Date fields on the Incident Request form

Understanding the date fields on the Incident Request form, what they mean, and how they relate to service level agreements (SLAs) can help you to prioritize the incident request assignments.

The Required Resolution Date Time field (Date/System tab) maps to the Date Required field on the Requester console. Someone using the Requester console can use the Date Required field to specify the date or time by which the request should be fulfilled. This is the suggested date or time that the customer wants the request to be fulfilled; no service level workflow is related to this field.

The Target Date field (main section of the Incident form) is the date or time by which the request must be resolved, according to the SLA targets. The Target Date field is set by the BMC Service Level Management application when SLA targets are defined. If SLA targets are not defined, you must set the Target Date field manually.

The Responded Date (Date/System tab) is the date on which the incident request was first responded to. Incident Management populates this field when one of the following conditions occurs:

• Someone sets the Response field on the Incident Request form to Yes.
• The incident request is created by a service desk analyst and the entry in the Reported Source field is configured to trigger an automatic update of the Responded Date field. In this case, Incident Management does not display the Response field.

Other date fields on the Incident Request form — Reported Date, Closed Date, and so on — are completed by the Incident Management system when the milestones represented by the field names occur.