Accelerant, a prominent provider of industrial machinery, faced significant challenges with their existing help desk solution. Initially utilizing Wrangle due to its seamless Slack integration, they quickly realized it was too restrictive, lacking the flexibility needed to support their intricate workflows and processes. They sought a solution that merged the real-time conversational ease of Slack with a structured, context-aware ticket management system.
Solution Development
Redmine Integration
Given our prior experience with Redmine, we proposed it as the backbone for Accelerant’s support platform. Redmine provided the necessary structure and flexibility lacking in Wrangle:
- Fresh Integration Using Node.js:
- Objective: Develop a modern, maintained integration layer.
- Execution: Utilizing Redmine REST services, our team built a Node.js application that seamlessly integrated Redmine with Slack. This allowed support agents to raise tickets directly from Slack, maintaining context and boundaries.
- Context-Aware Ticketing:
- Feature: Each ticket created in Redmine retains the context from Slack, linking related issues automatically. This feature enables agents to quickly access historical data and resolutions, accelerating the resolution of new issues.
Custom Workflow Implementation
To address Accelerant’s specific needs, we enhanced Redmine with tailored workflows:
- Categorization and Workflow Flexibility:
- Customization: Tickets were categorized into maintenance, parts replacement, performance issues, and other relevant categories.
- Result: This customization enabled agents to manage tickets more effectively, as each category followed a defined workflow suited to its nature.
- Daily and Weekly Reporting:
- Integration with AWS QuickSight: We implemented daily and weekly reports using AWS QuickSight to provide insights into agent performance, identify problem areas, and highlight engineering improvements.
- Automation: These reports were automatically emailed to relevant stakeholders, ensuring consistent monitoring and proactive management.
- Categorization and Workflow Flexibility:
Enhancing Operations
Intelligent Automation in Slack
A standout feature of our solution was embedding intelligence into the Slack integration:
- Conversation Analysis:
- Capability: The Slack application was designed to analyze past conversations within channels.
- Function: It automatically added detailed descriptions to tickets based on these conversations, providing agents with a clear understanding of the issue at hand without needing to sift through extensive chat logs.
- Administrative Controls and Monitoring:
- Implementation: An internal admin portal was developed, fetching data from the database and presenting visual representations of customer and machine data.
- Functionality: Users could create, modify records, and manage Redmine tickets effectively from this portal.
- Conversation Analysis:
Operational Impact
- Scalability and Efficiency:
- Usage: The system supports over 25 agents effectively managing tickets for 100+ customers worldwide.
- Efficiency: Agents benefit from faster ticket resolution times due to the contextual linking of issues and intelligent ticket descriptions.
- Centralized Management:
- Dashboard Integration: The admin portal and integrated dashboard provide a consolidated view of operations, simplifying the management of multiple platforms. Support engineers now have enhanced visibility of tickets, leading to better resource allocation and issue tracking.
Conclusion
Our comprehensive integration of Redmine with Slack has dramatically improved Accelerant’s customer support capabilities. By offering tailored workflows, intelligent automation, and centralized management, we provided a robust, scalable, and efficient platform that meets Accelerant’s unique business needs. This project exemplifies our dedication to delivering customized, innovative solutions that empower businesses to excel in their operations.
