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There is a thin strip of buttons running down the left side of a UniDesk window, which collectively makes up the ‘Quick Launch Bar’. The top button is the menu button.

From the menu, you can create new cards, such as calls, problems, Person records, etc.
You can also call up the Task Board (which is a unified To-Do list), or your dashboards, look at Help information within UniDesk, or open a module overview.
The Task Board and Dashboards are likely to be more useful than the module view for most users.
The buttons which appear beneath the menu button on the Quick Launch Bar are user configurable. You can choose your own buttons to appear in this menu, except for the search button, which is always directly below the menu button, and the bookmarks button, which is always the last button in the list.
This list of buttons has tooltips describing their function, if you hover the cursor over them. In descending order the buttons shown above are for TOPdesk menu, Search, Caller Card, New Person, New Standard Solution, New 1stLine Call, New 2nd Line Call, Knowledgebase start page and Bookmarks – but your list could look different.
At the bottom of the Quick Launch Bar, there is an icon which looks like a pen. This is the button which allows you to reconfigure your Quick Launch Bar.

You can even choose to create quick links to other websites in the Quick Launch bar.

Tabbed navigation

In UniDesk, cards are opened as tabs, at the top of the window. (These tabs are within the browser window, they are not individual browser tabs.). All of these can be dragged and dropped into a particular order.

You can always click the leftmost tab (the ‘start page’ button) to return to your start screen.

The rest of the tabs can be closed with the cross in the top right.

The little ‘pen’ icon beneath some of the crosses is not clickable, it indicates that the card has been changed sinced it was last saved (i.e. that there are unsaved changes in that card).

At the right hand side of the tabs there are three buttons. The left button is for dealing with cards, the right button is for user settings (and logging out).

The card button can be used to return to the start page.

The drop down menu from the card button will also show any open cards (in this case none).

You can also choose to close all of your open cards/tabs from this menu.

The recently closed cards list will bring up a scrollable list of the cards you opened most recently, from all disciplines including call management, problem, change or even supporting information such as Person records.

From the user settings button, you have the option to log out, or to change user settings.

The user settings allow you to change your display setup. Almost all users, particularly in first line teams, will want to select to display ‘To-Do-List for Groups’.

Recommended Settings

Bold: logged today
Italics: modified by someone else
Blue: Target Date is today (only works for Open status)
Red: elapsed
To-Do Lists for Groups: Display (particularly if you are a member of multiple groups)

Availability: Send copy to: Own email address (unticked) – ticking this will cause UniDesk to cc the operator for all emails sent by it, including the notification emails, which is usually undesirable.

Task Board

The Task Board is a ‘Unified To-Do List’. It provides an overview of tasks assigned to you as an Operator, from all the modules of UniDesk which are relevant to you.

For many Operators, this will only be Calls. However for Operators interfacing with Problem Management, Change Management or other disciplines, these tasks will also appear in this list. Tasks are sorted by target date.

Tasks and time periods may be expanded or collapsed using the triangles on the left, and tasks may be easily bookmarked.

The default is for the Task Board to display tasks for the current operator (“Own”), but the filters may be used to display “Own and Groups” or just “Groups”. UniDesk uses the following terms which are useful to remember:

  • Own – Records (Calls, Problems, Changes, etc) assigned to you
  • Groups – Records assigned to the operator group(s) of which you are a member, but not yet assigned to a specific operator
  • Own and Everyone in Groups – Records assigned to you, your groups, and to your colleagues in these groups.
  • Unassigned – Records assigned to neither a specific operator group or operator. Unassigned calls are usually picked up by the primary Service Desk and assigned to operator groups as appropriate. Unassigned calls shouldn’t normally happen, but can occur where users email the system directly, or reply to a closed call.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is a customisable space in which reports, key performance indicators (KPIs), selections and even shortcuts can be added. There is an overview dashboard, and then individual dashboards for each module.

To access the dashboard, click the TOpdesk button and choose “dashboard” from the menu that appears.

A dashboard tab will open.

As you can see from the navigator on the left, the module currently selected is “Change Management”.

There is an overview dashboard which incorporates elements of each module, and an individual dashboard for each module to which the user has access.

