Understand Supportbench concepts

Required · Start here

Before you configure Supportbench, separate who provides support, who needs help, and how work reaches the right person. This chapter needs no configuration permission. Its result is a shared vocabulary for the administrator and agents.

People and organizations

Term	Meaning	Northstar example
Account	Your organization’s Supportbench workspace and shared configuration.	Northstar Software’s account.
Company	A customer organization whose records and cases you support.	Harbor Manufacturing.
Contact	A person at a customer company.	Jordan Lee at Harbor.
Agent	A staff member who works in the agent workspace.	A Northstar support specialist.
Agent role	Permissions controlling what a staff member may see or change.	A support agent can handle cases without administering the account.
Customer role	A customer-facing access classification used for knowledge and portal access.	A role for Harbor contacts who may read customer-restricted instructions.

Creating a contact does not create an agent, buy a seat or automatically grant every portal permission. An agent role and a customer role serve different audiences. Keep them separate when reviewing access.

Division, team and queue

A division groups a business area and can affect forms, defaults, reporting and role-visible choices. A team organizes staff and can supply working hours used by availability and service timing. A queue is a destination for cases awaiting or sharing work; it has its own membership and assignment settings.

For a small Northstar operation, the existing Customer Support division may be enough. A support team provides the people and coverage. A Support Queue queue gives incoming work a clear destination. You do not need one division or queue per customer.

Joining a team does not by itself prove an agent belongs to every queue. Verify the relevant queue membership explicitly. Queue membership and automatic assignment explains the detailed rules.

Case, activity and issue

A case is the support request and its ongoing record: “Monthly report export fails.” It has customer context, ownership, classification, conversation and status.

An activity is an entry within that case, such as a customer reply, internal note or recorded work. The activity type describes the entry. Always check its audience before saving or sending; an internal note should stay internal.

An issue is a classification of the kind of problem, such as Report export. It is not another name for the individual case. It can help choose forms, route work and report on recurring problems.

Priority, state and closure

Priority describes urgency or impact. A blocked monthly reporting process may need different treatment from a cosmetic question. Agree what each priority means before teaching agents to select it.

State describes progress, such as a request awaiting information. Core’s configuration screen is called States, although older guides may say “statuses.” A state can have timing behavior, so its label alone does not tell you whether service timers pause.

Closure records that the support request is complete. Do not assume that adding a note saying “resolved,” selecting a similarly named state, and using the case’s close action are interchangeable. The practice chapter checks the actual closed result.

Channels and service commitments

An incoming email route decides how arriving email becomes or updates a case. An outgoing reply address is the identity customers see when agents email them. Setting one does not establish the other. Domain authentication gives receiving mail systems evidence that Supportbench may send using your domain.

An SLA, or service-level agreement, is a service commitment expressed through response or closure targets. Working availability asks whether a team or agent is available for work; SLA timing asks when a commitment is due. They can use related hours and holidays but are not the same switch. An agent being Away does not automatically pause every case timer.

A workflow is automation with a trigger (when to check), conditions (which records match), and actions (what to do). An escalation moves responsibility or attention according to a defined path. Neither replaces an agent’s responsibility to explain the next step to the customer.

Check your understanding

Identify the account, company and contact in the Northstar example.
Identify the example queue and explain how you would verify that a named agent owns the next action.
Distinguish an internal activity from a reply Jordan should receive.
Explain why choosing a high priority does not, by itself, prove a response deadline has been configured.

If your team uses different labels, write a short shared mapping before setup. Ask your administrator which meanings and permissions apply; do not infer access from a label.

Completion check

You can distinguish account/company, agent/contact and agent/customer roles.
You understand division/team/queue and case/activity/issue.
You can explain priority versus state, inbound versus outbound email, and availability versus SLA timing.

Previous: Welcome to Supportbench · Next: Your Account