You use incident management to resolve incidents that are reported, for example, by end users, key users, or a monitoring service. Alternatively, processors may report incidents on behalf of end users.
Incidents and incidents for software partners consist of the header details, which are organized in individual groups, and additional assignment blocks. You can customize which assignment blocks are displayed according to your requirements.
In the header details, you specify the general data that is valid for the entire incident. This includes, for example, the following data:
General Data
, for example, the following:
Description
: Title of the incident
Support Team
and Message Processor
: If configured, when you enter data in one of these fields, the system suggests suitable values for the other. If this function is configured, only use the Details
assignment block to enter support team and processor, that is, do not use the Business Partner
assignment block.
Processing Data
, for example, the following:
Status
: To change the status, enter the new status and save the incident. The selection of the status depends on the configuration of your system. Ask your system administrator which status to select for which action.
Substatus
: A reason for a specific status
Impact
and Urgency
: To calculate the recommended priority
Priority
: To overwrite the recommended priority
Dates
: To enter specific dates for processing the incident.
Category
: To categorize the incident using multi-level categories. Depending on the category, the system can execute some actions automatically.
Solution Category
: The processor categorizes the cause for an incident.
Relationships
: To relate the incident to other messages, for example, the following:
Related Problem
: To enter a problem that relates to the incident, or use Find Related Problem
to assign related problems. After creating problems as follow-up transactions from incidents, the problem is displayed here.
Related Knowledge Article
: To assign an answer for an incident for future reference
Reference Objects
: To specify the object that is affected by the incident
Service Product
: The assigned service product is displayed. If configured, the service level also depends on the service product that the service request is based on.
In the assignment blocks, you specify additional data, for example:
In the Text
assignment block, the reporter and the processors exchange information regarding the incident. For more information, see Texts and Text Templates.
An incident for an IT service provider consists of the header details, which are organized in individual groups, and additional assignment blocks. You can customize which assignment blocks are displayed according to your requirements.
In the header details, you specify the general data that is valid for the entire incident. This includes, for example, the following data:
General Data
: The title and the users who process the incident
Processing Data
: The status and the priority are displayed
Dates
: The creation and change dates are displayed
SAP Data
: Details of the incident that is replicated to SAP
Data Protection and Security
: To indicate whether data protection restrictions apply.
In the assignment blocks, you specify additional data, for example:
In the SAP Collaboration
assignment block, you work with SAP Support to find solutions for incidents. For more information, see SAP Collaboration.
The reporter can perform the following actions:
Create an incident message
Display their own messages and monitor their status
Answer a processor query
Confirm the solution
The dispatcher can perform the following actions:
Create a message if incidents are reported either by telephone or in other ways
Forward a message to a processor
Confirm completed messages
The processor can perform various actions, including the following:
Report incidents from several inbound channels
Prioritize and categorize the incident using multi-level categorization
Search for a solution, for example in SAP Notes, knowledge articles, or related messages and define custom searches based on various incident attributes
Search for and assign related problems
Assign reference objects that are involved in an incident, such as a production system
Automatically complete information about the incident
Forward or dispatch the incident to another processor or other organizational units such as second-level support, in addition, configure automatic forwarding of incidents
Forward SAP-related incidents to SAP Support
Create follow-up transactions, such as a problem, to bundle incident processing
Notify the reporter, for example, by e-mail
Calculate SLA times
Once the reporter of the incident message has confirmed the solution, the processor can perform the following actions:
Create a knowledge article to provide the information to their colleagues
Create a change request
Create an issue or trigger a root cause analysis
Record the time that was spent on finding the solution
Close the incident message
For more information about detailed workflows for incident processing, see Working with IT Service Management.