business day

    2. Urgent

      1. User impacted and unable to perform a usual function however work arounds may exist or can be put in place

      2. Initial response within 4 hours

      3. Daily updates

      4. We aim to resolve within two business days

    3. High

      1. User or users not impacted - typically minor feature updates

      2. Initial Response within 1 business day

      3. Regular updates during the week

      4. We aim to resolve within one week

    4. Medium

      1. User or users not impacted - typically larger feature updates or changes

      2. Initial Response within 1 week

      3. Weekly updates

      4. We aim to resolve within one month

    5. Low

      1. User or users not impacted - typically larger feature updates or changes

      2. Initial response within 1 month

      3. Monthly updates

      4. We aim to resolve within three months

Premium Support

Schoolworks offers additional premium support plans which can offer help with the following:

  • Consultancy

  • Training

  • Configuration of Schoolworks or your Salesforce

    • Setting up new products, schools, features

    • Assistance with the Salesforce Platform

    • Help with building your own custom reports and dashboards

    • Setting up automation

We can offer support on a rolling monthly basis (e.g. 'x' hours per month) or you can purchase a discounted block of hours.

If your implementation porject is complete no premium support plan is in place then our standard adhoc hourly fees will apply for non-technical support. You will be advised if support charges apply.

 

Can’t find what you need?
  • Try searching for keywords at the top of the screen, or browse the full wiki contents in the left-hand panel.
  • If you need further support, please login to your Service Desk account and raise a support ticket here or email full details to support@schoolworks.co.uk.
  • Full details of Schoolworks Support Best Practice and Process can be found here.