Creating an incident request

If your organization has not opted in for PWA, the classic Smart IT screens are displayed.

To create an incident ticket from the Create New menu

Perform the following steps in the classic Smart IT screen:

1. On the main menu bar, select Create New > Incident.
2. On the Create Incident screen, enter a customer name in the Customer field and optionally a contact name in the Contact field.
   
3. Type some keywords in the Template field. If your search does not bring any results, click Browse All Templates to open the template browser. Select a template from the Template Browser and then click Save. 
   
   
   
   

4. The selected template auto-fills a number of fields on the screen, such as: Incident Title, Impact, Priority, Incident Status, Operational Categorization, and Product Categorization. 
   
   

   The fields that are auto filled by a template depend on how the template is defined. All templates do not necessarily auto fill the same fields. You can change the selected template at any time. If you do, the auto filled fields are overridden with values specified by the new template.
   If you do not find an appropriate template, you can click Cancel in the Select Template panel and then manually type information into the remaining fields. You can then continue to work through the incident ticket as described in this example.
   The Summary field in Mid Tier is referred to as Incident Title in classic Smart IT.

5. Select an option from the Incident Type drop-down menu.
   To create specific incidents related to security, select Security Incidents in the Incident Type list.
6. Select a service in Affected Service field and an asset in the Affected Asset field.
   The CI field in Mid Tier is referred to as Affected Asset in classic Smart IT.

7. If an asset belongs to another company within the multi-tenant environment, you can select Use a different company to select categories and select a different company in the Company drop-down list. When you change the company used to select the categories, the system clears the Operational Category and Product Category fields, and you must select new operational and the product categories.  
   When you change the company in this step, the change affects only the company that is used for Operational and Product categorizations. It does not change the Affected Company.
   If you have selected the Security Incident option in the Incident Type list, make sure that for the required category, you have enabled the Security Incident option from the Application Administration Console in Mid Tier. For more information, see Configuring BMC Helix ITSM applications.

8. You can leave the Assignee selection at the default setting so that the ticket is assigned to the correct group, based on the configured assignment rules.
   Alternatively, you can clear the Auto-assign check box and manually select the support group that is best suited to resolve the incident.
   If you select Security Incidents from the Incident Type list, in case of auto assignment, if the classic Smart IT administrator has configured the required settings, the ticket will be assigned to the security team. For more information, see Configuring-settings-for-managing-security-incidents.
9. (Optional) You can click the Assign to me link to assign the ticket to yourself. If you are a part of a single support group, the ticket is assigned to you for that support group. If you belong to multiple support groups, you must select one group in the Update Assignment pane to assign the ticket to self. 
   For more information, see Assigning-and-reassigning-an-incident-request. 
   It is not mandatory to select a value for the Assignee field while creating an incident or changing an incident status to Resolved.
10. Add notes to the incident request in the Incident Description field. The Notes field in Mid Tier is referred to as Incident Description in classic Smart IT.

11. Click Save Ticket. The system creates the ticket, routing the incident request to the support group for assignment. 
    
    
    
    If you are creating an incident request and want to add a screen capture or another file type to the notes you are taking, click Add File and follow the onscreen instructions. If you are aware of an existing ticket or some other entity that can help with the diagnosis and resolution of the ticket that you are currently working on, you can relate your ticket to that other ticket.
    Depending on the needs of your organization, you might need to fill out other fields that are not immediately visible in the UI when you open it. If you click Set other optional fields, the system exposes those fields to view. For the auto assignment feature to work for incident tickets in classic Smart IT, you must select General from the Event list and create general events for the Incident Management application in Mid Tier.

    After you save the incident, click the Tasks tab. If the incident template has any related tasks or task groups, you can see them here.

To use a template to create an incident

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.

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

2. (Hub and spoke environment only) When asked to identify the company you are creating the record for, select the company from the list, and then click Create.

   The Incident form opens on the spoke server of the company you chose. Continue with the rest of this procedure.
   The record that you create for the selected company is created and submitted on the spoke server where the company is defined.

3. In the Customer or Contact field on the new Incident Request form, enter the customer's or the contact's information as described in Adding-or-modifying-a-customer-profile.
4. Check the rest of the customer information for accuracy.
5. Enter the incident request details in the Notes field.
   • 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 template overwrites the fields other than Notes.

6. To view or add attachments, click the Browse Attachment icon of the Notes field.

   The administrator must enable this icon. For more details, see Applying system settings.

7. In the Template box:

   • If you know the template name, type a few characters of the template name 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, clear the text in the Template field and enter or select the template again.

