HaloPSA Advanced Series – Booking Resources

hey everyone we're back welcome to another Halo PSA video following on from our very successful implementation series uh this time we're focused on more advanced features of Halo and again with me today um I have my all-time favorite person at Halo Mr Halo I know he was missing out on being called that so we decided to help him out um and you know help him get through that by getting back on getting him back on screen and uh and kind of uh you know string easy go a little bit so um how are you doing Morgan yeah very well it's good to be back um yeah as you mentioned we've we've done our initial implementation series looking at the fundamentals of Halo PSA uh now we're going to take a look at some of the more more obscure features I suppose some of the um the less widely used feature sets and and uh the purpose of this series is to really get the most out of Halo PSA so make sure that you're you are using all the bells and whistles where appropriate yeah so um the agenda for today if I share my screen is going to be looking at uh resource booking in Halo uh so there's there's two methods to Resource booking there's resource booking of assets and there's resource booking of Agents so um yeah we'll start off with the assets and we'll we'll go from there sounds great yeah I mean and I get asked this quite a few times as well around the resource booking and I think you're right the you know we covered off all the basic stuff now it's good to kind of get into the meat and potatoes of it so to speak and um you know get people seeing what else um Halo can do and I think resource booking is a really good one for us to start on because you know we um this is certainly a question I get asked a lot so yeah absolutely cool so um again it's worth providing a little bit of context here behind the motivation for some of these features uh so resource booking for assets is um a a prime example really is you might have uh rooms in an office that you want to book out um or you might have some specific bits of Hardware that you you want to use might be like you know some CPU power or something like that um and what you can do with the asset resource booking is effectively um book out the book out the asset and it's also worth mentioning that this functionality um the the asset level resource booking was primarily developed for Halo itm whereas the the agent resource booking is probably going to be more applicable to msps but we'll we'll work our way up uh to that functionality so first things first how do we enable resource booking in Halo we we do that in our configuration panel and uh in Asset Management we have this uh resource booking module here that we want to make sure is enabled um I guess it's also worth mentioning because I know this came up in the the phase one of uh the implementation um for phase two I I've spun up a new trial so things might look a little bit different again some configuration and some new features have been added uh since we we first spun up the the initial instance of Halo PSA so things might look a little bit different uh of course if you see anything as I'm clicking through that you you want a hand in understanding then just leave a leave a comment below and we'll be able to get back to you but yeah let's go back configuration Asset Management resource booking so the first thing you see up here is a a little bit of blur um now we'll turn off the agent resource booking for now we'll come back and we'll turn that on in a moment um but the the first thing that we'll need to do is we'll need to make sure if we're talking about asset level resource booking that we actually have an asset type in Halo that is bookable uh and we we have a link here to go to our asset types so so let's say we have uh a laptop that we're Ren out for whatever reason um and we'll see as long as our resource booking module is enabled we have this resource booking tab against our different asset types where we can enable resource booking for assets of this particular type now once we enable that we have a few options that appear below firstly is the uh the resource booking hours so uh what time can we actually book this resource out uh you know is it just Monday to Friday or is it 24/7 so you can you can uh specify your your hours in here and then below that we have our different booking types uh let's actually let's not do laptop that's a pretty bad example let's go back and let's let's use a um mobile phone maybe it's probably a good one or yeah yeah sure use mobile phone so we might need this for um two hours you know uh 2our call we've got our duration uh in minutes or in days so put 120 in there um we've got buffers as well so hopefully people are familiar with the concept where you just don't have backtack bookings you can have buffers in between um and then a message to appear below and of course you can have multiple different types of bookings so I might also want um all day yeah maybe weekend or something you need to borrow whatever yeah yeah cool so below that we have some uh additional settings so here we can actually pick from a list of devices that that can be booked out or we can just round robin and just allocate the the next available device we'll have this option on and then um down here of course if we're booking assets uh well if we're booking assets and assets are allocated to a site we can specify the the site or all sites that we want to be able to book the device from um and then down here we have our asset restrictions which kind of works in a similar fashion to our web access level that we saw when we were having a look at the self-service portal configuration basically determines the level of access that an individual would have to booking an asset cool and then again uh we've got our minimum hours in advance we allow to book and then maximum number of days in advance as well so we can specify a time frame cool so the process of booking assets is actually done from a ticket now if we go back to config Asset Management resource booking we can see there's a little bit of information uh about a particular field that we need to add on to our ticket type that will then be used for the for the resource booking of assets so let's go ahead and create a new ticket type and again this is assuming that we've already gone through phase one of the implementation so hopefully people should be comfortable with creating new