Assigning and reassigning problem investigations and known errors
Before you begin
To ensure that tickets are assigned as expected, the administrator must:
- Configure assignments according to the needs of the organization.
- Configure and enable the auto assignment functionality . See Configuring assignments.
- Provide necessary permissions to support agents to specify ticket assignment. See Roles and permissions.
To specify a Problem coordinator
- When you create a new ticket, you can assign a problem coordinator and a coordinator group in the assignment section of the ticket.
- If you want to edit or assign a problem coordinator after the ticket is created, click the pencil icon in the assignment section of the ticket. The ticket opens in edit mode. You can search for problem coordinator or coordinator group, and select a new coordinator from the list by clicking the name.
To assign tickets to yourself
When you create a new ticket, click the Assign to me link in the assignment section of the ticket to assign the ticket to yourself. You can also assign articles to yourself using the Assign to me link.
To reassign a ticket
When you click the pencil icon in the assignment section of the ticket, the ticket opens in edit mode. You can assign the ticket to another assignee or a request manager.
- From ticket details, click the pencil icon in the assignment section of the ticket.
- (Optional) Search for an assignee by name or select a different support group.
You can also select a support organization to narrow the list of support groups. - Select a new assignee from the list by clicking the name.
- Click Save.
For information about additional ticket assignment scenarios and how Live Chat tickets are assigned to agents automatically, see Assigning-and-reassigning-an-incident-request.
Example of managing a problem investigation in classic Smart IT
Mary Mann is a problem coordinator in the Network Infrastructure group. Mary hosts a monthly incident review in which the review team evaluates incident tickets for the month and identifies recurring incidents for underlying problems with the services they are responsible for. When the team finds an issue with a routing table for network equipment that is causing recurring incident requests, Mary begins the problem investigation process:
- Mary locates an incident that was triggered by the problem, and on the Related Items tab, she selects Create > Related Problem Investigation.
- The new problem investigation is populated with information from the incident, so for now, Mary updates the Investigation Driver field (a required field), and assigns the problem to a specialist. She sets the Investigation Driver to Re-Occurring Incidents. For the assignee, she clicks the pencil icon in the Assignment group. Here she has the option to automatically assign the best-fit group, from which she can select a specialist. However, she instead selects Bob Baxter from the Backoffice Support group, because he has the most experience in dealing with this type of problem.
- After saving the problem investigation, Mary clicks the Share icon and emails Bob, informing him that he has been assigned the problem investigation. She also clicks the Follow icon so she can see updates to the problem investigation as it proceeds.
- Mary then relates incidents to the problem investigation. She selects the Related Items tab and clicks Relate Existing Item. She searches for routing table and selects related incidents. From the Relationship Type, list she selects Related to and saves the ticket. The related items now appear on the Related Items tab.
Bob then initiates the root cause analysis. He begins by looking for a temporary workaround while he determines a permanent solution. Bob decides to review knowledge articles, where he identifies a workaround to the issue. He then updates the problem investigation ticket with the workaround:
- In classic Smart IT, Bob selects Console > Ticket Console to locate and open the problem investigation. Open tickets assigned to him are displayed by default.
- On the Resources tab, Bob finds a knowledge article that provides a workaround to the issue and pins it to the problem ticket .
- Bob then updates the Workaround field with a summary of the procedure and instructions to refer to the knowledge article he pinned to the problem investigation. He then updates the status to Under Investigation and saves the ticket.
- Bob clicks the Share icon and emails Mary to inform her that he has identified a workaround and updated the problem investigation with that information.
With the temporary workaround in place, Bob continues to investigate the root cause. He finds that the solution is to reconfigure the routing table. Before initiating the change process, Bob updates the Root Cause field:
- Bob opens the ticket console and selects the problem investigation from the My Tickets list.
- The Root Cause field is not visible because it contains no information. Bob clicks the pencil icon to edit the ticket and scrolls down to locate the Root Cause field. He sets the root cause to Infrastructure Issue. When he saves the changes, the field becomes visible on the ticket.
- Bob adds an Activity Note describing the root cause. He then emails Mary to inform her that he has identified the root cause. Mary emails Bob back, letting him know that the fix requires a change request.
Now that the root cause has been identified, Mary is ready to create a related known error:
- Mary opens the problem investigation, and under Related Items, she clicks Create and selects Related Known Error from the list.
- Mary reviews the imported information in the Known Error form and makes any changes or additions that are needed. She then saves the known error, which subsequently appears on the Related Items tab of the problem investigation.
Mary notifies the incident review team that the root cause has been identified and that a change request will be needed to implement a structural solution. After the team evaluates the root cause, Mary creates the change request:
- Mary opens the problem investigation and selects the Related Items tab at the bottom of the form.
- Mary clicks the Create button and selects Related Change Request.
- Mary completes the change request.
- When the change is implemented, Mary updates the problem investigation status to Completed.
After the change process is complete, Mary sets the status of the problem investigation to Closed, which completes the problem investigation.
Instructions for classic interfaces