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Using External Tasks

•About External Tasks

•Accessing the External Task Workspace

•Creating an External Task

About External Tasks

An external task is a task that is acted upon by an outside organization, usually with whom you have a contract for services. For example, if your business provides a web hosting service, you might be able to provide some services internally (such as web development or email), but you might have an agreement with an outside vendor to provide various levels of access for your customers (fast, medium, or normal, for example).

You can track the costs for defined external tasks but not for ad-hoc tasks.

Accessing the External Task Workspace

1.Log into the Service Desk Console.

2.Open the External Task workspace. The system displays a list of external tasks.

3.To see details, do one of the following:

•Double-click a task.

•Click the vendor name link.

Creating an External Task

1.Log into the Service Desk Console.

2.Open the External Task workspace. The system displays a list of external tasks.

3.Click New External Task.

4.Enter information into the fields.

Field	Description
Summary	Subject or title of the task.
Details	Details of the task.
Job Item	This field is automatically generated by the system.
Unit Price	A price for each occurrence of the task.
Unit Quantity	The number to charge for the task.
Total	This field is automatically generated by the system, and is a product of the values of the Unit Price and Unit Quantity fields.
Status	The status. The system automatically sets the default status to logged.
Priority	The priority. Choose from the drop-down list: 1 (lowest priority) to 5 (highest priority).
Service	The service. Choose from the drop-down list.
Vendor	The vendor. Depends on the selection in the Service field. Choose from the drop-down list.
Contact Name	The name of the vendor contact.
Email	The email address of the vendor contact.
Phone	The phone number of the vendor contact.
UC	The underpinning contract for the vendor. Choose from the drop-down list. If there is only one item on the list, the system automatically enters it.   NOTE: The system only displays this field if the selected vendor has a current underpinning contract.
Task Catalog	The task catalog for the vendor. Choose from the drop-down list. See Creating an External Task Catalog Item. NOTE: The system only displays this field if the selected vendor has a current underpinning contract.
Vendor Case #	The case number for the vendor, if they have one.
Acceptance Target	The system automatically displays this based on priority and urgency.
Completion Target	The system automatically displays this based on priority and urgency.
Attach file	Attaches any images or documents related to this task. If this option does not appear, then you do not have privileges to attach files.
Comments	Comments. Click Create, then choose a comment type (such as email, notes, or voice activity log) to add comments to the task.
Team	The team. Choose from the drop-down list.
Owner	The owner. Choose from the drop-down list.

5.Click Save.