BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.

00

User’s Guide

October 2009

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Have the following information available so that Customer Support can begin working on your issue immediately:
■ Product information
— Product name
— Product version (release number)
— License number and password (trial or permanent)
■ Operating system and environment information
— Machine type
— Operating system type, version, and service pack
— System hardware configuration
— Serial numbers
— Related software (database, program, and communication) including type, version, and service pack or
maintenance level
■ Sequence of events leading to the problem
■ Commands and options that you used
■ Messages received (and the time and date that you received them)
— Product error messages
— Messages from the operating system, such as file system full
— Messages from related software
 License key and password information
If you have a question about your license key or password, contact Customer Support through one of the following
methods:
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as SupID:12345.)
■ In the United States and Canada, call 800 537 1813. Outside the United States and Canada, contact your local support
center for assistance.
■ Submit a new issue at http://www.bmc.com/support.
Contents

Preface 9
Best Practice icon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
BMC Remedy IT Service Management Suite documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 13

Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Accessing the IT Home Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Consoles overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Incident Request form views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Best Practice view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Classic view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Calbro Services user data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
User roles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Support staff roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Manager roles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
User role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Mapping permission groups to SMPM roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Process flow and the lifecycle of an incident request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Incident management use cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Incident resolution—first call resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Incident resolution with assignment to specialist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Chapter 2 Working with the Requester console 33

Requester role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Requester console users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Working with service requests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Defining a service request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Performing additional service request functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Troubleshooting service requests with errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Chapter 3 Working with the Overview console 43

Functional areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Console list table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Selecting status values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Contents 5
 Chapter 4 Registering and assigning incident requests as support staff 49
Functional areas of the console. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Managing service targets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Registering incident requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Reviewing the status of an incident request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Viewing incident request records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Creating an Incident request record using a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Creating an incident request record without a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Adding or modifying a customer profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
First call resolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Relating incident requests as duplicates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Searching for incident request records using Company and View By . . . . . . . . . 69
Restoring a resolved incident request record to In Progress status . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Assigning incident requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Reassigning incident requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Chapter 5 Resolving and closing incident requests as support staff 73

Resolving incident requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Accepting an incident request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Receiving notification of assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Working with assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Working with tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Searching for a solution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Recording time worked on an incident request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Creating work information entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Modifying work information entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Updating an incident request. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Creating a change request. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Creating a solution database entry from an incident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Creating a knowledge base article from an incident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Closing incident requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Completing an incident request. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Closing an incident request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Moving a resolved incident request back to In Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Reopening a resolved or closed incident request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 6 Working with incident requests as a manager 91

Assigning incident requests as a group coordinator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Rejecting an incident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Tracking incident requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Overview of BMC SLM calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Working with the Watch List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Handling incident escalations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Approving solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

6 User’s Guide
Chapter 7 Creating and monitoring tasks 99
Tasks overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Opening the Task form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Adding tasks using task templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Creating ad hoc tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Accepting task assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Opening and viewing individual task records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Reassigning task sequence numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Reassigning sequence numbers to task group children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Assigning and reassigning tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Updating task record details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Planning task times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Tracking the time spent working on tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Adding work information to a task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Canceling tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Closing tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Resolving, closing, and canceling incident requests with open tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Canceling an incident with open tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Chapter 8 Supplemental BMC Remedy Incident Management features 113

Using the KPI flashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
BMC Remedy Incident Management KPIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
KPI flashboard variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Opening the KPI flashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Viewing and displaying data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Using the Service Desk ROI flashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Configured parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Viewing and displaying data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
ROI Active variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Viewing your profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Creating a problem from an incident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Setting application preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Searching for records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Running Defined Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Creating a custom search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Searching all records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Working with records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Printing records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Modifying records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Using the decision tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Using scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Recording CI unavailability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Contents 7
 Working with relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Defining relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Copying relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Indicating impacted areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Modifying relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Performing quick actions on a relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Removing relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Creating reminders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Broadcasting messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Creating broadcast messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Viewing and modifying broadcast messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Limiting the number of messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Paging and sending email messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Paging a person or on-call group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Sending email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Working with reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Generating a standard report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Generating a report using qualifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Updating assignment availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Chapter 9 Managing configuration items 153

Creating a CI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Inventory management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Placing bulk CIs in inventory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Placing non-bulk CIs in inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Managing inventory tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Index 163

8 User’s Guide
Preface

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00 User’s Guide describes
how to use the BMC Remedy Incident Management application of the BMC
Remedy IT Service Management Suite.
The BMC Remedy IT Service Management Suite includes:
! The BMC Remedy Service Desk solution, which includes the
BMC Remedy Incident Management application and the
BMC Remedy Problem Management application
! The BMC Remedy Asset Management application
! The BMC Remedy Change Management application, which also includes the
BMC Remedy Release Management module
The applications run with the BMC Remedy Action Request System (BMC
Remedy AR System) environment and share a common database. All these
applications receive data from the BMC Atrium Configuration Management
Database (BMC Atrium CMDB).

