Everything You Need to Know About Incident Management

Incident management is one of the pillars of an organization. It specializes in processing helpdesk issues raised by users & customers. In this blog, we are covering topics such as:

What is an Incident?

An incident is an unexpected disruption. As a result, it disturbs the daily operations and functionality of the organization. Another result loss of productivity.

When an asset does not function properly that is called disruption. Network failure, laptop issues, Wi-Fi problem, etc.  are a few of the examples of an incident.

What is an example of an Incident?

Suppose you are in your office & your boss just told you to make a presentation on a topic. So that he can discuss it with the clients in a meeting. But suddenly your laptop is not working it is hanged! That was the example of an Incident!

What is Incident Management?

The process of managing the disruption of services, functions, or operations in an organization is known as Incident Management. It could lead to loss of productivity and financially.

Incident Management is also known by other names such as ticketing management, call management or request management.

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

What is the aim of Incident Management?

The main purpose of incident management is to re-establish services back to normal operation as quickly as possible. Ensuring systematic methods are used for efficient response, analyzing reports and finding the improvement areas for enhancing the customer experience.  Increase the customer experience by providing a quick prompt solution to the incident.

Therefore, the main aim of cloud-based Incident management is to ensure daily operation run smoothly and if there is any problem, then solve it in minimum time.

What are the advantages of Incident Management?

There are several advantages of incident management system given below:

1. Service quality maintained

When a ticket is generated it defines the what is the priority of the issue? Low, medium and high. It means that critical issues can be resolved on top priority. It helps in improving the responding time because the IT staff communicates to the clients via the ticketing system.

2. Scope of improvement

With the help of Incident Management Software, you can get various details such as how much time a ticket is taking to be resolved? How much time spend on a ticket? So, it can acquire data from every incident entered in the system & make reports with the assistance. This will help you find where is the scope of improvement in order to close the ticket at the earliest.

3. IT Service management documentation

Shareholder & potential business partners need data and documentation that proofs how much incident management software provides assistance in order to reduce the restoring time & making the customer happy. These types of documentation are prepared with the complaint ticketing system.

4. User satisfaction

When the technical support and IT Staff solve the problem of the clients quickly & effectively. Therefore, they will be satisfied with the quick prompt solution and they will provide a good review.

5. Increased productivity

If your company has few or abundant assets, incident management software can enhance efficiency and increase profitability. Incident management software utilizes a procedure for each incident, that is executed by each staff member. It does not leave any room for any presumptions about the issue. The right steps are taken in order to rectify the issue.

Also Read: What is Incident Management? What are its benefits?

What are the various stages involved with Incident Management?

The various stages involved with incident management are as follow:

1. Discover Incident

The first step in the follow up of workflow is the identification of the incident. By generating the incident by the user inline, a ticket is generated.

Now the service desk will decide, whether the issue is an incident or just a request. If it is a request, then it will be categorized and handled differently and if it is an incident, they will follow a request fulfillment procedure so that ticket can be generated.

This incident ticket will carry information like the name of the user, his/her contact details, incident description, and date and time of the incident report.

2. Diagnosis

The diagnosis of the incident ticket will include the categorization and prioritization of the ticket raised.

The categorization step is for assigning a category to the incident with at least one subcategory for its definite identification. This step involves many purposes from allowing the service desk to sort the incident to allow the issue for their automatic prioritization.

The incident prioritization can be determined from its impact on the users, on the business and its urgency. On the basis of its urgency, the incident is quickly resolved.

• Low-priority incidents are those incidents that do not interrupt the users, the business and its workaround. So, the services that are provided to the users and customers can be maintained efficiently.

• Medium-priority incidents affect the few staff and work is also interrupted to some extent. So, the users and customers may be slightly affected.

• High-priority incidents affect a large number of users or customers as they interrupt business and affect service delivery. These incidents almost always put a financial impact on the organization.

3. Logging

The incident is now needed to be logged so that, to keep their record regarding what is being observed and can be followed up anytime for the track incident resolving process.

Incident logging refers to the fact that incidents that are reported to the service desk are logged with the date and time stamp that they are generated.

Incident logging details will include:

• A unique identification numbers
• Incident category
• Date and time recorded
• Incident impact and urgency
• User details
• Description of symptoms
• Resolution details
• Closure date and time

4. Response

The response is the action, which is taken to solve the incident, to solve the problem with all the correct information in the data feed.

Once identified, categorized, prioritized, and logged, the service desk can handle and resolve the incident.

Incident resolution involves a few steps:

• Initial diagnosis: An initial diagnosis occurs when the user describes his or her problem and answers all the troubleshooting questions correctly.

• Incident escalation: This happens when an incident requires advanced support, such as sending an on-site technician or assistance from certified support staff.

• Investigation and diagnosis: Investigation of the process takes place during the troubleshooting when the initial incident theory is confirmed to be correct.

When the incident is diagnosed, the service desk staff will implement a solution to it, which may include changes in software settings or applying a software patch or ordering new hardware.

5. Restoration to Normality

After the service desk has figured out what exactly was the issue, they will create an efficient and effective resolution to solve the incident query.

6. Closure

Whenever the incident's problems get solved, the process of incident management finally comes to the closure. At this point, the incident is considered to be closed and the incident process will end.

Also Read: Why Asset Infinity for Fixed Asset Management Software?

What is the various status of an Incident?

• New - This is the initial stage in which the helpdesk ticketing system has received the incident (issue or ticket) however it has not been assigned to any technical support agent. Therefore, it has not been processed yet.

• Assigned - This is the second stage of the incident solving process, where the ticket is assigned to the technician.

• In progress - In this stage, the technical support agent diagnoses the issue and start working on the issue. The best solutions are explored in this process.

• On hold/ Pending - When the ticket is put on hold it means that the technical support agent is waiting for some response, information or source such as hard disk, ram, a processor from the third party. Therefore, this waiting stage is called hold or pending from the third party.

• Resolved - When the response, information or source is received then the same is told to the customer and service is restored.

• Closed - This is the last stage of the incident status after once acknowledged with the user the issue, ticket or incident is closed.

What is the scope of Incident Management?

According to Simplilearn

“Incident management includes any event which disrupts or something which is capable of causing a disruption to the service. This includes events that are communicated directly by users €“ through an interface from event management to incident management tools €“ or through the service desk.”

Also Read: What is the Difference between EAM and CMMS?

Conclusion

Incident management shows the status & category of the issue, raised ticked and time is taken to solve the incident. Incident management helps in gathering data evaluation. Moreover, the data helps organizations to a better decision and improve service quality.