Incident

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Overview

An incident is an event reported by a customer that falls outside the normal operation of a service and either causes or has the potential to cause an interruption or degradation in service quality. It is the initial occurrence in service management where a support employee creates a ticket. If the incident can be resolved immediately, the ticket and incident are closed. If resolution is not possible, the support employee may escalate the incident by converting it into a problem or a change.

Create an Incident

An Incident can be manually created from the Backlog or the Service Desk → Incidents → Add Incident action:

create new incident.png

To create a new Incident, User and Summary fields are mandatory. Other Incident information that can be filled out and modified is as follows:

General

User: Person who reported the incident.
Notification Mode: notification options when the Incident status changes
- Always (default)
- Create and Close
- Never
Phone: Phone number for inquiries. This information is automatically entered by the system, if available. If it is changed later, the new number is not written back to Active Directory/LDAP. It is also not written back to the master data under Master Data → Users → Persons.
User Reachable at: Time at which the person can be reached by the specified phone number.
Details: Information about users (Accounts, Org. Unit, Location, Cost Center and E-Mail).
History: Further incidents that were reported by the user. These incidents can be filtered by status.

Reported CIS:

Asset: Link an asset from Matrix42 Asset Management with this incident to start remote support or manage the mobile terminal equipment that is imported by using Matrix42 Mobile Device Management. The selection list is filtered automatically so that you can select only the assets of the person who reports the incident.
Service: Link a service from Matrix42 Service Catalog with this incident to start remote support (for example). The selection list is filtered automatically so that you can select only the services of the person who reports the incident.
Show all assets and services: Select this option to turn off the automatic filter that is used for the selection of assets and services.

Affected CIs:

Asset: actually affected asset can be different from the reported asset (e.g., a user reports an incident for own PC, but actually the email server has a problem). If a tighter SLA is available for the affected asset, you will be asked to use the new SLA after you specify the asset.
Service: The actually affected service can be different from the reported service (e.g., a user reports an incident for Outlook but actually the Internet connection is down). ). If a tighter SLA is available for the affected asset, you will be asked to use the new SLA after you specify the service.
Show all assets and services: Select this checkbox to turn off the automatic filter that is used for selection of assets and services.

The reported and affected assets and services are automatically added to the Assets and Services dialog pages under Related Objects.

Quick Call: Select a quick call template for reporting a specific incident.
Summary: Brief description of the incident.
Category: Category for organizing your incidents.
Service Level Agreement: Link to a Service Level Agreement. The predefined reaction and solution times depend on this. The selection list is filtered automatically so that you can select only those Service Level Agreements that result from the combination of entries in the User, Asset, Service, and Priority fields.
Show All: Select this option to turn off the automatic filter that is used for the selection of SLA/OLA/UC.
Get SLA: Automatically select the Service Level Agreement/Operation Level Agreement or Underpinning Contract with the most critical solution times. The selected agreement should correspond to the combination of the entries in the User, Asset, Service, and Priority fields.
Impact: Select a group (User, Workgroup, or Company) that is affected by this incident. If a related asset or service has a higher business impact, then this higher business impact will be applied automatically when the incident is saved.
Urgency: Urgency level for the solution of this incident. Possible options:
- Partial Failure: the Incident is created with priority Low
- Malfunction (default): the Incident is created with priority Middle
- Complete Failure: the Incident is created with priority High
Entry By: Select how this incident was reported. This data is purely informative and is not processed by the system.
Resubmission: Date on which the person or responsible role receives an email reminder about the incident. The email contains a link by which the incident can be accessed.
Inform responsible roles or users via email: By default, members of roles that are responsible for a incident are notified by email when work starts on it. You can turn off this option here.
Required Skills: skills required to complete the task.
Description: Detailed description of the incident. Link a quick call template to pre-fill the description with the content of the template description, if the description was empty before. As long as the incident has the New status, opening of the incident points to this tabulator.
Journal/Activities: In the journal, all actions that were made for the incident will be automatically recorded. This also includes mails that were received for this ticket or sent out of the ticket. Each journal entry can be marked as Visible in Portal for the reporter (user) and related users of the incident (see also Changing Visibility of Journal Entries). Journal entries for mails/comments from the user and mails to the user are checked by default. Under My Activities, you can enter your own activities for the ticket. Click Add to record the activity in the journal. Until the incident is not in the New or Closed status, opening of the ticket points directly to this tabulator.
Solution: Description of the solution that was entered when the incident was closed. When the incident gets the Closed status, opening of the ticket points directly to this tabulator. The solution cannot be directly edited.