Best Practice icon

The Best Practice icon highlights processes or approaches that BMC has identified
as the most effective way to use certain features in the suite.

Audience
The BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00 User’s Guide is
intended for the following IT professionals:
! IT support staff
! IT managers
The Requester console, which is also described in this guide, is intended for any IT
“requester” (that is, anyone requesting support from IT).

Preface 9
BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

BMC Remedy IT Service Management Suite

documents
The following table lists the documentation available for BMC Remedy Service
Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00. It also lists relevant documents for related
solutions and products.
Unless otherwise noted, online documentation is available with the product and
on the Customer Support website at http://www.bmc.com/support.

Title Document provides Audience

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

BMC Remedy IT Service Information about known issues in each release of BMC Everyone
Management Release Notes Remedy IT Service Management. Also provides a list of
new features included with the applications.
BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Procedures for using the BMC Remedy Incident Everyone
Management User’s Guide Management application; includes new features and
overview.
BMC Remedy IT Service Procedures for configuring the BMC Remedy IT Service Administrators
Management Configuration Guide Management applications.
BMC Remedy IT Service Conceptual overview information about the Everyone
Management Concepts Guide applications that make up the BMC Remedy ITSM
suite of applications.
Help Help for using and configuring BMC Remedy Everyone
Incident Management, available by clicking Help in
the product interface.
Available from Help links after Help is installed.

Other BMC Remedy IT Service Management 7.6.00 products

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Problem Procedures for using the BMC Remedy Service Desk: Everyone
Management User’s Guide Problem Management application; includes new
features and overview.
BMC Remedy Asset Management Procedures for using the BMC Remedy Asset Everyone
User’s Guide Management application; includes new features and
overview.
BMC Remedy Change Management Procedures for using the BMC Remedy Change Everyone
User’s Guide Management application; includes new features and
overview.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Availability Management the availability management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Capacity Management the capacity management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Change Management the change management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Configuration Management the configuration management process.

10 User’s Guide
 BMC Remedy IT Service Management Suite documents

Title Document provides Audience

BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Continuity Management the continuity management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Event Management the event management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Financial Management the financial management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Incident Management the incident management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Problem Management the problem management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Release Management the release management process.
BMC Best Practice Process Flow for A white paper describing the best practice work flow for Everyone
Service Level Management the service level management process.

Solutions
BMC Service Impact Manager: Detailed information about the Integration for the BMC Administrators
Integration for BMC Remedy Service Remedy Service Desk (IBRSD) component. This guide is and BMC
Desk User Guide intended for system administrators and users with an Impact Manager
understanding of the BMC Impact Manager and BMC users
Remedy Service Desk environments.
Service Management Solutions Information about new features, open issues, and Everyone
Release Notes resolved issues.

BMC Atrium CMDB 7.6.00

BMC Atrium Core Release Notes Information about new features, open issues, and Everyone
resolved issues.
BMC Atrium CMDB User's Guide Information about using BMC Atrium CMDB, including Users
searching for and comparing CIs and relationships,
relating CIs, viewing history, running impact
simulations, and viewing federated data.
BMC Atrium Core Troubleshooting Information about resolving issues with BMC Atrium Administrators,
Guide Core components, including API, filter and console programmers,
error messages and their solutions. and BMC
Support
personnel

BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5.00

BMC Remedy Approval Server Guide Information about installation and configuration of the Everyone
BMC Remedy Approval Server, how to use the BMC
Remedy Approval Server, and understanding the
approval workflow.

BMC Service Level Management 7.5.00

BMC Service Level Management Information about known issues in each release of BMC Everyone
Release Notes Service Level Management. Also provides a list of new
features included with the application.

Preface 11
BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Title Document provides Audience

BMC Service Level Management Procedures for using the BMC Service Level Everyone
User’s Guide Management application; includes new features and
overview.

BMC Service Request Management 7.6.00

BMC Service Request Management Information about new features and known issues. Everyone
Release Notes
BMC Service Request Management Procedures for using the BMC Service Request Everyone
User’s Guide for Administrators and Management application.
Users

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.5.00

BMC Remedy Knowledge Procedures for using the BMC Remedy Knowledge Everyone
Management User Guide Management application; includes new features and
overview.

BMC Service Management Process Model 7.6.00

BMC Service Management List and description of BMC Service Management Everyone
Process Model Role Mapping to Process Model roles.
BMC Remedy ITSM Suite

12 User’s Guide
Chapter

1 Introducing BMC Remedy

Incident Management

According to IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) standards, the primary goal of the

incident management process is “to restore normal service operation as quickly as
possible with minimum disruption to the business, thus ensuring that the best
achievable levels of availability and service are maintained.”
The BMC Remedy Incident Management application helps you to restore normal
service operation quickly by managing all aspects of an incident, from creation to
their resolution and closure.
The processes described in this guide are developed from the BMC Service
Management Process Model (SMPM), which is a companion product to BMC
Remedy Incident Management. The SMPM describes a set of predefined processes
for the delivery and support of information technology (IT) services. The processes
described by the SMPM are aligned with ITIL good practices.
The following topics are provided:
! Getting started (page 14)
! Incident Request form views (page 16)
! Calbro Services user data (page 20)
! User roles (page 21)
! Process flow and the lifecycle of an incident request (page 25)
! Incident management use cases (page 27)

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 13

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Getting started
For new installations of BMC Remedy Incident Management, when you start the
BMC Remedy Action Request System (BMC Remedy AR System) server, the
Overview console appears by default. This behavior might be different if your
installation of BMC Remedy Incident Management was upgraded from an earlier
version. The system can also be configured so the Incident Management console
(or any other installed program’s console) appears instead. This configuration can
be done either by a system administrator—for all BMC Remedy Incident
Management users—or you can configure just your user ID to see the Incident
Management console. See “Setting application preferences” on page 126 for
information about how to configure your user ID to open the Incident
Management console by default.

