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Configuring Unified Runbooks

Bring your SOPs to life with actionable, automated processes that work across the platform, right within a ticket.

Updated over 2 weeks ago

Turn your tribal knowledge and SOPs into actionable processes with unified runbooks. With runbooks, your technicians will be empowered to close tickets faster, automate repetitive tasks, and ensure service is consistent.

Let's see how you can make the most of unified runbooks below.

Setting up a runbook (Admins)

To create a runbook, go to Settings > Runbooks (under Advanced Configuration).

Click on +Create to get started. Enter a name and a description for your runbook. Click +Select action to get started.

Runbook actions

As an admin, you can define steps to follow and actions to perform for your technicians while they work on a ticket. Your technician will always have full control on executing any action. As an admin, you can define actions in your runbook in two ways:

1. Independent actions: These are actions and steps that can be performed by technicians in any order. Your technicians will also have the flexibility to ignore actions that may not be required for a particular ticket.
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2. Dependent actions: These are mandatory actions that need to be completed in order to proceed to the following action. If you would like your technicians to go step-by-step and stick to an order, dependent actions are your best bet.
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Independent actions can be stacked vertically while dependent actions can be stacked horizontally. You can define both dependent and independent actions in a runbook.

To add another action, hover over the action that you've already added and you will see two + icons. The one at the bottom lets you add independent actions, and the one on the right lets you add dependent actions.

Dependent actions will have an On completion indicator in the runbook builder that will help you visualize which ones are dependent and which aren't.

Runbook builder controls

Rearrange actions: Hold and drag any action to rearrage/reorder your list of actions in the runbook.

Auto Layout: If you're working on a complex runbook that has a lot of actions, you may end up with an untidy builder with actions all over the place. You can quickly fix this by hitting the Auto Layout button, which will neatly arrange all your actions.

Lock runbook: You can lock your runbook by hitting the lock icon. Do this to avoid editing a runbook by mistake when you're reviewing it.

Maximize/Minimize/Fit width: Control screen zoom with these three buttons.

Manual actions

Here's everything you can include in a runbook as a manual action:

  • Add checklist item

  • Associate task

  • Send a reply

  • Request approval

  • Run a script

  • Refer to IT documentation

  • Update ticket field

  • Initiate side conversation

  • Request note

  • Add worklog

You can precisely define how a technician should perform each action. For example, you can predefine which script to run, who to request approvals from, which IT doc to refer to, and which email template to use while initiating a side conversation.

Let's look at what configuration options are available under each action.

Add checklist item

A checklist item is a simple text-only option that you can add to your runbook, as a step or instruction for your technicians. Think of these as steps that you don't want to define as a task, but as a simple checklist of steps that your technician should see and be aware of when they're working on a ticket.

You can create multiple checklist items using the Save and Add New option, one by one.

Associate task

You can select an existing task or a group of tasks using the search bar. You could also create a new task from scratch with the +Create New button. Learn about tasks here.

Send a reply

Select the reply template that you want your technician to use while replying to the requester on the ticket.

Request approval

Define your list of approvers that need to give the green signal to your technicians' tasks.

Run a script

Define the script that your technician should run. You can select separate scripts for Windows, Mac, and Linux devices within the same Run Script action.

Refer to IT documentation

This action will pull up an IT documentation as a pop-up for the technician, right within the ticket. You can predefine which IT documentation to refer here.

Update ticket field

Predefine the values for your ticket fields here. If you have multiple ticket fields that need to be updated before a ticket is resolved, you can define those here. Your technician will simply have to execute the Update Ticket Field action with one click, and all of these ticket fields will be updated automatically.

Initiate side conversation

Select the reply template that you want your technician to use while sending an email to a vendor or a third-party.

Request note

You can request your technicians to add a note on the ticket with this action. As an admin, you can name your note (Eg: "Describe your diagnosis", "Script output") and give your technicians context on how you want the note to look.

Add worklog

You can predefine a worklog's service item and time duration here. Your technician will simply have to add the worklog once they're done with a task, or once they've resolved the ticket.

Auto actions

With auto actions, you can execute multiple actions together automatically, without technician intervention. You can use auto actions to perform manual, repetitive steps that your technicians typically perform on every ticket.

Select Auto Action from the dropdown and give it a name to get started.

You can do the following with auto actions:

  • Associate tasks

  • Run a script

  • Send a reply

  • Request approval

  • Add note

Add note vs Request note

The add note and request note actions work a little differently. Here's how:

  • Add note: An internal note is added automatically (as an auto action), based on what you define in the runbook. Use this when you want to add a common note for a particular type of SOP (Eg: For a user onboarding runbook, you could add a note that say "Employee onboarded successfully" as an auto action that will trigger once a technician resolves a ticket).

  • Request note: Prompts the technician to add a note on a particular topic. (Eg: For a user onboarding runbook, you could request the technician to add a note describing any concerns/custom requests that a particular user has asked for).

Runbook overview

Once you've added your actions and reviewed your runbook, you're good to go! You don't have to worry about saving progress, since SuperOps will auto-save every edit you make.

In the runbooks settings page, you can track how your runbook is being used with the Association and Completed columns.

Association: Number of times a runbook has been associated to a ticket (Automatically via ticket forms and time triggers, or manually)

Completed: Number of times a technician has marked a runbook as completed, by performing all the actions in it.

Using a runbook (Technicians)

Let's look at how you can use a runbook when you're working on a ticket, and how you can go about executing each action.

Here's what the runbook will look like in an associated ticket.

Executing an action

To execute an action, click on the play button at the far right. For example, if you want to pull up an IT doc, clicking on the play button will open the IT doc as a pop-up.

Completing an action

Once you've referred to the documentation and are ready to proceed further, you can mark this action as completed by checking the check box on the left.

Progress bar

You will see a progress indicator on the top that will show a count of the total number of actions, and how many have been completed. Each check will reflect in the progress bar as a completed action. Once an action is marked as completed, it will disappear from the runbook list and go into the progress bar.


Note: Checklist items will not have a play button, since these is a text-only step that does not have an action associated to it. Hit the checkbox to mark as completed directly when you're ready.


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