ticket types so I'm going to brush over all of that um go to our field list add our resource type in there go to our settings that's new go to our default select initial status that's all fine put it in a team cool so um now we've got our resource type filled on our book mobile ticket type what does that actually look like in practice let's go ahead let's raise a new ticket so um firstly we see this resource type now the resource type relates to the asset type y that we have allowed resource booking to be available on um now that's the that's the first part uh we do need to add at least one other field on there that actually allows us to pick the time frame for which we want to book the the mobile out one um so I think if we go in resource booking I think let's have a look go now um so firstly we've got our resource type here um below that we have our booking types that we allowed to be used and then we have uh the calendar below where we can specify our date and our time and then our Resource as well so the options in here are the different uh in this case mobile phones that we already have in Halo so the date is when we're booking it out for the duration is how long we're booking out for and the resource type equates to the asset type so I could see a real use case for this um and I was actually talking to somebody the other day that was doing this with with kind of Company Vans or something like that right where you might want to have somebody taking the company van out for for a length of time to go to a customer and where you had mobile numbers you know they just had registration plates of of the vehicle so you know which vehicle's been taken out when and how and by who and all that kind of stuff so um to it's a really good use case for it for sure yeah yeah we um we have something similar with with a room in our office where we we book that out for uh one or two hours um and then you know you know people can see what the availability is of that room so uh yeah I I always find that's a good example as well yeah cool um and finally I think as well we have uh on our calendar view the dates and Associated tickets for which the um the asset in question is booked out so at a glance you can easily see um what you have booked out when from the tickets tab so yeah there's not there's not heaps to it um but it might be one of those one of those points that's overlooked during initial implementation but I think there's quite a lot of value that you can you can get out of resource booking capabilities uh for the assets at least and probably more so for the the agent side which we'll have a look at now yeah exactly I mean I tend not to talk about these in the general you know implementation but I think like I said you know it adds so much value and um and this and and booking out a room or a or a van or something I think it's a really good good use of these and you know almost almost every person I think or every company I speak to always has some kind of resource that needs to um you know needs to be shared across um teams and and they need to know where it is at any time and you know booking it out using the system I think is a really really good idea most people kind of do it on Excel and those kind of things so it's good to good to kind of have it in the system for sure for sure right so uh agent resource booking we enable this and there's um there are some options that appear below firstly we have this dollar appointment booking so uh those of you that have been through phase one of the implementation um should be familiar with the concept of dollar variables and where they would go uh specifically in email templat let's make sure that is the case so if we go to config email email templates we go to ticket update we have a small bit of text here uh book an appointment with dollar agent first name here and then you can see that that is using dollar appointment booking which I think is the right variable I'm just going to double check uh appointment booking yes cool so um it also mentions down here that the the agent is determined by the uh ticket resource booking type at ticket type level so if we hop over to our ticket type configuration perhaps to an incident I think it's in the settings tab cool yeah we can see down here here we have our agent resource booking section so we can um we can specify that as an a particular agent or an available agent in a particular team and then down here as well we've got some defaults around the uh the default team that we want to be able to book from uh same for the the booking type and then down here if we're selecting from allowed teams we need to specify those allowed teams so it might be that we only want to be able to pick from first and second L support yeah and then it's worth mentioning here as well that at ticket type level we also have a default asset booking resource type so you know going back to the the van example it might be that um the ticket type is you know van hire or van usage or van booking whatever um if you have three or four different asset types in Halo you're going to want to default that one to Van of course per tiet type you can specify the default asset type for the resource booking there as well cool so I just hop into a ticket and then send an email out oh and then click on our link oh sorry can't do that uh go back here open that up that link is going to take the user in question to the self-service portal and in particular to a booking page on the self-service portal where we'll see a similar screen to what we saw a moment ago with our um with our asset type booking namely our duration and our time slots available and then if we pop back over to that ticket 2187 we can see that that has created an appointment for me on the on the 22nd and there it is um and so of course if your if your calendars are sync to uh exchange for example that appointment will then go over to exchange get added into your outlook Calendar um and you don't have to worry about about any of that your technicians can just see the work that that they need to do by looking at their calendar either in Halo or in Outlook um and it also is it's a handy means of bypassing the sort of the email P of oh no I can't do today can you do tomorrow I can't do tomorrow blah blah blah you just say here's a link um book in some time when whenever's convenient for you they follow that link they book in a Time appointment created in Halo syncs over