NOTE
For information about the various consoles you can use to access BMC Remedy
Incident Management, see “Consoles overview” on page 15.

How you start the BMC Remedy AR System server depends on whether you are
using the BMC Remedy User client or a browser. Both of these methods are
described in Table 1-1. The method to use depends on your organization’s policies
and procedures.

Table 1-1: Starting the Incident Management console

Using a browser Using the BMC Remedy user client
Type the following URL in to your browser’s address If you are using Microsoft Windows XP, choose Start
bar: > All Programs > BMC Software > AR System >
http://webserver:port/arsys/home BMC Remedy User.
In the preceding URL:
! webServer is the fully qualified name of the BMC
Remedy Mid Tier system, specified in the format
server_name.company.com.
! port is an optional port number, which is needed if
the web server is not on the default port (port 80).
Note: For a list of supported browsers, see the Product
Availability and Compatibility page on the
Customer Support website at
http://www.bmc.com/support

14 User’s Guide
 Getting started

Table 1-1: Starting the Incident Management console (continued)

Using a browser Using the BMC Remedy user client
Enter your user name and password, and then click 1 Enter your user name and password, and then click
Log in. OK.
Note: The user name and password are case sensitive. 2 If your organization uses a preference server, or if
you configured your user ID to open the Incident
Management console by default, enter the
preference server’s name in the Preference Server
field.
Note: The user name, password, and preference server
name are case sensitive.
If the Overview, or another console opens, click the If the Overview, or another console opens, click the
Incident Management link in the Navigation pane. Incident Management link in the Navigation pane.

Accessing the IT Home Page

If you must access the IT Home Page, for example—to access the Application
Administration console, click the IT Home Page link in the Consoles section of the
Navigation pane of the console you are currently working from.

Consoles overview
The following consoles provide access to all or a part of BMC Remedy Incident
Management:
! Requester console
! Overview console
! Incident Management console

NOTE
Figure 1-1 on page 16 shows how these consoles integrate with BMC Remedy
Incident Management and other BMC Remedy ITSM applications.

Requester From the Requester console, IT users can submit incident requests directly to BMC
console Remedy Incident Management.

Overview Using the Overview console, service desk workers who fulfill many different roles
console can view incident requests that are assigned to them through BMC Remedy
Incident Management, and additional work assignments that come to them
through other BMC Remedy ITSM applications with which BMC Remedy Incident
Management integrates:
! BMC Remedy Problem Management
! BMC Remedy Asset Management
! BMC Remedy Change Management

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 15

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Incident The Incident Management console is the main console for the application. It
Management provides service desk workers with a single point from which they can generate
console incident requests, monitor the progress of incident requests as they move through
their lifecycle, and record work that was performed while solving the incident
request.

Working with As you work with the forms and dialog boxes associated with the consoles, you
forms and might see a plus sign (+) included in a field label. You can type part of the
dialog boxes information next to these fields and press ENTER. If an exact match is located, the
program automatically completes the field. If a selection list appears, double-click
the item you want to put in the field. Using auto-fill fields and lists is faster, more
consistent, and more accurate than typing the information.

Figure 1-1: Consoles used to access BMC Remedy Incident Management

Incident Management application

Requester console Incident Management console Overview console

Users: Users: Purpose: Users:
All people requesting Service Desk Used to create incident Specialists
support from IT Analysts, and requests, monitor the
Purpose:
people fulfilling progress of incident
Purpose: Used to view the incident
various service requests as they move
Used to submit requests, problems,
desk management through their lifecycle,
incident requests solutions, known errors,
roles and to record the work
and change change requests, or
performed while solving
requests. associated tasks that
the incident request.
are assigned to them.

Integrates with Problem Management,

Change Management, Asset Management,
and Service Level Management

Other BMC Remedy ITSM

applications

Incident Request form views

BMC Remedy Incident Management release provides different ways to view the
Incident Request form:
! Best Practice view (the default view)
! Classic view
Your view is configured for you by your system administrator. For information
about configuring views, see the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide
for information about configuring views.

16 User’s Guide
 Incident Request form views

NOTE
If a procedure differs depending on the view, both methods are described.
Instructions for the Best Practice view are provided first.

