Mike,
Thanks for the reply - the ciritcal piece is as you mention to understand the detail of what will happen. As for our situation:
* We implemented Change Management mid last year - more complicated process, but much more limited in the user population.
* I need to launch Incident and Service request in Q1 - ~2,500 end users with about 90 folks in IT roles that particiate in the full process.
* Notifications are key for other than the Service Desk - these folks generally have accountability for Production Support (Incident work) as well as project type work and are not looking at a dashboard for what is up next.
As for what I likely will do:
* The same construct seems to work for "Assignments" - so at least at that stage i can get an email to the Assigned Group.
* Our process enforces that once the Group is assigned the only way to change this is to "Assign to Service Desk" action. We put this in place to prevent "queue manager wars" - something I have seen in other organizations before my new company.
* On the SLA escalations I'll need to follow your advise on the Current Assigned Analyst - but even if the bug with null values was not there (a bug - should not stop processing when a valid process condition occurs!) I could not use this option because the critial question is still to determine IF the grup or the individual is assigned.
* I am using the 'User" with a runtime value, and looking at the "Manager" for the "Latest Assigned Group" - this was already built into the escalations matrix, when to notify the group manager. I see the risk if the Groups is ever null - but looking at our process I don;t believe that is possible (time will confirm - but I don;t see a valid action that would result in this).
This will leave me with:
* Valid notifications to the Managers of SLA status.
* A notice to the group at the Start of the Incident ONLY that something is there to be worked. I have no method to notify the Worker Bees how they stand on the SLA front (colors - if of course they are logged on AND use the Fat client. Of course they are not - either - outside the Service desk.
* Of course if we could use a Calculation in the escalations this would work - then logic could determine what is appropriate and life is good.
In any event - at least you have saved me today lots of test time to validate what is already known but only really understood thru trial and error.
Thanks again,
Terry