Relating incident requests to other record types

By defining and maintaining relationships among records, you can create a more sophisticated overview of the connections and interdependencies among the problem investigation and additional service issues that your system is tracking.

From Incident Management, users can search for configuration items (CIs) and relate CIs to an incident. Incident Management integrates with BMC Helix CMDB using relationship tables. For information about BMC Helix CMDB, see Home. When BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management is installed, this integration is extended by prompting users to create outages against CIs that they are relating to the incident. The outage data is stored in the BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management database, with relationships created to the incident.

Relationship types

An incident request can be related to any of the following record types:

Configuration item (CI)
Another incident
Known error
Problem investigation

Additionally, if your environment runs BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management and BMC Helix ITSM: Change Management, incident requests can also be related to the following record types:

CI unavailability
Release
Infrastructure change

To define relationships

Work Info records are tied to the record on which they are created. This means that when you create a relationship among records, you can only view a work info record from the record where it was originally created.

Open the incident request.
If you want to create a new incident request by using a template and then define the relationship, you must first apply the template to create a request and then define the relationship.
In the Quick Actions area, click the arrow beside Create Relationship to.
From the menu, select the type of record to which you want to relate the current record.
If BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management is installed in your environment, continue with this procedure. Otherwise, go to step 5 and complete that step.
In the Search field of the dialog box that opens, enter a search string and press Enter.
For example, if you are creating a relationship to an incident request about a printer that regularly goes offline, you might enter printer offline.
The search scans multiple fields in each record looking for a match, and returns a list of records that contain the phrase "printer offline" in one of the scanned fields. The type of search dialog box that appears depends on the type of record you chose from the menu. Try to supply as much information as possible in each type of search to reduce the overall number of records returned. If, after using a more specific search string, the search returns too many records, consider clicking Use Advanced Search to open a form in search mode that is relevant to the type of relationship you are making.
From the search results table, select the specific record to which you want to create the relationship.
From the Relationship Type list at the bottom of the search dialog box, select the type of relationship you want to create.
Create the relationship by clicking the appropriate relationship type button at the bottom of the dialog box.
The specific text on the relate button depends on the type of relationship you are creating. For example, if you are creating a relationship with another incident request record, the button reads Relate. If you are creating a relationship with a known error, there are two relate buttons: Relate With Solution and Relate Without Solution.
Click Close to dismiss the dialog box.

To copy relationships

When you define a relationship between the current record and another record, the other record might already have one or more records related to it. To more thoroughly document all the record relationships, you can relate the other record's related records to the current record. For example, you want to a relationship between Incident Request Record A and CI B. Unknown to you, CI B already has a relationship with Incident Request Record C. By using the procedure below, you discover this relationship and decide to make a relationship between Incident Request Record A and Incident Request Record C. To view the other records' other relationships and relate them to the current incident request record, use this procedure. You cannot use this procedure to copy related CIs.

Open the incident request.
Click the Relationships tab.
From the Relationships table, select the record with the other relationships that you want to copy.
From the Quick Actions list on the Relationships tab, select Get Related Relationships, and then click Execute.
The Copy Related Relationships dialog box appear with a table of all other records related to the record you selected.
From the table, select the other record that you want to relate to the current record.
To see the details of the other record, select it, and click View. A form appears with detailed information about the selected record. Use this feature to help you determine whether you want to relate the other record to the current record.
Click inside the Relationship Type field.
The contents of the Relationship Type list depends on the type of record you are trying to create the relationship with.
Select the type of relationship you want to create, and then click Select.
Click OK.
The newly created relationship appears in the Relationships table.

To modify a relationship

Open the incident request.
Click the Relationships tab.
From the Relationships table, select the relationship you want to modify.
From the Quick Actions list, select Modify Relationship Type, and then click Execute.
Enter the new relationship details according to the onscreen instructions.
Click Save to save your changes.
You cannot modify the Original of or Duplicate of relationship types.

To indicate an impacted area

Open the incident request.
In the Navigation pane, select Functions > Impacted Areas.
The Impacted Areas dialog box appears.
Select items from the lists to describe the impacted area appropriate for the incident on which you are working, for example, Company, Region, and so on.
Click Add.
You can add as many impacted areas as necessary. You can also delete areas that you have previously chosen in this dialog box.