Attachments

For this incident, copies of digital documents can be saved and later reopened.

Time Tracking

List of all recorded jobs for this incident.

Users:

Other users that are affected by the ticket. Select the Inform related users about status change to notify by email other users that are listed here about the status changes of this ticket.

Edit Incident

The following sections additionally appear when editing the Incident:

User Ratings

Shows user ratings with the following data:
- Created: when this rating was submitted;
- Rating: number of stars
- Comment
- and by which User it was created.

If the Disable incident rating checkbox is selected in the Service Desk Settings, this dialog page is hidden.

Related Objects

On the Related Objects dialog pages, you can manage all configuration items that are related to this incident:

Caused By: Here you can attach tickets that caused the respective incident. It is also possible to specify these tickets with the Close action.
Incidents: Similar incidents that can be put down to the same cause. If you select the Close related incidents when closing this incident checkbox, all incidents that are listed here will be closed when the status of this ticket is set to Closed.
Assets: Assets that were selected on the Reported CIs and/or Affected CIs tabs of the General dialog page and other additional assets that are affected by this ticket. For example, if a customer reports a computer incident and you know that other computers of the same model are affected, add these computers here. This data is purely informative and is not processed by the system.
Services: Services that were selected on the Reported CIs and/or Affected CIs tabs of the General dialog page and other additional services that are affected by this ticket. For example, if a customer reports a service incident, and you know that other services are affected, add these services here. This data is purely informative and is not processed by the system.
Tasks: Create tasks and assign them to employees that are related to this ticket. If you select the Close this incident when the last task is closed checkbox, this ticket is closed when the status of the last task on the list is set to Closed. The solution is copied from the task to the ticket.

Actions

To see a list of actions, right-click the item on the grid or click on the Incident, and on the Incident preview page click on the Show more actions icon. The following actions are available for incidents:

Edit: opens an edit dialog for the Incident.

If you select only one incident on a search page and click Edit, the selected incident will be opened directly for further handling, after the status is set to In Progress.

Take Over: A new incident is always assigned to a role, not to a specific person. With this action, a role member says that they take over this incident, which means that they accept responsibility for the incident. The incident status is set to In Progress. This informs other members of this role that somebody is already working on this incident.
Accept: A new incident is always assigned to a role, not to a specific person. With this action, a role member says that they take over this incident, which means that they accept responsibility for the incident. The incident status is set to Assigned. This informs other members of this role that somebody is already working on this incident.
Mark as Read: the incident is no longer shown in bold in the grid and is not taken into account when calculating the number for navigation item badge. When applied, instead of this action the Mark as Unread action appears.
Mark as Unread: Mark the task as unread (shown in bold on the grid) and, if configured, the unread task will be taken into account in the navigation item badge. See also Track activities with new information received page.
Forward: Forward the incident to a role or a user.
Send E-mail: Send an email to any user, business contact, business partner, role, or email address to request further information or to distribute any information about the incident. The User field of the incident will be pre-filled automatically as the "TO…" recipient.
Pause: Set the incident status to Paused by using a wizard. The reminder date is calculated automatically based on the value in the Default span for pausing tickets (days) field of the global system settings. If the ticket status does not change by the set date, a reminder email is automatically sent to the person who is responsible for the ticket. The reason and the description are saved in the journal.
Merge Incidents: If two or more tickets have been created for a single incident, you can close or pause all duplicates. The journal entries and attachments of the merged tickets can be copied to the remaining incident. The incident then continues to run on one ticket. The customer is informed by email that the reported incident was merged into one ticket.
Return to Role: The Accept action is reset, the entry under Responsible is deleted, and the status set to Assigned. If the status was previously On Hold, then this is not changed.
Delete: Delete the incident.
Transform: opens a wizard that allows transforming the Incident into a Service Request. Additionally, you can adjust the Category, SLA, and Role.
Close: Finish the processing of the ticket by specifying the Solution manually or copying it from the KB article, optionally choose the attachments and set the status to Closed.

