Problem

Introduction

A problem is a condition from numerous incidents that are related or have common issues. Problem management is the process responsible for managing the lifecycle of all problems that happen or could happen.

The primary objectives of problem management are:

• To prevent problems and resulting incidents from happening
• To eliminate recurring incidents
• To minimize the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented

It may take several incidents to occur before Problem Management has enough data to understand the root cause. After Problem Management identifies the factor and develops a workaround, the problem becomes a “known error.”

Problem management processes activities in the following way:

1. Problem diagnosis and resolution - Achieved by categorization, prioritization and root cause identification. This may include a change request to resolve the Problem.
2. Determination of workaround - Workarounds are provided to reduce service interruptions until Problem is resolved.
3. Documentation of known errors - Known errors are added to Knowledge Base including related incidents and relevant workarounds.

ITIL defines a problem as an underlying cause of one or more incidents.

Example: An incident of a server hang is reported. The server becomes functional after a reboot. Later on, the incident repeats and the root cause of failure is analyzed and found as a faulty motherboard. The root cause is reported as Problem.

Configure problem entity settings

Customize Problem details by creating custom fields in addition to the predefined fields.

1. Navigate to Setup > Account > Service Desk.
   The Settings page is displayed.

2. From the top navigation tabs, select Problem.

   

3. From PROBLEM SETTINGS, configure the Property settings.

4. Click Update.

Create a problem entity

Problem entities are created on the Service Desk.

1. Navigate to Command Center > Tickets.
   The Tickets page is displayed.

2. Click ADD + and select Problem. The ADD PROBLEM page is displayed.

   

3. Enter the following information:

View problems

Problem details page provides the following attributes.

Tabs	Description
Conversations	Comments added by assignee or creator which can be viewed by all users in assignee group
Activity Log	User activities on Problem
Resources	Resources on which Problem is identified
Notes	Useful information or hints for Problem resolution. Viewed by all users of the assignee group.
To Do	Information recorded by a user for self-reference. Viewed by a single user.
Properties	The support website URL of the ITSM ticket is now provided as a hyperlink instead of plain text in the Properties section. You can provide a hyperlink in any of the fields that are under the Properties section. Users can access the third party tickets (for example, ServiceNow) using the hyperlink provided in the External Ticket Info under the Properties section. Note: To get the clickable link, you need to provide the External Entity URL information under the Outbound integration Response field.
Status Flow	The workflow representation that shows the status changes of Problem
Articles	KB articles attached if the Problem is a known error
Attached Requests	Change Requests attached as part of Problem resolution
Integration Log	The inbound and outbound third-party communication details.

Edit problem

Edit a single problem

1. Navigate to Command Center > Tickets and select a problem that you want to modify.
2. You can either click on the problem ID to modify the details and save them or select Edit from the Actions dropdown menu to make changes to the details.

Edit multiple problems

1. On the Tickets page, select the multiple problems for which you want to perform a bulk update.
2. Click BULK UPDATE.
   The Update Actions page is displayed.
3. Make the necessary changes and click SAVE.

Add an auto-close policy to close a problem

Configure auto-close policies to close problems that are resolved and that are in an inactive state since a certain elapsed time.

1. Navigate to Setup > Account > Service Desk.
2. In the left navigation pane, navigate to the Automation section and select Auto Close Policies.
   The Auto Close Policies page is displayed.
3. From Auto Close Policies, select Auto Close Problems.
   The POLICY - AUTO CLOSE PROBLEMS screen is displayed.
4. Enter the following information:

5. Click SAVE to activate auto close.

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