Tip

You can configure the Incident Request form to automatically populate the fields in the Impacted Areas dialog box. Then, the application uses the location information of the person named in the Customer field. If you later change the contents of the Customer field or if you change the customer's location information (on their People form record, see Creating or modifying People data), the application automatically updates Impacted Areas to show that change. For more information, see Configuring-incident-rules.

To perform a quick action

Open the incident request.
Click the Relationships tab.
From the Relationships table, select the relationship entry for which you want to perform the action.

From the Quick Actions list, select the action you want to perform, such as Get Impacted Areas.
The following table lists available quick actions for any related item:
Effects of general relationship actions

Relationship action	Effect
Get Related Relationships	Copies the relationships of the selected record to the current incident's relationships
Modify Relationship Type	Prompts you to modify the relationship type, as described in To modify a relationship above

More quick actions are available when you select a related configuration item, as indicated in the following table:

Relationship action	Effect
BMC CMDB Explorer (see Searching and viewing CIs and relationships in CMDB Explorer)	Opens a graphical relationship viewer that shows a selected CI's relationship with other records
Create New CI Unavailability	If BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management is installed, creates CI unavailability for the selected CI
Get CI Impact/Urgency	Copies the impact and urgency of the selected CI
Get CI Product Categorization	Copies the product categorization from the selected CI to the classification of the current incident
Get CI Resolution Product Cat.	Copies the product categorization from the selected CI to the resolution of the current incident
Get Impacted Areas	If BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management is installed, prompts you to select impacted areas, as defined in the selected CI, into the current incident's impacted areas

Click Execute.

To remove a relationship

Open the incident request.
Click the Relationships tab.
In the Relationships table, select the relationship you want to remove.
Click Remove.
Click Yes when prompted to confirm the removal.

Relating a knowledge article to a BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk record

You can create a relationship between a knowledge article and an incident in any of the following ways:

When you click Create Knowledge to create a knowledge article while viewing an Incident record, if you click Use in the knowledge article, a Resolved by relationship is created with the incident.
When you click Search Knowledge Base to search for a knowledge article while viewing an incident, if you click Relate in the knowledge article, a Related to relationship is created with the incident.

Certain field values are copied from a knowledge article to an Incident when you created a Resolved by type of relationship between them. For more information, see Improving the findability of knowledge articles.

Relationships between knowledge articles and incidents

When you create a Resolved by type of relationship between a knowledge article and an incident, the field values that are defined on the Resolution Categorization tab of the knowledge article are copied to the Categorization tab of the incident, and the article's title and ID are copied to the Resolution field of the Incident.

These field values might not be copied from the knowledge article to the incident if:

The Categorization fields and the Resolution field of the Incident already contain values (if you change the Resolution Categorization values in the knowledge article later, the incident will not be updated)
The Incident is in the Resolved or Closed state
The Resolution Categorization values that are defined in the knowledge article are not appropriate for the value of the Incident type field in the incident
You had previously clicked Use, and then manually cleared the fields in the incident's Categorization tab (because the Resolution field of the incident is not blank)

To copy a new value to the Resolution field and to overwrite the values in the incident's Categorization tab, clear the Resolution field and click Use in a different knowledge article, or click Use in a knowledge article that currently has a Related to type of relationship with the Incident.

In the latter scenario, the relationship type changes from Related to to Resolved by. For more information, see Improving the findability of knowledge articles.

Changing the type of relationship between knowledge articles and incidents

While viewing an incident, if you click Search Knowledge Base to search for and view a knowledge article that currently has a Related to type of relationship with the incident, and then click Use in the knowledge article, the relationship type changes to Resolved by. Additionally, field values from the knowledge article's Resolution Categorization tab are copied to the incident's Categorization tab if none of the conditions for exception are met.

Alternatively, while viewing an Incident, if you click Search Knowledge Base to search for and view a knowledge article that currently has a Resolved by type of relationship with the incident, and then click Relate in the knowledge article, the relationship type changes to Related to.

To change the type of relationship between a knowledge article and an incident, you must click the Search Knowledge Base link and search for a related knowledge article to click the Use or Relate button. You cannot change the type of relationship by opening the knowledge article from the Relationships tab of the incident.