     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 click Select.
9. In the Summary field, enter a brief description.
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 appears, from which you can select the required service.)
    The business services that appear in the menu have a relationship type of Used By, 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 actions 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.

    • 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. 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 menu:
    • User Service Restoration—Used for typical service restoration requests (for example, a request to restore printing services). 
    • User Service Request—Used if the incident request is a simple question or a request for information (for example, a request for how-to information). 
    • Infrastructure Restoration—Used 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—Used when a system management tool registers an event that does not require infrastructure restoration.
    • Security Incident—Used when you want to create security incidents. Typically, these incidents are assigned to the security team.

14. (Optional) Add or delete the task or task groups available on the Tasks tab. 
    The fields are automatically populated only when the selected incident template has associated task or task group templates.

    In the Task Template form, if the value of the Status field of a task or task group is set to Potential or Inactive , on the new incident request form, the value of the  Status  field of the task or task group is automatically set to  Closed . For more information, see Managing-work-on-tickets-by-using-tasks.

15. Complete the rest of the incident request form as appropriate.
    Use the Contact field to record the name of someone who reports an incident on behalf of someone else. For example, use this field 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 Incident Management 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.

    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 detailed discussions of Operational Categorization, search for discussions about it at https://community.bmc.com.

16. Click Save.

To create an incident request record without a template

1. In the Navigation pane, select Functions > New Incident.

2. (Hub and Spoke environment only) When asked to identify the company you are creating the record for, select the company from the list, and click Create.

   The Incident form opens on the spoke server of the company you chose (where it will be saved also).

3. In the Customer or Contact field on the new Incident Request form, enter the customer's or the contact's information as described in Adding-or-modifying-a-customer-profile.
4. (Optional) In the Notes  field, enter details about the incident.

5. To see or add attachments, click the Browse Attachment icon of the Notes field.

   The administrator must enable this icon. For more details, seeApplying system settings.

6. In the Summary field, enter a brief description.
7. 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 this menu have a relationship type of Used By for the customer directly or to the customer's organization. Use this field if you are creating the incident against a business service. If the business service CI is related with organization or the company, you must have access for the company.

8. 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.

   When entering CIs, remember these tips:

   • When you associate a CI to an incident request, the Service Desk application automatically maps the incident request's resolution product 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. 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.
   • The type-ahead option for the Service and CI fields is set to three keystrokes by default. An administrator can change it according to your requirement. For more information, see Automatically completing menu entries.
9. Select values from the Impact and Urgency lists.
10. Select the required type of incident from the Incident Type 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 restoring an infrastructure service. Typically, system management tools report these types of incident requests (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.
11. Select the reported source:
    • Direct input — Use this source when IT support staff are creating an incident request directly, without input from a customer.
    • Email — Use this source to indicate an incident request was created from a customer's email message.
    • External Escalation — Use this source when the incident request comes from senior management or other VIP customers.
    • Fax — Use this source when the incident request is created from information gathered from a fax transmission.
    • Self-Service — This source indicates that the incident request originated from the Request Entry console of BMC Service Request Management or the Requester console in Mid Tier.
    • Systems Management — Use this source when the incident request is for any routine maintenance of the IT infrastructure.
    • Phone — Use this source when the incident request is created from information gathered over the phone.
    • Voice Mail — Use this source when the incident request is created from information that was left in a voice mail message.
    • Walk In — Use this source if your organization has a help desk that customers can visit in person and the customer has come to the help desk to report the incident or make the information request personally.
    • Web — Use this source if support staff created the incident request remotely, across the internet.
    • Other — Use this source if the source was something other than the choices in this list. 
    • BMC Impact Service Manager Event — This source indicates that the incident request was auto-generated by an integrated BMC application.
    • Chat — Use this source when the incident request is created from a chat conversation.

12. Select the assigned group and the assignee.

    If you do not assign the incident, the incident is automatically assigned based on predefined assignment routing. If there is no appropriate predefined assignment routing, you are prompted to assign the incident when you click Save. 
    The names that appear in the list of assignees depends on the assigned group you select.

13. If you use an external vendor, select the vendor's name from the list and, if used, the vendor's ticket number.
14. Click Save.

To use the decision tree to ask scripted questions

A decision tree takes you step-by-step through a questionnaire. Based on your answers, the decision tree completes part of the form for a new incident request record. Each element in the decision tree displays a list of items. Your final selection completes part of the incident.

A manager or administrator can build decision trees. You can set up your preferences to use available decision trees whenever you start a new incident. For more information, see Modifying-your-profile-and-preferences.

The following video (1:54) shows how to use decision trees in Mid Tier to train new service desk staff how to process incident requests.

 https://youtu.be/CZoBd5208eM