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Function documentationIncident Management

 

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.

Features

Structure of an Incident and an Incident (VAR, for Software Partners) for the Processor Business Role

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.

Header Level

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 what status to select for which action.

    • Impact and Urgency: Calculate the recommended priority

    • Priority: To overwrite the recommended priority

  • Dates: To give specific dates and not recur to service level times calculation

  • Category: To categorize the incident using multilevel 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

Assignment Blocks

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.

Structure of an Incident (ISV, for IT Service Providers) for the Processor Business Role

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.

Header Level

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.

Assignment Blocks

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.

Activities

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

As a processor, you can perform various functions, including the following:

  • Report incidents from several inbound channels

  • Prioritize and categorize the incident using multilevel 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 fill in 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

More Information

For more information about detailed workflows for incident processing, see IT Service Management in the WebClient UI.