The purpose of a Problem ticket is twofold:
- Capture the analysis process for what happened during a major service outage as captured in the Major Incident form. See Understand the Use of Major Incident for more information.
- Manage the analysis process of recurring incidents that seem to be related. See Understand the Use of Problem Tickets for an overview of the Problem management process.
This article covers:
Creating a Problem Ticket
You can generate a Problem ticket from an existing Major Incident or from a new ticket.
Beginning the Problem ticket from an Existing Major Incident ticket
- Navigate to the Major Incident ticket associated with the Problem.
- Select the Actions menu in the Major Incident ticket; choose Create Parent from the dropdown menu.
The Select Application/Form window pops open. - Choose Problem form. A Problem Form opens with some fields filled in just as they were in the Major Incident ticket.
Beginning the Problem Ticket from a new ticket
You can also create a Problem ticket directly from the UofM ticketing application.
- Select +New.
- Choose Problem from the dropdown menu
Filling out the Problem Ticket fields
Use the following guidelines to fill out the fields of the Problem ticket. Because of the many nuances of Problem situations, these guidelines may not apply to every situation.
- Problem Status
- If you created the Problem ticket by generating a parent ticket of a Resolved Major Incident ticket, adjust the Problem Status field to New.
- If you created the ticket from the U of M Tickets application +New function, the Problem Status will already be set to New.
- Problem State: Set the Problem State based on the definitions that follow. Typically, a new Problem ticket will start in the Root Cause Analysis state.
- Root Cause Analysis - Research is underway to identify root cause, as well as the most appropriate solution to address the root cause.
- Pending Solution - The root cause and solution have been identified. The Problem is currently awaiting the implementation of a solution (such as a Change ticket).
- Known Error - Root cause is identified and a workaround documented, but the solution is not currently available or feasible.
- Permanent Fix - The solution has been implemented and the problem resolved.
- Problem Manager
- This field will pre-populate with the person who opened the problem. If you are not the person who will be taking responsibility for the Problem ticket, change this to the name of the Responsible Group's manager. Use Locate Problem Manager to search for the correct person.
- Responsible
- Put the name of the Responsible Group in this field. It should be the Group name, not a person's name.
- Impact and Urgency
- In general, start with a baseline of 3 for Impact and 3 for Urgency. Remember that for Problem tickets stemming from a major outage, the Major Incident has already been resolved; the crisis is over. The Problem ticket is to find the root cause of the outage.
- Adjust the Impact and Urgency fields based on the circumstances of the incident (e.g. lots of incidents affecting large portions of the community need higher Impact/Urgency vs. ten incidents caused by a significant technology break).
- Contact field
- If you created the Problem ticket by generating a parent ticket of a Resolved Major Incident ticket, this field may already have people pre-populated in it.
- Add the names of people who need to be kept up to date who are not already part of the Responsible Group, if any.
- You can populate Root Cause Analysis and Workaround fields before saving the ticket if those details have already been determined, but typically, the fields should remain empty until the Problem ticket is resolved.
- Press Save (top of window). The current window closes and is replaced with a confirmation window, including the Problem ID #.
- Select View the Problem Ticket to continue working on the ticket, or close the window to go back to the UofM Tickets application.