4. Incident Resolution and Closure

Incidents are resolved when service has been restored to normal. Incidents can be resolved in a variety of ways including attaching a Workaround or a Known Error. A Workaround includes the steps on how to circumvent the problem. A Known Error is a problem where there is no known fix. There might be a workaround for the Known Error.

When resolving the error, you can select a Known Error, a Workaround, or a Knowledge Center article as a solution.

Note:

When the incident is resolved from the Classification state, it may be marked as First Call Resolved. This data is used in reports, such as Weekly First Call Resolution Rate, to keep managers informed about which incidents are resolved with the first call.
Users can automatically submit and then immediately resolve an incident if a Knowledge Center article presented from the submit form addresses their needs. See Automatically Resolving a Request or Incident for more information.

The option to create a How To article in the Knowledge Center is available on the Resolve transition. Selecting Yes will launch the Submit form into Knowledge Management after completing the Resolve transition.

Restriction: You must have permissions to submit an item into Knowledge Management to create an article. For example, you could be a member of the Contributors role in Knowledge Management.

Note: The content fields in the knowledge base article are automatically populated with the content from the incident. Selecting Load Article Template will clear the populated information, replacing it with the content from the template.

In the Resolved list, select from the following:

without Known Error enables you to enter the resolution details in the Resolution field.
with Known Error and with Workaround enable you to search for existing known errors and their associated workarounds.
Tip: When closing the item with Known Error or with Workaround, you must select a Problem or Known Error that is active. A problem or error cannot be selected if it is in the Closed state.
with Knowledge Center Article enables you to search for and select a Knowledge Center article to associate with the incident. To search for the article, click Search Knowledge Center and choose the relevant article from the results.

Depending on whether the incident was resolved with a workaround:

If the incident was resolved without a workaround, it moves to the Resolved state, where it can be closed.
If the incident was resolved with a workaround, it moves to the Resolved by Workaround state. The incident remains in this state until the problem associated with the workaround is addressed. When the problem is closed, the incident automatically moves to the Resolved state.

From the Resolved state, a user can close the incident by selecting the Close transition. The Close transition launches a survey form, where users can rate their service desk experience. The survey form has four selection fields and a text entry field for additional comments.

The completed incident moves to the Closed state, indicating that it is no longer active. The final incident displays a total Survey Score, which is a summation of the weighted values of Courtesy, Responsiveness, Technical Expertise, and Overall Satisfaction values. The default weightings for Courtesy, Responsiveness, and Technical Expertise are the selected values. Overall Satisfaction is weighted at ten times the selection, for example, a selection of 1 would be weighted as 10 for the Survey Score. Change the weightings by editing the fields in SBM Composer.

Tip: The Satisfaction Dashboard provides four reports to assist in monitoring the responses to the satisfaction survey.

A second method of closing an incident from the Resolved state is the IT Close transition. This transition is available only to users in the IM Operators, IM Manager, IM Level 2, IM Level 3, and IM Administrator roles. This transition does not include a survey form.

Note: If you are a member of IM User and a role with permissions to the IT Close transition, you will see two close transition buttons, Close and IT Close, on the Resolved state form. Choose the Close transition to complete the survey.