Best Practice view

In this view, the fields most commonly used for creating, resolving, and updating
incident requests are immediately visible. You can access additional, less
frequently used functionality from the tabbed sections of the form or from the links
in the Navigation pane.
The order in which the fields appear on the form reflect the order in which you
gather the information when you create the incident request record. This reduces
the amount of time needed to create the record and improves the overall efficiency
of the operation.
Also, by making the Work Detail tab visible beside the customer information when
you open the record, the most important information is immediately visible when
you require a quick but comprehensive overview of an existing incident request.
Figure 1-2 on page 19 illustrates the Best Practice view.
The following list outlines the Best Practice view features:
! Customer field—In the Customer field you can type only a few characters and
press Enter. The application completes the customer details immediately if it
finds a unique match with what you typed or displays a list of people from
which you can select, if multiple matches are found. You do not need to
complete a combination of fields as you do in the Classic View. For more
information about using the Customer field, see “Using the Customer and
Contact fields” on page 18.
! Contact field—The Contact field validates what you type against the People
form to ensure accurate entries. For more information about using the Contact
field, see “Using the Customer and Contact fields” on page 18.
! Template field—The Template field encourages the use of templates. For
information about the benefits of using templates and how to create an incident
request using templates, see “Creating an Incident request record using a
template” on page 58.
! Service field—The Service field relates business service configuration items
(CIs) to the incident request at the time it is created. Service entitlement for
business service CIs are related either to the customer directly or to the
customer’s company, organization, or department. Only the CIs that you are
entitled to see appear in the selection list for this field.
! CI field—The CI field provides a place for you to indicate to which piece of
infrastructure the incident request pertains. This field is a required field when
you resolve the incident, however, you can indicate the CI at any time in the
incident request lifecycle.

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 17

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

! Product categorization—The product categorization fields are automatically

filled based on the business service CI that you select in the Service field. This
automation reduces registration time and makes sure that the correct
information is used to determine the assignment of the incident request. You can
also quickly select or change operational and product categorizations from the
Quick Actions area of the Navigation pane by using the Select Operational and
Select Product links.
The Best Practice view is recommended for all BMC Remedy Incident
Management users, regardless of their role. For information about BMC Remedy
Incident Management roles, see “User roles” on page 21.

Using the Customer and Contact fields

Depending on how the Customer and Contact fields are configured, you can
search for a customer based on Corporate ID, First Name, Last Name, Internet
Email, or Phone Number.
For example, in an installation that is configured to search on a five-digit Corporate
ID, if you type 123 and then press enter, a selection list displays entries for all of
the people whose Corporate ID starts with 123. If you type 12345 and then press
enter, the search returns the specific individual who matches that number. If no
match is found, an error message appears, telling you on which field the search
was done.
If the customer record uses the VIP or the Sensitive flag, this information appears
in red after the Customer field label.
Clicking the plus button (+) to the right of the Customer and the Contact fields
opens the People form, where you can create a customer profile record if one does
not exist. For more information about creating a customer profile, see “Adding or
modifying a customer profile” on page 63.
The minus button (-) to the right of the Customer and the Contact fields clears the
field’s contents. It does not delete the customer profile.
For more information about creating and modifying People records from the
Incident Request form, see “Adding or modifying a customer profile” on page 63.

18 User’s Guide
 Incident Request form views

Figure 1-2: Incident Request form—Best Practice view

Classic view
The Classic view is the Incident Request form as it appeared in previous releases
of BMC Remedy Incident Management. This view is provided for customers who
are upgrading from earlier versions of BMC Remedy Incident Management and
who are not yet ready to adopt the Best Practice view. The following fields have
been added to the Classification tab:
! Service field—The Service field relates business service configuration items
(CIs) to the incident request at the time it is created. Service entitlement for
business service CIs are related either to the customer directly or to the
customer’s company, organization, or department. Only the CIs that you are
entitled to see appear in the selection list for this field.
! CI field—The CI field provides a place for you to indicate to which piece of
infrastructure the incident request pertains. This field is a required field when
you resolve the incident, however, you can indicate the CI at any time in the
incident request lifecycle.
Figure 1-3 on page 20 illustrates the Classic view.

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 19

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Figure 1-3: Incident Request form—Classic view

Calbro Services user data

A fictional company named Calbro Services helps explain how ITSM principles
and procedures are used in practice. Although Calbro Services is a fictional
company, it is based on research of actual BMC Software customers. Learning how
Calbro Services manages the incident management lifecycle should prove useful
as you use BMC Remedy Incident Management in your own environment. For
specific use cases that involve BMC Remedy Incident Management and the Calbro
Services user data, see “Incident management use cases” on page 27. For use cases
that demonstrate how BMC Remedy Incident Management integrates with other
products in the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite, see the BMC Remedy IT Service
Management Concepts Guide.

20 User’s Guide
 User roles

Calbro Services, a large, global company, is headquartered in New York City and
publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has 27,000
employees in 240 offices located in 20 countries. The following table describes key
business services in Calbro Services.
Table 1-2: Key business services
Service Description
Online banking 500 ATMs in major cities
WWW presence Corporate site and online brokerage services
Discount equity Online and storefront services
brokerage
Sales force automation Automated sales activities such as leads, orders, reports, and
so on
Customer support Support centers in the United States, Europe, and Asia
Mass marketing World-wide marketing campaigns aimed at making Calbro
Services a household name

TIP
If you load the Calbro sample data, you can log in to BMC Remedy Incident
Management and follow the use cases described in this guide. For instructions on
loading Calbro sample data, see the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Data
Management Administrator's Guide.

