The incident management work center is a Web-based communication center that enables direct communication between the creators (users and customers who report problems) and processors (support employees). The exchange is no longer dependent on e-mails, as in the Service Desk.
Depending on your user role, you can perform the following functions in this work center:
As creator, you can create messages and display solutions proposed by the support employees.
As processor, you can process and manage messages, and create new messages on behalf of other users.
To be able to use the incident management work center, the following prerequisites must be met:
Incident Management is configured in your system.
The administrator has created a system user for you, and assigned a business partner to the user.
You are authorized for this work center. For more information, see the SAP Solution Manager Security Guide in the SAP Service Marketplace, under
, under 4 Operations.To enable you to receive support from an SAP support employee, your administrator has set up service connections and opened your system for remote analysis by SAP support.
The navigation area of the work center contains different views that you can use to find and display messages. The work center offers the following views:
Overview
Messages
Queries
Reports
The navigation area also contains the Common Tasks area from where you can execute functions that are used repeatedly in incident management. You can also switch to the WebClient UI to process messages by choosing the IT Service Management link.
Recommendation
Use the WebClient UI to create and process messages. Here you can use easy-to-use functions that help you create and process messages.
You can also use the incident management work center in SAP Solution Manager to create messages. It replaces the transaction-based Service Desk. The work center provides a start page that gives you a clear overview of which messages affect you.
Note
If you want to use incident management to support non-SAP applications as well, use the IT service management functions, which you can also use for general support messages. Since the use of IT service management functions depends on your support contracts and software licenses, contact your SAP sales representative.
To support non-SAP applications, you can connect an external help desk to your Service Desk, via a web service interface.
The view is split into the following areas:
Summary of messages
Predefined queries
Monitoring list
The summary of messages contains all messages, sorted by status and function, that are assigned to your business partner. Depending on your user role (creator or processor), not all summaries may be displayed. The messages are grouped as follows:
Messages that you created (as creator), for example, that require a reply or for which a solution proposal already exists.
All messages assigned to you as processor.
Messages assigned to your organizational unit (if you are assigned to an organizational unit in an organizational model).
With the predefined queries, you can display messages filtered by certain criteria. You can create new queries.
In the monitoring list, you can directly access messages that you added to the monitoring list.
This view lists messages that you can filter by status, for example.
As creator or processor, you can do the following:
Create messages and add attachments
Check the processing status of a message and display and print replies or solution proposals for a message
Note
You can process messages using the WebClient UI only. If you want to process a message in the incident management work center, the WebClient UI appears automatically. The WebClient UI enables you to:
Reply to solution proposals or questions for a message
Confirm solution proposals and complete a procedure
Process messages and add attachments and SAP Notes
Forward messages to SAP, have messages confirmed by SAP, and access positive call closure questionnaires
Call additional functions in expert mode as authorized
The content of messages as well as the relevant answers and proposed solutions are always shown to creators and processors.
In this view, you can perform complex searches by defining queries or entering selection criteria directly. You can, for example, filter by status, date created, and business partner ID.
When you select a message in the list, the system displays message details, for example, the long text and the description of the problem.
This view offers you various options to analyze messages:
Reporting based on SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW)
Reports
Saved documents
You can either upload the documents manually to Solution Reporting, or schedule it as a background job.
For more information, see Reporting in Incident Management.
You can perform the following functions from any view in the work center:
Create Messages
For more information, see Creating Messages in the Incident Management Work Center.
Search for SAP notes
For more information, see Search for Solutions to Support Messages.
For more information about working with the WebClient UI, see the SAP Help Portal at
.