Reopen: Reopen the closed ticket, set its status to New, and notify the related persons by email.
History: opens a History Wizard.
Track Working Time: Start tracking the working time that was spent on this ticket.

If the Enable Automatic Time Tracking checkbox is selected under Administration → Global System Settings → Service Desk, the Track Working Time wizard opens automatically after you close the ticket. The start and end of the processing time are entered automatically. You can edit this data later. When you close several incidents, the spent time will be proportionally shared among the tickets.

Service Level Compliance: opens a Service Levels Compliance report for the current incident
Show Dependencies: Show the defined dependencies in an interactive chart.
Establish Remote Connection: Establish a remote maintenance session with this computer by using Matrix42 Remote Control. For this purpose, Matrix42 Remote Control should be installed and correctly configured.
Start Phone Call: The Matrix42 Call Tracker application should be installed on the local workplace before you can use this feature.
Assign Service: Assign a service from Matrix42 Service Catalog and specify the further handling of the incident. The order will be linked to the incident after the action is finished.
Unassign Service: Withdraw a previously assigned service from Matrix42 Service Catalog and specify the further handling of the incident. The order will be linked to the incident after the action is finished.
Repair Service: Repair or reinstall the previously assigned service from Matrix42 Service Catalog and specify the further handling of the incident. The order will be linked to the incident after the action is finished.
Reset Account: Open a wizard with the following options:
- Unlock account.
- Reset Password: Create a new password for the person who reported the incident.
- Define additional parameters for passwords; specifically, whether a user should be asked to change their password after the first login, whether a user has permissions to change their password, and whether this password can expire.
Manage Device: Open a wizard that gives you direct access to the Matrix42 Mobile Device Management system, so that you can execute the selected functions for the mobile device. For more information about these functions, see Managing Mobile Devices.
Export: allows selecting the format and exporting the Incident-related data.
Reset Account: action can be run if the AD Connector for selected account domain is configured.
Recover Computer: Restore a selected computer completely or partition by partition from a backup image. For this option, Matrix42 EasyRecovery should be installed and activated on the computer.
Reinstall Computer: Reinstall the already installed software programs and the operating system on a computer. For this option, Matrix42 Empirum should be configured for the computer.
Repair Service: assign the Recipient and choose the affected Services
Assign Service: choose the recipient, cost center and the Service to Assign
Unassign Service: choose the Recipient and the Services that should be unassigned
Search in Knowledge Base: Search for knowledgebase articles that match this ticket.
Search Problems: Search for problems that match this ticket. If you open the search dialog within the context of a problem and this problem was linked with an asset or a service, the respective filters are pre-filled automatically. Based on the search result, you can link individual tickets with the problem.
Search Incidents: Search for incidents that match this ticket. If you open the search dialog within the context of an incident and this incident was linked with an asset or a service, the respective filters are pre-filled automatically. Based on the search result, you can link individual tickets with the incident.
Search Service Requests: Search for Service Requests that match this Incident.
Create Announcement: Create an announcement from the incident. The information from the incident is copied to the announcement. The incident is retained and linked to the announcement.
Create Task: Create a task from the ticket. The information from the ticket is copied to the task. The ticket is retained and linked to the task.
Create Problem: Create a problem from the incident. The information from the incident is automatically copied to the problem. The incident is retained and linked to the problem. When the problem is closed, the related incident is closed, too.
Create Change: Create a change from this ticket. The information from the ticket is automatically copied to the change. The ticket is retained and linked to the change. When the change is closed, the ticket is closed, too.
Create KB Article: Create a knowledge base article from the ticket. The information from the ticket is automatically copied to the knowledge base article. The ticket is retained and linked to the knowledge base article.

Role assignment

Role assignment on tickets is driven by various factors. By default below priority is followed

QueueProfile - in case Enterprise Queue Management is enabled
Template - Task Template, Change Template, Quick Call
SLA
Category
Default defined in Service Desk global settings

Archiving Incidents

To improve the system performance, all the Incidents that were Closed more than 2 years ago are automatically archived and can be accessed by activating the Archived toggle on the Incidents dataset view. The default archiving rule can be changed by the Administrator by adjusting archiving in the Incident Configuration Item. See also, Archiving outdated incidents.