Role required: incident_manager.
Creating an incident announcement
You can create an announcement to inform users that the incident is processed.
To create an Incident announcement, please complete the following steps:
- Navigate to Incident Management → All Incidents and open the incident you need.
- Click the Create Announcement at the top right.
- Fill in the fields.
- Click Save or Save and Exit.
As a result, a new announcement is created in the Announcement table. It also has a reference to the incident in the Related Incident field. This announcement record is also displayed in the Related Lists area on the incident form.
You can create as many incident announcements as you need.
Incident Announcement form field
| Field | Mandatory | Description |
|---|---|---|
Number | Y | Contains an announcement number in ANCMXXXXXXX format. This field is populated automatically. |
| State | Y | Announcement state. This field is populated automatically with New, as it was just created. Other options:
Only active announcements {state IS Published^via Portal IS Yes} are displayed to Portal users. |
| Related Incident | Y | This field is populated automatically with the number of the incident. |
| Announcement Type | Y | Available options: |
| Service | Y | Service affected by the incident. |
| Recipient Email | N | Specify the email of the announcement recipient. You can add more than one email, separated by commas. |
| Reviewer's Email | N | Specify the email of the announcement reviewer. You can add more than one email, separated by commas. |
| via Email | N | Select the checkbox to send this announcement via email. It will be sent to all addresses specified in the Recipient Email field. |
| via Portal | N | Select the checkbox to display this announcement on the Service Portal in the Portal Announcements area. |
| Subject | Y | This field will be populated automatically with the subject of the incident. |
| Announcement Body | N | Type the message you need to share with users about this incident. You can design the announcement body using the built-in editor functionality, such as formatting, working with tables and media, lists, styles, and headings. |
| Signature | N | Reference to the Announcement Signature. |
| Description | N | Add a description. |
Creating relationships
You can create relationships between incidents and other types of tasks.
Relationship types
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Related Problems | The incident is related to the problems specified. |
| Related User Query | The incident is related to the user query specified. |
| Solved by Changes | The incident is solved / can be solved by the change request specified. |
| Caused by Changes | The incident is caused by the change request specified. |
Master Incident | The incident has a master incident (this essence is opposite to the child incidents). |
| Slave Incidents | The incident has one or more child incidents (see above on this page). |
| Related Articles | The incident is related to the Knowledge Base article specified. |
| Known Error | The incident is a known error. It has a recorded root cause and a workaround. |
| Related Request | The incident is related to the service request specified. |
To create a relationship, please complete the following steps:
- Navigate to Incident Management → All Incidents and open the incident you need.
- Open the Related Records tab.
- Click the magnifier icon
next to the appropriate field. In the window appeared, choose the necessary option.
Сlick Save to apply changes.
"Parent-child" relationship between incidents
Create such a relationship to link two or more incidents with each other in a “parent-child” model.
To make the current incident parent to another existing incident, please complete the following steps:
- Navigate to Incident Management → All Incidents and open an incident that you want to be a parent incident.
- Open the Related Records tab.
Click on the magnifier icon
next to the Slave Incidents field. The incident list will appear. - Select the necessary incidents from the list. Click on the checkbox icon
on the left. - You can choose more than one item, all of them will be slaves for the master incident.
- Click the Select Items button at the top.
- The Level of Dependency field is automatically populated with the Master value and remains read-only.
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.
To make the current incident child to another existing incident, please complete the following steps:
- Navigate to Incident Management → All Incidents and open an incident that you want to be a child incident.
- Open the Related Records tab.
- Click on the magnifier icon next to the Master Incident field.
- Select the incident you need to be a parent for the current incident.
- The Level of Dependency field is automatically populated with the Slave value and remains read-only.
Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.
Master and Slave Incidents
You can close all slave incidents related to the master incident with a bulk action without navigating to a form of every slave incident. To do this, please complete the steps below:
- Make sure that the master incident is in the Completed state.
- Navigate to the Related Records tab and click the Close all Slave Incidents button.
The state for all slave incidents will be changed to Completed, too. The closure notes and other service information will be transferred from the master incident.
Also, when you comment on a master incident, the comment you made is transferring into slave incidents in two ways depending on the comment type:
- The comment in the Work Notes field is copied from the master incident into the relevant fields of all slave incidents.
- The comment in the Additional Comment field is copied from the master incident into the relevant fields of all slave incidents. A comment announcing notification is sent to the incident caller.
Creating an incident task
If incident solving requires various departments' participation, you can create an incident task for each of them. They will be related to the parent incident, but not like in the "paren-child" model.
To create an incident task, please complete the following steps:
- Open the incident you want to work on.
- Scroll down the page to Related Lists.
- Open the Incident Task tab.
Click New and fill in the fields.
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.
You can create as many incident tasks as you need.
| Field | Mandatory | Description |
|---|---|---|
Number | Y | This field contains an incident task number in INTXXXXXXX format. It is populated automatically. |
| Parent | Y | This field is populated automatically with the number of the parent incident. |
| State | N | Available options:
|
| Assigned User | Y | Choose a responsible person you wish to assign the task to. When an incident has been assigned to a responsible user, then the Assignment Group field becomes non-mandatory. There is a dependence between Assigned User and Assignment Group fields. To learn more, please refer to Restrictions for assignment. |
| Assignment Group | Y | Choose a responsible group you wish to assign the task to. When an incident has been assigned to a responsible group, then the Assigned User field becomes non-mandatory. There is a dependence between Assigned User and Assignment Group fields. To learn more, please refer to Restrictions for assignment. |
| Subject | Y | Specify the task subject. |
| Description | N | Describe the task by giving more details. |
| Followers list | N | The field displays a list of users who follow the task for tracking updates. |
| Schedule tab | ||
| Planned Start Datetime | N | The date when the assigned person is supposed to start working on this task. |
| Planned End Datetime | N | The date when the task should be in Completed or Closed. |
| Actual Start Datetime | N | The date when the assigned person started to work on this task. The agent should fill in this field. |
| Actual End Datetime | N | The date when the assigned person finished the work on this task. The agent should fill in this field. |
