Handling incident escalations

If an incident request is escalated to the service owner, the service owner consults with the specialists who were handling the request to understand the request's current status and what solutions they already tried. When the service owner of the affected service is not available, the on-duty manager performs the role of service owner.

The following figure provides an overview of the escalation handling process:

To restore service through the continuity site

If the service owner determines that the best way to restore service is through the continuity site, the service owner escalates the incident request to the on-duty manager to implement the continuity site strategy (see Assigning-and-reassigning-an-incident-request).

If activating a continuity site is not practical, the service owner determines whether service can be restored through the change management process. If possible, the service owner creates a change request (see Creating-a-change-request-to-permanently-resolve-an-incident-request).

To implement the change management process

The change management process is used when the resolution requires a change that will:

• Have a negative effect on the service during the service hours (defined by the SLA)
• Change the functionality of a service
• Require an update to the BMC Helix CMDB

If the change management process is needed, the service owner also consults with the specialists assigned to the incident request to understand the risks that might cause the change implementation to fail, and what effect the change will have on the users, in any. Through this consultation, they develop a strategy to minimize the effect of the change. When this is done, the service owner asks the specialist to implement the change as an emergency change.

If change management is not required, the service owner makes sure that the most appropriate specialists continue to resolve the incident within the incident management process.