Indicating a problem investigation that is stalled
This user scenario describes how to indicate a problem investigation at an impasse. Incident Management and Problem Management must be installed to follow this user scenario.
Scenario
During Bob Baxter's incident request review of the Calbro Payroll service, he discovers that over the past six months multiple incident requests have been registered related to slow searches against the Payroll service database. Bob assigns the problem investigation to Ian Plyment, the specialist. Ian's problem investigation finds a defect in the database management software that might be corrected by a future patch. Ian notes the root cause, but because a permanent solution in not yet available, he moves the problem investigation status to Pending. Bob performs periodic checks against problem investigations with a status of Pending, to see if permanent solutions have become available.
Workflow
The following table describes the typical steps involved in this user scenario:
Role | Actions | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
Problem coordinator | The problem coordinator performs an incident request review. From the Incident console, the problem coordinator creates a custom search that has the following characteristics:
For the purpose of this example, assume today's date is 1/19/2020. Therefore, the Last Resolved Date is six months ago. | Bob Baxter, the problem coordinator, performs an incident request review by searching incident requests registered against services that:
|
Problem coordinator |
| Bob sees that many incidents have been reported against the Payroll service related to the length of time it takes to run a search against the database. Bob creates a problem investigation record directly from one of the incident request records. Creating a problem investigation directly from an incident request record transfers all relevant information from the incident request and automatically establishes the relationship between the incident request and the problem investigation. |
Problem coordinator | The problem coordinator relates all the related incident requests to the problem investigation. | Bob then relates the other incident requests to the problem investigation. |
Problem coordinator | The problem coordinator assigns the problem investigation to a specialist. | After creating the problem investigation, Bob assigns it to Ian Plyment, the specialist. |
Specialist | The specialist accepts the assignment and performs the root cause analysis. | Ian accepts the problem investigation assignment and begins a root cause analysis. During the root cause analysis, he determines that the problem is with a defect in the database management software. Ian also determines that none of the database management software patches fixes this problem. The problem might be fixed in a future release. |
Specialist |
| Ian notifies Bob that he has completed the root cause analysis and determined the problem is with the database management software. He also tells Bob that, currently, no patch from the database software vendor fixes the problem. |
Problem coordinator |
| Bob performs an analysis review and double-checks that Ian's assessment of the situation is correct. |
Problem coordinator |
| Because no current fix for the root cause is available, Bob determines that the problem investigation is at an impasse. |
Problem coordinator | Periodically, the problem coordinator checks the problem investigations with a status of Pending.
| Bob performs periodic checks of all problem investigations with a status of Pending to determine whether a solution has become recently available. |
Benefits
By identifying the root cause, Bob has taken proactive steps to prevent similar incidents from occurring. Bob performs periodic checks to see whether a permanent solution becomes available.