Creating an Incident request record by using a template

The purpose of this stage is to accurately record and recognize disruptions to services provided by IT to its customers. When creating a new incident request record, you classify the incident and record user information, CI information, and a description of the incident.

The key to this activity is the accuracy and completeness of the information recorded.

To use a template to create an incident

1. On the Incident Management console, click Create or Create for Company (in a Hub and Spoke environment).

2. If you are working in a Hub and Spoke environment, you are asked to identify the company you are creating the record for. Select the company from the drop down list, then click Create. The Incident form opens on the spoke server of the company you chose. Continue with the rest of this procedure.

   Warning

   Note

   The record that you create for the selected company is created and submitted on the spoke server where the company is defined.

3. Enter the Customer or Contact information. In the Customer or Contact field on the new Incident Request form, type the customer's or the contact's information as described in Using-the-Customer-and-Contact-fields-in-Best-Practice-view.
4. Check the rest of the customer information for accuracy.

5. Type the incident request details in the Notes field.

   Warning

   • If you have added text to the Notes field before selecting a template, the Notes text is preserved and appended to the Notes text that is defined in the template.
   • The fields other than the Notes field are overwritten by the template.
6. Click the Browse Attachment icon of the Notes field to see or add attachments. The administrator must enable this icon. For more details, seeSystem Settings.

7. Open the Incident Template Selection form:

   • If you know the template name, type a portion of the template name in the Template field and then press Enter.
   • If you don't know the template name, click inside the Template field and then press Enter.

   • If you want to change your selection of a template, you must clear the text in the Template field and then either type or select the template again.
     

     Warning

     In this case, the text in the  Notes  field is preserved to avoid losing user-provided text. When you select and apply a new template, the  Notes  field   is appended with new information. If the previous information in the  Notes  field is not relevant, manually clear this information from the  Notes  field.

   A list of templates available to your default support group appears in the Incident Template Selection form.

8. From the hierarchical list, select the appropriate template and then click Select.
9. Type a brief description in the Summary field.
10. In the Service field, select the business service CI from menu. 
    You can also enter the name of the business service. After you enter the first three characters, a list of matching business services are displayed, from which you can select the required service.
    The business services that appear in the menu have a relationship type of Used By either for the customer directly or to the customer's organization. Use this field if you are creating the incident against a business service. 

11. If the incident request was caused by a CI, select the required CI.
    You can also enter the required CI in the CI field. After you enter the first three characters, a list of matching business services are displayed, from which you can select the required service. 
    This creates a relationship between the incident request record and the CI record. The CIs that appear in the menu are all the other CIs related to the customer that are not business service CIs. If the CI you are looking for does not appear in this list, click the button beside the CI field to open a CI search form, from which you can search for all CIs. Use this field if you are creating the incident against a CI.

    Warning

    Notes

    • When you associate a CI to an incident request, the Service Desk application automatically maps the incident's resolution categorization to the CI's product categorization.
    • The CI field on the incident form refers to the causal CI that is the root cause of the incident. You can associate only one CI to this field. But, the CIs associated from the Relationship tab are related to the incident with relationship types such as Related to, Restores, or Impacts. You can relate multiple CIs to the incident from the Relationship tab.
12. Enter the Impact, Urgency, and Priority of the incident.
13. Select the required type of incident from the Incident Type drop-down menu:
    • User Service Restoration—Use this option for typical service restoration requests (for example, a request to restore printing services). 
    • User Service Request—Use this option if the incident request is a simple question or a request for information (for example, a request for how to information). 
    • Infrastructure Restoration—Use this option if the incident request is more focused on the restoration of infrastructure service. Typically, these types of incident requests are reported by system management tools (for example, if an incident is detected on a piece of network infrastructure by system monitoring software). 
    • Infrastructure Event—Use this option when a system management tool registers an event that does not require infrastructure restoration.
    • Security Incident—Use this option when you want to create security incidents. Typically, these incidents are assigned to the security team.

14. Complete the rest of the incident request form as appropriate.

    Warning

    Note

    Use the Contact field to record the name of someone who reports an incident on behalf of someone else. Use this field, for example, if an administrative assistant is reporting an incident on behalf of an executive.
    
    When using the Contact field to record the name of the person reporting the incident, use the Customer field to record the name of the person experiencing the incident. This is especially important if the person experiencing the incident is registered as a VIP or as a sensitive customer. It also ensures that the Incident Management application displays the set of business CIs in the Service field selection list that are directly related to the person experiencing the incident, and so on.

    Success

    Tip

    If your organization uses categorizations (Operational Categorization and Product Categorization) to help assign incident requests, but none are supplied by the template, click the Categorization tab to open a dialog box where you can record this information. For a detailed discussion of Operational Categorization, see the BMC Communities article on this topic at https:\\communities.bmc.com.

15. Click Save.