Problem management workflow
- Several incidents, alerts or service requests are created that appear to have the same root cause. Refer to Working with problem and incident tickets.
- Mark one of them as a problem or create a new problem ticket and associate all tickets with the same root cause with the problem ticket. Refer to Tools menu.
- If all incidents are associated with the same vendor, create the problem ticket for the vendor account. This allows you to track costs associated with the vendor and calculate vendor profitability.
- If all incidents are associated with the same customer, create the problem ticket for the customer account.
- If the incidents are associated with multiple customers, create the problem ticket for your local organization.
- OPTIONAL: Schedule the problem ticket. If you need to make an appointment with your customer or with a vendor to resolve the issue, either on the phone or on-site, reserve a time slot on the Dispatch Calendar. Refer to Creating and managing service calls from a task or ticket.
- If resolving the problem requires a change, you may optionally use the Change management workflow to manage the change and the associated problems or incidents.
- Work on the problem ticket. For a description of the Ticket page, refer to The Ticket page.
- Track the time you spend working on the ticket. Refer to Adding a ticket time entry.
- Add new information about the issue as a note. Refer to Adding a note to a task or ticket.
- Associate documents with the ticket. You can upload or link external information such as Word documents, images, or spreadsheets to the ticket. Refer to Adding and managing attachments.
- Track any billable and non-billable materials you use to resolve the ticket. Refer to Adding or editing a ticket charge.
- Track travel expenses associated with the ticket. Refer to Adding and editing expenses.
- Complete the problem ticket and the associated incidents. Refer to Working with problem and incident tickets.
- Bill the customer. Refer to Invoicing.