How Important Is It to Use Cloud-Based Incident Management System?

Incidents and queries are subjects which appear on an operational desk quite often. Issues can occur in a working station, needing to be resolved to continue the production process. Here, cloud-based incident management is beneficial to resolve and resume the operation with the least possible hindrance.

Incident management is included under IT service management. The main goal of cloud-based incident management is to restore the standard service functions as quickly as possible so as to reduce the impact of issues.

Implementation of incident management in the business system is the best way to maintain service quality. Here, in line with a service-level agreement (SLA), normal service operation is known as service operation itself.

Cloud-based incident management includes the following activities:

• Incident detection and recording
• Incident reporting and communication
• Priority classification and initial support
• Investigation and analysis
• Resolution and record
• Incident closure
• Incident ownership, monitoring, tracking and communication
• Incident framework management
• Evaluation of incident framework management

Also Read: Everything You Need to Know About Incident Management

Classification of incidents is also recorded i.e., a kind of incident is reported to a particular department to handle, which are pre-categorized, such as:

Application-Related Incidents

• Service not available
• Data issue
• Application bug
• Security issues
• Report not coming up
• Excel not downloading
• Disk-usage threshold exceeded

Hardware-Related Incidents

• System-down (server issue)
• Network issue
• Automatic alert
• Printer not printing
• System issues
• Physical memory
• Virtual memory

Problems Faced by a Business in the Absence of Incident Management

Cloud-based incident management includes every aspect that occurred through its life-cycle.

Ticketing management makes the process of resolution easy and fast while maintaining transparency. In the absence of an incident management system, maintaining queries and making tickets can be challenging tasks.

There arise a lot of problems when incidents cannot be maintained, like:

• Lack of transparency (ticket status and timelines for end-users)
• No history of tickets (no records of past incidents)
• Inability to create document solutions (for repeated or similar issues)
• Higher risk of business outages (especially with major incidents)
• Extended resolution times
• Lack of reporting abilities
• Decreased customer satisfaction

Purpose of the Cloud-Based Incident Management

The process of complaint ticketing system handles all queries and incidents effectively by generating a ticket to raise the issue and resolve it as soon as possible.

The purpose of cloud-based incident management is to restore service operations with the least time involved and reduce its impact on the business by keeping it all centralized. Everyone with access to the system can check the status and level of the ticket generated.

Below are objectives of incident management process:

• Ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient response, analysis, documentation, ongoing management, and reporting of incidents.
• Increase visibility and communication of incidents to business and IT support staff.
• Enhance the business perception of IT through the use of a professional approach in quickly resolving and communicating incidents when they occur.
• Align Incident Management activities and priorities with those of the business.
• Maintain user satisfaction with the quality of IT services.

Also Read: What are the steps involved in the Incident Management Process?

The Lifecycle of Tickets in Incident Management Process

The incident management is processed in the following steps:

1. Incident Logging

An incident is first recorded or registered through a phone call, email, SMS, or any other source. This is important to recognize it so that necessary action can be taken to tackle the situation.

2. Incident Categorization

Incidents after registration are categorized or sub-categorized into the areas they fall under and where they caused disruptions in the application, hardware, etc.

3. Incident Prioritization

Then the priority of the registered incident is decided so as to determine its urgency (depending on the impact it has). The impact level shows the degree of damage or disruption created by the incident and urgency indicates the time within which the incident is aimed to be resolved.

The priority of the incident can be categorized as follows:

• Critical
• High
• Medium
• Low

4. Incident Assignment

When the incident is categorized and its priority set, it is automatically sent to the technician or responsible person having the expertise to address the issue.

5. Task Creation and Management

Based on the priority and complexity of the incident, it can further be divided into tasks. Accordingly, more technicians can be assigned to solve the problem in the least possible time.

6. SLA Management and Escalation

During the processing of incident and its resolution, the technicians make sure no SLAs are infringed. SLAs are assigned to the incidents based on their category, requester, impact they are making etc.

7. Incident Resolution

Whenever the technician comes up with the solution (temporary or permanent), it is resolved from his end. Then the incident is officially resolved.

8. Incident Closure

Once the issue or incident is resolved and the user also acknowledges the solution and is satisfied with it, the incident is closed.

Conclusion

Incident is an unplanned interruption in the operations of an organization. In order to deal with them, reduce their impact and to resolve them, organizations resort to cloud-based incident management system. The primary aim of the system is to resume normal operations in the least time.

cloud-based incident management system brings notable benefits to the organization, such as:

• Increase in resuming service by reducing repair time.
• Maintain SLA quality and IT service availability.
• Increased efficiency and productivity.
• Ensure better quality and speed of detection, reporting, management and resolution of an incident.
• Improve analysis and documentation of incidents.
• Enhance and maintain end-user satisfaction.

Also Read: What are the Benefits of Ticketing Management System?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is the purpose of Incident Management?‍

The purpose of incident management is to resume normal service operations as fast as possible, reduce their negative impact on business operations, and ensure that the quality of SLAs is always maintained.

2. What are the objectives of Incident Management?‍

Following are objectives of the incident management process:
1. Ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient response, analysis, documentation, ongoing management, and reporting of incidents.
2. Increase visibility and communication of incidents to business and IT support staff.
3. Enhance the business perception of IT through the use of a professional approach in quickly resolving and communicating incidents when they occur.
4. Align Incident Management activities and priorities with those of the business.
5. Maintain user satisfaction with the quality of IT services.

3. What is Incident Management?‍

Incident management is one of the Help Desk's important processes to guide the organization through the dynamics of the incidents, their components, and the responsibilities involved for their resolution.