Incident Management overview

An incident is any event that is not part of the standard operation of a service and that causes an interruption to or a reduction in the quality of that service. Normal service operation is the operation of services within the limits specified by the service target. When integrated with Incident Management, BMC Service Level Management monitors service targets. 

The incident management process also handles customer requests for service, such "I need a new laptop," or "I need access to this network resource." Customers can use BMC Service Request Management to enter service requests. If BMC Service Request Management is not available, your organization can use Incident Management.

The following video (2:57) helps you to learn about Incident Management in BMC Helix ITSM. 

 https://youtu.be/hVUsAnHZcFU

Business value

BMC Helix ITSMprovides an intuitive, social, and mobile service desk experience that enables a more knowledgeable and collaborative workforce organized around IT roles, not modules.
BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk acts as a single point of contact for user requests, user-submitted incidents, and infrastructure-generated incidents. The ITIL-compliant workflows automate the incident and problem management processes to enable IT to respond quickly and efficiently to conditions that disrupt critical services. Incident Management focuses on getting users up and running after disruptions. Problem Management focuses on determining the root cause of a problem, and on using the BMC Helix ITSM: Change Management processes to correct the root cause.

The following graphic shows the relationship between incident, problem, and change management processes for user requests:

Fast and efficient ticket logging

BMC Helix ITSM provides a single interface to create multiple ticket types such as incidents, work orders, change requests, or service requests. Ticket creation is faster with a limited number of required field values, because of the following features:

• Automatic creation of a ticket as you take notes during a customer call - The Smart Recorder enables you to take notes while talking to your customers. You can add the customer name, contact name, and affected assets by using special indicators in Smart Recorder, and the system provides a list of available options as you type your notes. Based on keywords in your notes, BMC Helix ITSM starts to create the ticket in the background. After you finish taking your notes, you can create the ticket with the click of a single button.
• Easy identification of users, related assets and incidents, and available templates while creating tickets - When you take your notes while talking to a customer, use special characters, and Smart Recorder displays a list of customers or assets available in the system. You can select the appropriate customer or asset as you type, and these details are automatically displayed in the ticket that is created. Based on keywords in your notes, Smart Recorder displays a list of available templates to use when creating the ticket.

Information for quick ticket resolution

When you take notes in Smart Recorder, BMC Helix ITSM uses keywords to display resources that you can use to resolve the ticket, such as a list of related knowledge articles.

You can also use the Ask HelixGPT tab on the incident screen for a conversational experience when finding information that helps you resolve the incident. For example, instead of reading through the knowledge articles, you can ask specific questions on the Ask HelixGPT tab and get real-time summarized answers.

Easy collaboration and knowledge sharing

BMC Helix ITSMprovides a chat application that enables you to communicate with other members of your team to get help or provide help in resolving a ticket. Create knowledge efficiently and collaboratively as part of the support role. When agents use Smart Recorder to record tickets, the system automatically searches for knowledge articles, making it easier for agents to use knowledge articles.

Mobile experience

You can access BMC Helix ITSM through your mobile web browser without any additional configuration. The changes already applied to screens through configuration or customization will also be visible in the mobile browser. BMC Helix ITSM is available on mobile devices for classic Smart IT screens. The mobile applications have most of the same capabilities as the web interface, and also include a few mobile-optimized features for scanning and receiving assets.

Knowledge article creation from incidents by using Knowledge Curator

Service Desk Agents can use the Agentic AI capabilities of Knowledge Curator to create a knowledge article in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround directly from an incident. The description, summary, resolution notes, and activity logs are used to generate the content for the knowledge article, helping Service Desk Agents to reuse the information from the incidents effectively to create a knowledge article. When the article is saved, it is automatically pinned to the incident. 

End-to-end process

The following figure provides an overview of the incident request lifecycle. The incident management process consists of the following procedures for handling requests from users.

1. Service desk analysts register incident requests for users.
2. Service desk analysts and group coordinators assign incident requests to the appropriate specialists or change coordinators for resolution or implementation.
3. Group coordinators track incidents to manage reassignment notifications or SLA escalations.
4. Specialists resolve incident requests that have been assigned to them.
5. After an incident has been escalated, the service owner of the affected service determines how the incident can be resolved in the most efficient manner.
6. Service desk analysts resolve and close incident requests, and requesters can review incident requests that have been completed for them.
7. When their approval is requested, group coordinators review a solution that has been proposed for general use.

How incident ownership is determined

Based on the following criteria, Incident Management automatically determines incident ownership when the incident request record is created:

• Presence of relevant Incident Owner events in the Assignment Configuration (see Configuring assignments).
• The default support group of the person who submits the incident request record.
• The support group the incident request record is assigned to.

For example, consider the following support groups:

• Support Group A has a support group role of Help Desk. The default support group of Person A is Support Group A.
• Support Group A2 also has a support group role of Help Desk. Person A is not a member of Support Group A2.
• Support Group B does not have a support group role of Help Desk; for example, it might have a support group role of Tier 2. The default support group of Person B is Support Group B.
• Support Group C does not have a support group role of Help Desk; for example, it might have a support group role of Tier 3.

Based on these support groups, the following example events show how the incident owner is set when no incident owner assignment event is predefined:

• Person A submits an incident and assigns it to Support Group A2 with the role of Help Desk. Ownership of the incident is set to Support Group A2 because the Assigned Group has the role of Help Desk. Otherwise, ownership of the incident is set to Support Group A, as it is the default Support Group of A.
• Person B submits an incident and assigns it to Support Group A. Ownership of the incident is set to Support Group A because the group has the role of Help Desk.
• Person B submits another incident, and assigns the incident to Support Group C. Support Group B becomes the owner, because Person B is the submitter.

Instructions for classic interfaces