User roles
BMC Remedy Incident Management provides functionality both to people
requesting support from IT and to IT people providing support to others. How
each person uses BMC Remedy Incident Management defines their role. BMC
Remedy Incident Management roles are divided into the following categories:
! support staff, for a description of these roles, see “Support staff roles” on
page 22.
! managers, for a description of these roles, see “Manager roles” on page 23.
! users, for a description of this role, see “User role” on page 24.

IMPORTANT
The permissions model in BMC Remedy Incident Management has had several
updates since version 6.0. To define permissions and functional roles, review the
permissions and functional roles section in the BMC Remedy IT Service Management
Configuration Guide.

Figure 1-4 illustrates the different BMC Remedy Incident Management support
staff and management roles. It also shows where each role fits into the lifecycle of
an incident request. For general information about the incident request lifecycle,
see “Process flow and the lifecycle of an incident request” on page 25.

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 21

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

The relationship between specific BMC Remedy Incident Management roles and
the individual stages in the lifecycle are explained in the following sections:
! “Registering and assigning incident requests as support staff” on page 49
! “Resolving and closing incident requests as support staff” on page 73
! “Working with incident requests as a manager” on page 91

Figure 1-4: BMC Remedy Incident Management support and management roles

First call resolution

Support Staff 1 2a 4 6
(Service Desk Registering Assigning Resolving Closing
Analysts & incident incident incident incident
Specialists) requests requests requests requests

2b 3 5 7
Managers Assigning Tracking Handling Approving
(Group Coordinators incident incident incident solutions
& On-Duty Managers) requests requests escalations
Escalation Escalation
notification

Standard flow
Exception

Support staff roles

For the incident management process, the SMPM defines the following support
staff roles.
Service Desk Analysts are usually first-line support staff. A service desk analyst’s
responsibilities include:
! Providing the interface between the service owner organization and its
customers.
! Obtaining accurate and complete information from the user when creating the
incident request, and doing so efficiently and accurately.
! Resolving as many of their registered incident requests as possible within the
limitations of their access rights and their time constraints.
! Ensuring that the incident requests that they have registered, but which they are
unable to resolve, are assigned to the most appropriate group for resolution.
! Validating incident request resolutions with their users.

22 User’s Guide
 User roles

Specialists are usually second-line and third-line support staff. They are
considered subject matter experts. Their main responsibility is to provide an
accurate analysis and a diagnosis of their assigned incident requests to restore
service to the affected users. A specialist’s responsibilities include:
! Resolving incident requests.
! Updating incident requests with relevant information and status changes.
! Escalating incident requests, for which resolutions can be implemented only
through the change management process, to the owner of the affected service.

Manager roles
For the incident management process, the SMPM defines the following
management roles.
Group coordinators are responsible for the quality and integrity of the incident
management processes and for the work of their support group members. They
coordinate the assignment of incident requests to support staff. The group
coordinator’s other responsibilities include:
! Monitoring incidents.
! Monitoring open incidents requiring assignment.
! Managing the assignment of incidents to their appropriate support groups for
resolution.
! Receiving notifications of incident assignments and escalations.
! Facilitating the resolution of escalated incidents in accordance with the
escalation policy.
! Ensuring the resolution of incidents within the support group's service targets.
! Ensuring the overall completeness and accuracy of closed incidents.
! Reviewing reports.
! Ensuring that incidents requiring root cause analysis are copied into BMC
Remedy Problem Management.
! Managing support group membership.
! Managing scripts, templates, and decision trees.
On-Duty managers take over the responsibility from service owners when the
owner is not available to perform the incident escalation handling procedure. In
these situations, the on-duty manager decides whether an escalated incident must
be resolved by implementing an emergency change, by recovering the affected
service at its continuity site, or by continuing the resolution of the incident within
the incident management process.
Service owners create and assign incident requests. They also decide whether an
escalated incident needs to be resolved by implementing an emergency change, by
recovering the affected service at its continuity site, or by continuing the resolution
of the incident within the incident management process.

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 23

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

User role
A user is usually an employee who needs assistance from the IT support staff to
resolve an incident or implement a change. Anyone in your organization can be a
user.
The incident user’s responsibilities include:
! Requesting support when necessary and providing the required information to
help resolve the incident requests. They submit requests by filling out the
Request form, or by contacting the service desk by email or telephone.
! Verifying the solution provided by the service owner organization and
reopening the incident request if the solution is not acceptable.

Mapping permission groups to SMPM roles

Table 1-3 maps the SMPM defined incident management roles to the equivalent
permissions that each role needs in BMC Remedy Incident Management.
For more information about how SMPM roles map to BMC Remedy ITSM Suite,
see the BMC Service Management Process Model Role Mapping to BMC Remedy ITSM
Suite white paper.

