Service templates (runbooks)

Service templates, or runbooks, turn the requests you handle over and over into a single click. You define a runbook once, then run it whenever a request comes in. Each run creates a service-request ticket with a ready-made checklist, already scheduled and assigned, so nothing gets missed on an onboarding or a machine build.

Opentra ships with three runbooks out of the box: Employee onboarding, Employee offboarding and New computer setup. You can edit these or add your own.

How it fits together

A runbook has two parts:

• An intake form: the questions you answer when you run it (employee name, start date, license tier, hardware, and so on).
• A task checklist: the ordered steps to carry out, each with an owner and a due date.

When you run a runbook, Opentra takes your answers, fills them into every task, works out each due date, assigns the right tech, and creates the ticket. From then on it is a normal ticket with a checklist your team works through.

Building a runbook

Runbooks live under Settings, Service templates and are managed by admins and managers. Open one to edit it, or create a new one and pick a type (onboarding, offboarding, hardware or general), which just sets the icon and colour.

The intake form

Add the fields you want to capture. Each field has a type: short text, long text, date, number, dropdown, yes/no, a staff member, or a client contact. Mark a field as required to make it mandatory at run time.

One date field can be flagged as the anchor. This is the date everything schedules around, usually the start date or the day a machine is needed. Task due dates are worked out relative to it.

The task checklist

Add the steps in the order they should happen. For each task you can set:

• Title: the step itself. Use tokens like {{employee_name}} and they are replaced with the real answer when the runbook runs. The available tokens are listed above the checklist; click one to copy it.
• Role: who does this step, for example “IT technician” or “Field technician”. You map each role to a real person at run time, so a template never hard-codes a name.
• Due offset: how many days before or after the anchor date this task is due. For example, image a laptop three days before the start date.
• Estimate and work type: for time tracking.
• Automation: an optional hook such as “Create M365 user” or “Send welcome email”. See automation below.

Running a runbook

Go to Service requests in the sidebar, or use the Service request button on an organisation, and pick a runbook. You then:

1. Choose the organisation and, optionally, a contact and priority.
2. Fill in the intake form.
3. Assign a person to each role.

As you type, a live preview on the right shows exactly what will be created: the ticket subject, every task with its filled-in title, its due date, and who it is assigned to. When it looks right, create the request. Opentra creates the ticket and its checklist and notifies each assigned tech about their tasks.

Working the checklist

The generated ticket carries its checklist right at the top, with a progress bar. Tick items off as you go, add ad-hoc items, reassign or re-date tasks, and see at a glance what is overdue. Any ticket can have a checklist, not just those created from a runbook, so you can use it as a lightweight task list anywhere.

Automation hooks

Tasks can carry an automation hook, such as creating a Microsoft 365 user or sending a welcome email. These steps show an “automatable” marker and a Run button on the ticket.

In the current release the hooks are scaffolded but not yet connected to the integrations: pressing Run marks the step done and notes that the action is not wired up. The groundwork is in place so these can perform the real action in a later release without any change to how you build your runbooks.

Good to know

• Runbook due dates are scheduled relative to the anchor date, so a request booked weeks ahead lands each task on the right day automatically.
• Deleting a runbook does not touch tickets already created from it.
• Runbooks are on-demand today. Recurring, scheduled generation (for example monthly maintenance) is on the roadmap.