You create an incident record to document a deviation from
an expected standard of operation. Incident records might be created
automatically from sources such as email, system monitoring tools,
or external applications
When resolving an incident, the goal of
the agent is to restore service to a customer as soon as possible.
After creating the incident record, you can investigate potential
solutions. When you have identified a solution, you can record it
on the incident. If resolving the incident involves creating a service
request, incident, problem, or work order, you can create it directly
from the incident record. You can also relate existing records to
the incident.
Note: Incident records might be created
automatically from sources such as email, system monitoring tools,
or external applications.
An incident record can be created using the following methods:
- The minimalist method is to initially only include the essential
incident-relevant information, and update the incident record with
more details at a later time.
- The complete method is to include all incident-relevant information
when the incident record is first created.
Both methods are described next.
Note: The instructions provided for the minimalist method of creating
an incident assume that the New Incident dialog window is provided
in your Incidents application. Your administrator might have disabled
this dialog, or your installation might disable it by default. If
this dialog is not displayed, you supply all of the information for
the Incident in the Incident tab.
Creating an incident, minimalist method
- In the Incidents application, on the toolbar, click the New Incident
icon.
- In the User Information section, the Incident number is automatically
filled. This is the only information required to create an incident
record. The more information you enter in this dialog, the more efficient
the processing of the incident is.
- In the Reported by field, select the person who is affected by the incident. Once
selected the Name, Phone and E-mail fields is automatically filled with
information from their personal record.
- In the Incident Details section, enter a description in the Summary field.
Enter additional information, in the Details field.
- In the Reported Priority field, select a number that represents
the impact. The choices are Critical, High, Medium, Low, and Planning.
- In the Common Requests field, select the incident type.
The incident type selected may include associated summary information
in the template and populates the Summary field with this information.
- Click Submit Now to save the incident record. The system creates an incident record and,
by default, automatically sends a communication to the Reported By and
Affected Person users, notifying them that the new record has been created.
- The remaining details for the incident record can be input at
this time, or updated at a later time. These details are described
next.
Creating an incident, complete method
- In the Incidents application, choose the New Incident action.
- The initial dialog requires a minimal amount of incident-relevant
information. This is described in the minimalist method section, but
as the level of information input varies, it is also described here.
- Determine whether you can apply a template to enter data for many
fields quickly. After applying the template, enter or modify data
in fields as needed.
- The Attachments option allows supporting
attachment files to be linked to the incident. It is possible to add
new attachments, either as a file or as a URL link to a web page,
and to specify the attachment type (folder location) as either an
attachment, diagram or image. All attachments are stored in a library,
and this library can then be used to add attachments to other incidents.
It is also possible to view all existing attachments (if any) supporting
the incident.
- In the User Information section, enter information to identify the user who
reported the incident and the person who is affected by the incident.
- When you enter or select information for any of the user fields, the other fields are
automatically filled with information from the person record if it exists. For example, if
you enter a valid phone number for the person reporting the incident, the system fills in the
corresponding user name (in the Reported By field), full name, and
email address.
- Use the Select Value dialogs associated with each field to assist you in finding and
entering user information. Click Select Value or choose Select Value
from the Detail Menu.
- If you enter partial information in a field and then press the Tab key or click in another
field, the system either completes the information (if the partial information is unique) or
displays a dialog from which you can select a value. The associated fields are also
filled.
- After you enter information in the Reported By fields, all of the Affected
Person fields are filled with the same information. You can change the Affected
Person information if the affected person is different from the Reported By
user.
- After you enter information in the Affected Person fields, the Asset Site
field is filled with the site listed in the person record of the affected user.
- The User Information section can also include a View User Feedback button
that displays survey data. The data, submitted by the end user, is
their feedback on how the incident was handled/resolved. The feedback
is a useful resource to quickly understand customer satisfaction levels.
This button is only available for selection if relevant feedback is
available to view.
- In the Incident Details section, enter a description in the Summary field. To enter
additional information, click the Long Description icon.
- Classify the incident. See the Classify an
Incident topic for information about how and why to classify an
incident.
- Assign an internal priority to the record based on impact and
urgency.
The priority assigned to a record by the service desk analyst is called the
internal priority. The internal priority is determined by the impact that the
issue described in this record has on the business, and the urgency with which the
issue must be resolved. Complete the following steps to assign an internal priority based on
impact and urgency:
- In the Incident Details section, go to the Internal
Priority field and select the Catagorize and Prioritize
icon next to it.
- Go to the Calculate Priority section.
- In the Impact field, enter a number that represents the impact.
The choices are 1 (Critical), 2 (High), 3 (Medium), 4 (Low), and 5 (Planning).
- In the Urgency field, enter a number that represents the urgency. The choices are
the same as those for the impact.
- Press the Tab key. The Internal Priority field (a read-only field) is automatically
filled based on the values that you specified for impact and urgency.
Note: The value displayed in the Internal Priority field is
determined according to the priority matrix, which is defined in the Priority Matrix
application. A priority matrix specifies internal priorities for given combinations of impact
and urgency. See the Ticket Priorities topic for more information.
- Assign an internal priority to the record based on impact and urgency.
The priority
assigned to a record by the service desk analyst is called the internal priority. The
internal priority is determined by the impact that the issue described in this record
has on the business, and the urgency with which the issue must be resolved. Complete
the following steps to assign an internal priority based on impact and urgency:
- In the Impact field, enter a number that represents the impact.
The choices are 1 (Critical), 2 (High), 3 (Medium), 4 (Low), and 5 (Planning).
- In the Urgency field, enter a number that represents the urgency. The choices are
the same as those for the impact.
- Press the Tab key. The Internal Priority field (a read-only field) is automatically
filled based on the values that you specified for impact and urgency.
Note: The value displayed in the Internal Priority field is
determined according to the priority matrix, which is defined in the Priority Matrix
application. A priority matrix specifies internal priorities for given combinations of impact
and urgency. See the Ticket Priorities topic for more information.
Check the Automatic
Assignment checkbox if you want to automatically assign the incident to an owner or owner
group. If the Automatic Assignment checkbox is checked, the Auto Assign tab is available on the
Incident record, and you can specify the automatic assignment method to be used and the owner
or owner groups to be assigned. See Automatically assigning Incidents to owners for more
details.
- A Service Bulletin in an incident is represented by an icon. If there are existing
service bulletins that match the incident input criteria, such as configuration items,
classifications, assets, locations, and customer, then they are represented by an icon,
indicating that there is one or more service bulletins that match the incident input criteria.
Click the icon to see the details, including message ID, subject, and description details of
the service bulletins for the incident. If there are no existing service bulletins that match
the incident input criteria, then they are represented by the another icon. Service bulletins
are refreshed when the Configuration Item, Classification, Asset,
Location, or Customer fields are modified.
- Fill in the remaining required fields. Asterisks indicate required
fields. Enter information in other fields.
For information about
a field, place the cursor in the field and press Alt + F1. See the
Add Information to an Incident topic for information about other fields
and tabs on the incident record.
- Click Save Incident. The system creates an incident record and, by
default, automatically sends a communication to the Reported By and Affected Person users,
notifying them that the new record has been created.