NOTE
This section does not list of all permission groups and functional roles defined in
BMC Remedy Incident Management, only those that are mapped to SMPM roles.

Table 1-3: Incident management role mapping

SMPM role name Calbro user BMC Remedy Incident Management
permission groups
Service Desk Analyst Francie ! Incident Master
Stafford ! Problem Viewer
! Infrastructure Change Viewer
! Asset Viewer
Specialist Ian ! Incident User
Plyment ! Problem User
! Task User
! Infrastructure Change Viewer
! Asset Viewer
Group Coordinator Bob ! Incident User
Baxter ! Problem User
! Infrastructure Change User
! Asset Viewer
On-Duty Manager Mary ! Incident User
Mann ! Problem Viewer
! Infrastructure Change Viewer
! Asset Viewer

24 User’s Guide
 Process flow and the lifecycle of an incident request

Table 1-3: Incident management role mapping (continued)

SMPM role name Calbro user BMC Remedy Incident Management
permission groups
Service Owner Allen ! Incident User
Allbrook ! Problem Viewer
! Infrastructure Change Viewer
! Asset Viewer
User Joe ! No BMC Remedy Incident Management
Unser permissions are needed.

Process flow and the lifecycle of an incident

request
The Process Flow Status area displays the flow of the incident request through the
stages of the process. The current stage of the incident is highlighted. The status of
the incident is indicated by both color and text. Figure 1-5 illustrates the Process
Flow Status area.

Figure 1-5: The Process Flow Status area (Best Practice view)

Process
Flow
Status

Current
stage

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 25

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

The Process Flow Status area also guides you through the stages of the incident
lifecycle. At each stage, the diagram provides applicable accelerators. When you
select an accelerator, you are prompted to enter the data required to complete the
task. You can also enter optional recommended data in the dialog box. Figure 1-6
illustrates selecting an accelerator from the Process Flow Status area.

Figure 1-6: Selecting an accelerator from the Process Flow Status area (Best Practice
view)

Figure 1-7 provides an overview of the incident request lifecycle, as described by

SMPM. Each of the major steps in the diagram corresponds to sections in
“Registering and assigning incident requests as support staff” on page 49,
“Resolving and closing incident requests as support staff” on page 73, and
“Working with incident requests as a manager” on page 91, where the steps and
their associated tasks are explained in more detail.

Figure 1-7: Incident Request lifecycle

26 User’s Guide
 Incident management use cases

Incident management use cases

This section describes common incident management use cases that you typically
encounter as IT support staff. The Calbro Services user personas help to illustrate
the use cases and ITIL good practices workflow, however, the use cases do not
necessarily make reference to specific Calbro Service sample data.
The following use cases are described:
! “Incident resolution—first call resolution” on page 27
! “Incident resolution with assignment to specialist” on page 29

Incident resolution—first call resolution

Francie Stafford is a service desk analyst who works on the Calbro Services service
desk. She receives a call from Joe Unser, a Calbro Services benefits agents who
cannot access one of his key applications, because he is locked out of his user
account. Francie creates an incident request, resolves the incident for Joe, and then
closes the incident request.

Table 1-4: Incident resolution—first call resolution

Role Tasks and actions Explanation
Customer Contacting the service desk Joe Unser needs to have one of his user
1 Joe Unser, the service desk customer, accounts unlocked, and calls the service desk
phones Francie Stafford on the service to open an incident request.
desk

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 27

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Table 1-4: Incident resolution—first call resolution(continued)

Role Tasks and actions Explanation
Service desk analyst Registering the incident request record Francie Stafford receives Joe’s call and, using
1 On the Incident Management console, the BMC Remedy Incident Management Best
Francie clicks Create, to open a new Practice view, creates a new incident request
incident request record. record using the applicable template.
2 Francie enters the first few letters of
Joe’s email address on the incident For detailed information about how to do
request form and then presses Enter. this, see “Creating an Incident request record
The application matches the email using a template” on page 58.
address and fills in part of the incident
request record based on the contents
of Joe’s People record. Francie is able to unlock Joe’s account while
he is on the phone.
3 Francie selects the appropriate
template to populate the new incident
request record with basic information For detailed information about first call
common to all requests of this type. resolution, see “First call resolution” on
4 In the template, Francie sees a set of page 65.
work instructions that describe how
to unlock Joe’s account.
Service desk analyst Closing the incident request While Joe is still on the phone, Francie asks
and Service desk 1 After unlocking Joe’s account, Francie him to confirm that his account is unlocked
customer asks him to confirm the account has and that he can log in to his system. Joe
been unlocked successfully by confirms this, so Francie updates the
logging into his application. resolution field on the incident request
2 Joe is able to log in, and confirms this record to indicate this. Francie closes the
to Francie. incident request record.
3 Francie then enters the resolution in
the Work Details tab (Work Info when For detailed information about closing
using the Classic view), makes sure incident request records, see “Closing
that all other required fields on the incident requests” on page 86.
incident request record are
completed, and then moves the
incident request record’s Status to
Closed.