The items visible on the dashboard are called ‘widgets’ and are user configurable, so your dashboards can incorporate whichever elements you find useful.

To remove a widget, hit the cross in the top right corner of the widget. Note that default layout widgets can not be removed, although they may be moved around or minimised.

To add a widget, click on the “Add Widget” button in the top right of the Dashboard.

Various widget types may be added, and there is also the option to use the default settings.

The default provides process specific widgets and should be chosen before attempting any other customisation, as taking the default at a later stage will remove all personalisations.

Opt to use the default for each module available to you from the Navigator

Start Page

his is the UniDesk start page. It is the first screen you see when you log in to UniDesk.

Or by clicking on the home button  at the top right 

Apart from the Quick Launch Bar on the left, which is always visible, the Start Screen is split up into three main sections.

  • Tasks Widget – This gives a quick overview of outstanding tasks from the relevant modules (such as Call and Problem Management)
  • Selections and Reports – This can be used as a quick launcher for favourite selections, or regularly run reports.
  • Latest News – This is where IS will publish news which is likely to be of interest to UniDesk Operators – it’s not intended as a replacement for a centralised alerting service if your institution uses one.
  • It is now possible to add a web widget to the home of the Operator’s Section. With this widget you can add certain web content to the home, such as an embeddable website or a YouTube video. Note that the site needs to be an embeddable website for this to work. So, m.google.co.uk is embeddable. google.co.uk is not embeddable so won’t work.

The Start page may be customised using the “Add Widget” button at the top right, and widgets may be minimised (using the triangle next the widget’s title), moved (click and drag the widget’s title) or removed (for those with an x) to suit the operator.

One widget that may be useful for those operators in multiple operator groups is the “Tasks per group” widget which shows tasks assigned to each of your operator groups, but not yet to an individual operator.

Useful Information

Although the start page has a lot of useful information available, most Operators will want to use Task Board and Dashboards to get an overview of their work.

Tasks Widget

The tasks widget can be found in UniDesk’s Start Page.


It will show you tasks that you might be responsible for, including first line and second line calls. It will only show tasks for modules that are assigned to you, in this case, Call Management and Problem Management.

There are two columns with numbers in them. By default, the first column is set to show you how many items are assigned to you as an operator (“own”). The number in the second column represents items assigned to you as an operator (“own”), your operator group (“groups”), and any items that have not been assigned yet (“unassigned”). Unless you work on the IS Helpline, you are unlikely to be responsible for processing unassigned calls, so you may wish to change this column to something more relevant.

Often folk settle on one of two options for the second column:

Groups for operators wishing to see the incoming calls for a team, yet to be assigned to an individual operator

Own and everyone in Groups for operators (often team leads) who wish to see what is assigned to the whole team

NB hovering over the number should reveal “Filter: not completed”, that is, the work yet to be done.  If the filter is “not closed” or similar, then click on the number and then the filter text (see bottom image) to correct it.

You can change the columns by clicking on the  button in the top right of the widget, and choosing an option from each of the drop down menus. Once you’ve done this, click save.


Clicking on the numbers in the tasks widget will show you the corresponding items. In the example above, if you click the number 3 next to “first line calls”, you will open a list of open first line calls that are assigned to you. This is also referred to as a “To Do” list.

Bookmarks

UniDesk allows you to bookmark a call, and then view all bookmarked calls in one list.

In the top left of the call, you’ll see an outline of a star.

To bookmark the call, click the star. An orange ribbon will appear around the star.

To view this call again, and any other calls you’ve bookmarked, click the Bookmarks button on the quick access toolbar on the left of the screen. Your bookmarks will open in a new tab

To remove an item from your bookmarks, click the star again. You can either do this in the bookmarks tab, or on the call itself. You may need to refresh the bookmarks page, using the  button (found towards the top right of the screen), to show any items you’ve removed or added.

Card Progress Trail

When another Operator updates a card, your entry in the progress trail is kept after you refresh the card. This prevents you from losing your work, and you can decide to keep or disregard the changes you have made. This functionality only applies to the progress trail and not to other fields on the card. The progress trail is the right-hand column of a call card including the Request and Action fields.

The progress trail view is now also customisable on a per-operator basis to display Action, Emails, Attachment, Links or Invisible to Caller (or show all of these options).