This documentation supports the 21.05 version of BMC Helix ITSM. To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Problem management user roles and permissions

The following end user roles are for the Problem Management module of the BMC Helix ITSM: Service Desk application. 

Related topic

Problem-Management-permissions

Problem coordinator

Problem coordinators are responsible for the quality and integrity of the problem management process. Problem coordinators have full access to problem investigations and known errors assigned to their support groups.

Problem coordinators require at least Problem User permission to access Problem Management. In addition, they must have the functional role of Problem Coordinator to perform the problem coordinator's duties. Their responsibilities include:

  • Reviewing the incident requests that have been related to the services for which they are the problem coordinator to help identify problems
  • Ensuring that the problems for which they are responsible (including the ones that have been identified within the Availability and Capacity Management processes) progress through the problem management process in a timely and prioritized manner
  • Ensuring that the information entered in the problem investigations and known errors that they manage is accurate and complete
  • Periodically reviewing their problem investigations for which a practical structural solution cannot be found
  • Verifying structural solutions and closing the known errors and problem investigations that they manage

Specialist

Specialists work on problem investigations and known errors as assigned. Their responsibilities include:

  • Suggesting workarounds for problems
  • Establishing the root causes of identified problems
  • Proposing structural (that is, permanent) solutions for problems
  • Implementing structural solutions for problems if the Change Management process is not required
  • Updating the problem investigation with relevant information and status changes

Individuals fulfilling the role of a specialist require Problem User permissions to access Problem Management. Permissions are assigned to individuals by the system administrator.

Problem agent

A problem agent is any Problem Management user who performs one or more of the following jobs in your organization:

  • Problem Manager
  • Problem Coordinator
  • Problem Submitter
  • Problem Solution Implementers

Problem agents perform the following activities in Problem Management, with the required permissions:

  • Create problem investigations and known error tickets and broadcasts using the Create New menu
  • Create related problems from incidents
  • Relate problems and known errors to existing incidents, change requests, and work orders
  • Add tasks to problems and known errors
  • Create assets from the Create New menu
  • Access and update assets from the Asset Console, Global search, and Updates feed

How the Problem Coordinator role maps to permission groups

The Problem Coordinator user role is mapped to the following permission groups:

Role

Permission groups

Problem Coordinator

  • Problem User
    Give this individual Master permissions if they need full access to Problems, Known Errors or Solutions.
  • Incident Viewer
  • Infrastructure Change Viewer
  • Release Viewer
  • Contract Viewer
  • Asset Viewer
  • Knowledge User

Functional Role required:

You must assign the following functional role to the user in addition to the permissions:

  • Problem Coordinator


Depending upon the permissions given to you by your administrator, you can perform the following operations on a problem investigation.

Related topic

Adding people without using templates


Permissions

Description

Application user license type

Problem Master

Users with Problem Master permission can perform the following functions:

  • Create problem investigation and known error records
  • Modify all problem investigation and known error records independently of any functional roles or support group affiliations
  • Configure:
    • Cost Category information
    • Cost Center information
    • Cost Rate templates
    • Financial rules
    • Chargeback periods
    • Access the Product Catalog console

Chargeback is a function of the costing subsystem and is given automatically with the other costing features.

Limit the use of the Master permissions group to key personnel who own a process or require full control of all Problem Management records.

Best practice
We recommend that you limit the use of these permissions to individuals who perform the role of Problem Coordinator and who require full access to all problem investigation and known error records.

Users with these permissions must also belong to a Support Group to open the Problem forms.

Fixed or Floating

Problem User

Users with Problem User permission can perform the following functions:

  • Create problem investigations and known error records
  • Based on functional roles and support group affiliations, modify problem investigations and known error records

    A user with these permissions and no Problem Management functional roles can modify only problem investigations and known errors where they belong to the Assigned group.

    A user with these permissions and the Problem Coordinator functional role can modify only problem investigations and known errors where they belong to the Problem Coordinator group.
  • Access the Product Catalog console

Best practice
We recommend that you grant these permissions to individuals performing the role of a Problem Coordinator within the problem management process.

You should also grant these permissions to users that perform any of the following roles:

  • Group Coordinator or a Specialist within the incident and problem management processes
  • Change Coordinator
  • Release Coordinator
  • Availability Manager
  • Capacity Manager

These permissions give those users the ability to create and modify problems and known errors.

To open the Problem forms, users with these permissions must also belong to a Support group.

Fixed or Floating

Problem Submitter

Users with Problem Submitter permissions can create and query all:

  • Problem investigations
  • Known errors

They cannot modify problem investigation and known error records.

Best practice
We recommend that you grant these permissions to individuals who must submit and view problem investigation and known error records. Typically, you give these permissions to any of the roles mentioned in the preceding list of Problem User permissions. (User-type permissions are required when the user needs modification access.)

To open the Problem forms, u sers with these permissions must also belong to a Support group.

None

Problem Viewer

Users with Problem Viewer permissions can:

  • Query problem investigations
  • Query known errors
  • Add Work Info records
  • Update Work Info records

Users with Problem Viewer permissions cannot:

  • Submit problem investigations 
  • Modify problem investigations
  • Submit known error records
  • Modify known error records

Best practice
We recommend that you grant these permissions to individuals who need only read access to view problem investigation and known error records. Typically, these permissions are given to most BMC Helix ITSM applications users (that is, users who do not already have the Master, User, or Submitter permission) so that they can access information in the Problem Management records. 

To open the Problem forms, u sers with these permissions must also belong to a Support group.

None

Problem Config

Users with Problem Config permissions can perform functions that span the following components:

  • Problem Management, configure:
    • Problem Impact values
    • Problem Urgency values
    • Problem Priority weight ranges
    • Problem Prioritization
    • Problem rules (general field enforcement and assignment rules)
  • Foundation, for KPIs, configure:
    • Flashboard parameters
    • KPI titles (can also register KPI titles; this option is advanced)
  • Incident Management:
    • Configure decision trees
      (This configuration option is available to a Problem application administrator because you can create decision trees to relate incidents directly to known error records.)

Best practice
We recommend that you grant these permissions to individuals who configure the component functions in the preceding list. You typically give these permissions to someone fulfilling an Application Administrator role.

Fixed or Floating

The following table describes the scope of the problem investigation permissions: 

Tasks

Problem Config

Problem Master

Problem User

Problem Submitter

Problem Viewer

View problem investigations and known errors

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

Create problem investigations and known errors

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

❌️

Submit problem investigations and known errors

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

❌️

Query problem investigations and known errors

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

Modify problem investigations and known errors

✅️

✅️

✅️

❌️

❌️

Delete problem investigations and known errors

✅️

✅️

✅️

❌️

❌️

Add Work Info records

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

Modify Work Info records

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

✅️

Access the Product Catalog Console

✅️

✅️

✅️

❌️

❌️

Perform configurations on problems settings including Impact, Urgency, Priority Matrices, Decision Trees, Problem Management Settings (in BMC Helix ITSM)

✅️

❌️

❌️

❌️

❌️


 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*