28 User’s Guide
 Incident management use cases

Incident resolution with assignment to specialist

Francie Stafford receives another call from Joe Unser who, this time, cannot send
documents to his local printer. Francie creates an incident request, but cannot
resolve it herself. The incident request is automatically assigned to a specialist, Ian
Plyment, who accepts the assignment and restores Joe’s printer connection. Ian
then closes the incident request.

Table 1-5: Incident resolution with assignment to specialist

Role Tasks and actions Explanation
Service desk Contacting the service desk Joe Unser cannot send documents to his local
customer 1 Joe Unser, the service desk customer, printer.
phones Francie Stafford on the service
desk
Service desk analyst Registering the incident request record Francie Stafford receives Joe’s call and, using
1 On the Incident Management console, the BMC Remedy Incident Management Best
Francie clicks Create, to open a new Practice view, creates a new incident request
incident request record. record from the applicable template.
2 Francie enters the first few letters of
Joe’s email address on the incident For detailed information about how to do
request form and then presses Enter. this, see “Creating an Incident request record
The application matches the email using a template” on page 58.
address and fills in part of the incident
request record based on the contents
of Joe’s People record.
3 Francie selects the appropriate
template to populate the new incident
request record with basic information
common to all requests of this type.
4 After Francie completes the incident
request registration and saves it, the
incident request is assigned to an
assignment group as specified in the
template.

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BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Table 1-5: Incident resolution with assignment to specialist (continued)

Role Tasks and actions Explanation
Specialist Accepting the assignment Ian Plyment is a specialist who works for the
1 On the Incident Management console support group to which Joe’s incident
header, Ian selects his company in the request is assigned. From the Incident
Company field and his support group Management console, Ian runs a defined
from the View By field. search for all open, unassigned incident
2 From the Defined searches area, he request for his support group. Joe’s incident
runs All Open Unassigned - All request is one of the records found by the
Priorities, which returns all of the search. Ian opens the record and accepts the
open, unassigned incident requests assignment.
for his support group.
3 Ian selects Joe’s incident request and For more information about how to run a
opens it. defined search, see “Running Defined
4 In the Navigation pane, Ian selects Searches” on page 127.
Assign to Me and then changes the
record’s status to In Progress. For more information about how to accept an
assignment see “Accepting an incident
request” on page 76.

30 User’s Guide
 Incident management use cases

Table 1-5: Incident resolution with assignment to specialist (continued)

Role Tasks and actions Explanation
Specialist Using Incident Matching to resolve the Ian uses the Incident Matching feature to
incident determine the cause of Joe’s incident and
1 From the Navigation pane on the resolves it by restoring Joe’s printer
incident request record, Ian opens the connection.
Incident Matching window.
2 On the Search Criteria Page 1 tab, Ian For more information about using the
types Printer in the Summary Incident Matching feature, see “To search for
Keyword Search field and selects matching records” on page 65. This section
Connectivity from the Operational also discusses other methods to search for
Categorization Tier 1 menu. possible solutions.
3 He clicks Search.
Any matching incidents, problem
investigations, known errors, and
solutions appear in the tabs at the
bottom half of the dialog box.
4 Ian views details of the matching
records and finds information that
helps him resolve incident request.
5 From the Relationship Type list on the
Incident Matching window, Ian
selects Resolved By and then clicks
Relate With Solution. This copies the
solution from the matching record to
the Resolution field of the incident
request record.
Completing the incident request Ian is unable to contact Joe directly to
1 On the incident request record, Ian determine that his printing service is
makes sure that all other required successfully restored, so he completes the
fields on the incident request record incident request by moving the status to
are completed Resolved with a status reason of Customer
2 Ian then moves the incident request Follow-Up Required. BMC Remedy Incident
record’s status to Resolved and Management sends Joe an email asking him
provides a status reason of Customer to contact the Service Desk to confirm that the
Follow-Up Required. incident is resolved. If Joe does not respond
within a specific period of time, which is
configurable for each installation, the auto
close rule moves the incident request’s status
to Closed.

For more information about Closing an

incident request, including Completing an
Incident Request, see “Closing incident
requests” on page 86.

Chapter 1 Introducing BMC Remedy Incident Management 31

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

32 User’s Guide
Chapter

2 Working with the

Requester console

The Requester console enables users to quickly submit changes and

incidents to BMC Remedy Change Management and BMC Remedy
Incident Management.

NOTE
If you have BMC Service Request Management installed, the
Requester console is replaced by BMC Service Request Management.
For information about BMC Service Request Management, see BMC
Service Request Management User’s Guide for Administrators and Users.

The following topics are provided:

! Requester role (page 34)
! Requester console users (page 35)
! Working with service requests (page 37)

Chapter 2 Working with the Requester console 33

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Requester role
Users of the Requester console are usually employees who need assistance from
the IT support staff. The user is typically an employee in the organization who
must have a change implemented or an incident resolved. Any member of your
organization can be a user.
However, the user might not be an employee. Non-employees can also be users
because non-registered users can also submit service requests.
Traditionally, after a user made a telephone call to a central help desk, a support
staff member logged the request. BMC Remedy Incident Management and BMC
Remedy Change Management provide user self-provisioning. Using the Requester
console, users can submit, track, and (in some cases) resolve their own requests.
BMC Remedy Change Management and BMC Remedy Incident Management are
preconfigured to work with the Requester console. However, an organization can
can decide to make the Requester console unavailable.
The Requester console is the primary interface for users to define and view their
requests. From the Requester console, you can define a request that is submitted to
BMC Remedy Change Management or BMC Remedy Incident Management. You
can also view requests and respond to a survey after the request has been resolved.
Figure 2-1 on page 35 illustrates the key areas on the Requester console.

