Creating an incident

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.

About this task

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.

An incident record can be created using two 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.
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

Procedure

  1. In the Incidents application, on the toolbar, click New Incident New Incident icon.
  2. 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.
  3. In the Affected Person field, select the person who is affected by the incident. Once selected the Name, Phone and E-mail fields are automatically filled with information from their personal record.
  4. In the Incident Details section, enter a description in the Summary field. Enter additional information, in the Details field.
    Note: If you tab from the Summary to the Details field, you must press the Tab key twice to position the cursor in the Details field.
  5. In the Reported Priority field, select a number that represents the impact. The choices are Critical, High, Medium, Low, and Planning.
  6. In the Common Requests field, select the incident type. The incident type selected may include associated summary information in the template and will populate the Summary field with this information.
  7. 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.
  8. The remaining details for the incident record can be input at this time, or updated at a later time.

Creating an incident, complete method

Procedure

  1. In the Incidents application, choose the New Incident New Incident icon action.
  2. The initial dialog requires a minimal amount of incident-relevant information.
  3. 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.
  4. 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 supporting the incident.
  5. 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.
  6. In the Incident Details section, enter a description in the Summary field. To enter additional information, click Long Description Long Description icon.
  7. Classify the incident. See the Classify an Incident topic for information about how and why to classify an incident.
  8. 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:
    1. 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).
    2. In the Urgency field, enter a number that represents the urgency. The choices are the same as those for the impact.
    3. 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: 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.
  9. The Service Bulletins field is a read-only field that lists service bulletins; including message ID, subject, and description details. Service bulletins are refreshed when the Configuration Item, Classification, Asset, Location, or Customer fields are modified. If there are existing service bulletins that match the incident input criteria, such as configuration items, classifications, assets, locations, and customer, then they are refreshed and listed in the service bulletins field. There might be one or more service bulletins that match the incident input criteria.
  10. Fill in the remaining required fields. Asterisks indicate required fields. Enter information in other fields as needed. 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.
  11. 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.

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