to exchange um yeah where we go this is almost like a that that's almost like a calendly um time zest type thing where um yeah where somebody can just look at the available slots in your calendar and just book some time yeah it's a means of end users being able to schedule appointments with technicians um directly from Halo from Halo yeah yeah I mean I um you know I still use use um uh calendly and stuff to get customers to book appointments but actually I think this is probably a much nicer way of doing it because you kind of staying within the product so it's a good way to to kind of keep you know keep everything in one in one kind of central place so um yeah again I can see this being a a really uh a really good thing so I get a lot of people again asking me about you know Integrations with the likes of times EST and kendley and all these things and and you really don't need to integrate with that stuff if you've got you've got it set up here so yeah for sure um now there's a couple of points worth me in um one of them is at agent level you can exclude Agents from uh the resource booking availability so you know it might be that that an individual uh is is in the help death it might be level two um but you don't want them to take appointments or it might be that a you know service desk manager uh wants full visibility of tickets wants to to be part of first line the first line support team but doesn't want to be accepting appointments from end users so you can go into an agent and you can exclude them from resource booking and one of the uh one of the other points were bearing in mind uh again which is applicable to um to the the exchange calendar integration is when you're when you're performing agent level resource booking what you're doing is you're creating appointments when you do that in Halo you create an appointment of a certain type and so in config Asset Management resource booking under the agent resource booking when you're specifying your different booking types you can also as part of that determine the appointment type that you you want to you want to use which is powerful in that if you if you are hooked up to your exchange calendars your appointment types can be configured to also be a teams meeting so it might be I need to go in here obviously this isn't hooked up in this instance um but if I can get it to show the op I think turn on the teams integration it it allows you to do it via teams uh it's not actually it's not got anything to do with the teams integration in this instance it's just the you need you need the exchange calendar integration and you need to be using the graph API to integrate with your outlook Calendar um and when you have that all set up your appointment types give you an option to create an appointment in Outlook uh and create it as a teams meeting as well so again it might be that you need to book a call but it might be you you want to provide a teams call as part of that that booking as well um again similar to cly in that when you create calendly appointments you specify a location um similar concept here yeah cool yeah that's that's a long and short of it so again there's not heaps of configuration that you need to to do to to get this up and running um but if you're not already using a a solution for resource booking um it's here in Halo it's included in that license fee you don't have to pay anything extra to get that functionality just go to config Asset Management resource booking enable the uh the options configure your asset types if you're going to be using that functionality um set your ticket type configuration up if you're using the agent resource booking add your dollar variable onto the email templates that you want to provide that link on and Away you go yeah yeah that's very useful I mean I think like I said you know there's there's many people that are looking to to do Integrations with all kinds of other you know booking tools and um and there are there are tools like times EST and some of those that are designed for msps that kind of do integrate into this but I think you know the fact that this is kind of out of the box and very straightforward to set up um you you know might be that actually as an MSP you don't need to use any of those other tools because you've got it built in here in and you know this does a pretty good job for most use cases that people would need so yeah yeah and I don't want to so you know un honorable mention to timest uh they have an integration with Halo PSA um and I I did actually did a webinar with them a few months ago and we uh we mentioned that resource booking was native Halo functionality I want to make it clear of course that uh times s's resource booking functionality will likely be more comprehensive than Halo PSAs because that is their domain um so it's it's about weighing up the pros and cons if if you you just need to use agent resource booking to the extent that you've seen it here today great that's included in Halo um but if you are looking for something more comprehensive then yeah definitely check out timeses and they do integrate with us so yeah absolutely and um yeah and that wasn't obviously detract anything that they're doing you know it's I I know a lot of msps I use them I I have the integration set up I use I use it myself um part of it myself as well um so yeah and but I think from a from a very basic level what this does I think a lot of msps you know just simply saying Hey I want to book an appointment with Morgan or I want to book an appointment with whoever it is to just book an appointment and get a teams link um you know that's what most people kind of need to do so um so yeah I think it's really really cool really good functionality so I hope um hope everyone's found this video useful um you know leave some comments below if you want to see more or you know you want to kind of ask any questions myself or or Morgan can can answer those um so yeah thank you very much for watching and as always Morgan thank you so much for your time I know how valuable your time is and I really appreciate that you're you know spending time to help us record these videos and um as always thanks to Halo for letting us use you and really appreciate it and um yeah we'll be doing a few more of these so look forward to seeing you guys on the next one yeah yeah look forward to to kicking off uh phase two here so see you guys on the next one thanks yeah thanks byebye