34 User’s Guide
 Requester console users

Figure 2-1: Requester console key areas

Requests table

Navigation pane

Requester console users

The following permissions can be used for accessing the Requester console to
submit service requests:
! Request Master—This user is responsible for troubleshooting service requests.
The request master can view requests submitted by other users and view the
details of a record in the Service Request form. This user is more of an
administrator than a support user.
! Registered User—This user has a record in the People form, and the user’s
AR login information is in the Login/Access Details tab of the People form or in
the BMC Remedy AR System User form.
! Unknown User—All other users are considered to be unknown users even if
they have a record in the People form. If a user’s login information is not in the
People form, the user is considered an unknown user.

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BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

IMPORTANT
For unknown users who do not have an BMC Remedy AR System login to be able
to access the Requester console, the BMC Remedy AR System server Allow Guest
User option must be selected. The Allow Guest User option is unavailable in multi-
tenancy mode (for more information about multi-tenancy, see the BMC Remedy IT
Service Management Guide to Multi-Tenancy). Also, the AR Submitter locked mode
option must be selected for users with a read-only license to respond to surveys. A
default People record with a valid BMC Remedy AR System login must be defined
in the application for use by unknown users. For more information, see the BMC
Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide.

If a user meets any of the following conditions, the user type is unknown user:
! The user has an entry in the People form and in the BMC Remedy AR System
User form, but does not have a BMC Remedy AR System login ID in the People
form.
! The user has an entry in the People form, but does not have an entry in the BMC
Remedy AR System User form or an BMC Remedy AR System login ID in the
People form. This type of user is also a BMC Remedy AR System guest user.
! The user does not have an entry in the People form but has an entry in the BMC
Remedy AR System User form.
! The user does not have an entry in the People form or in the BMC Remedy
AR System User form. This type of user is also an BMC Remedy AR System
guest user.
Additional factors that control access to the Requester console by unknown users
follow:
! Unknown users are not allowed access if the multi-tenancy option is selected.
Multi-tenancy restricts access of data from different companies or business
units.
! In addition to setting the Tenancy Mode to Single-Tenancy, the Allow Unknown
Users option must be set to Yes and login information added.
The console is the entry point for users to define, view, update, or cancel service
requests.

36 User’s Guide
 Working with service requests

Working with service requests

This section describes working with service requests.

Defining a service request

BMC recommends the New Request wizard as a simplified method of submitting
service requests. You can also define service requests from the Change and
Incident Request forms.

! To define a service request

1 From the Requester console, click Create a New Request.
Pay careful attention to the following items for the Requester section:
! If you are a registered user, the fields in the Requester section are filled from
your People record. You can edit only the Phone and Email fields.
! If you are an unknown user, the First Name and Last Name fields are filled
with your login information. The Company is filled with the company name.
Unknown users must enter information in the Phone and Email fields.
2 Complete the required fields, as shown in bold with an asterisk.
a Select a definition from the Summary list that best describes your issue.
If the list does not contain the specific request to log, type a summary of the
request in the Summary field.

NOTE
If BMC Remedy Incident Management is installed, entering a summary or “ad hoc
request” generates an incident request. If only BMC Remedy Change Management
is installed, a change request is generated.

If you select a summary definition that is an incident request, then related

solution database entries appear in the Possible Solutions table. If, however,
BMC Remedy Problem Management is not installed, possible solutions do not
appear for manually entered summaries or selected summary definitions.
If there is a solution database entry that might be valid, click the entry, and then
click View. Review the solution entry. If the solution resolves your request, click
Use Solution.
If you choose a matching solution, the solution entry is related your request and
the request is resolved automatically.
b Select an Urgency level for your request.
c If you do not have a record in the People form, enter your company, first name
and last name.
3 (Optional) Click Add Attachment to enter request work information. You can
include a note or an attachment.

Chapter 2 Working with the Requester console 37

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

4 Complete the optional fields:

! Date Required—Enter the date when you need the request to be completed.
! Phone—Enter or edit your phone number.
! Email—Enter or edit your email address.
5 Click Save.
The request appears in the Requests table.

Service request state changes

For changes and incidents, the Requests table provides the status of its underlying
service request. Users are notified by email when a service request undergoes a
status change, for example, when a service request is moved from In Progress to
Completed or a change request reaches the Completed state.

Performing additional service request functions

In addition to defining a service request, you can perform the functions listed in
the following table. All the listed functions are performed from the Requester
console.
Table 2-1: Additional service request functions

Function Action
Filter your service requests Click the appropriate link from the View Requests section, located in the
Navigation pane, and then select Open or All.
Note: Open is the default view. To change the default view, select another sort
option, and then click Save As Default View.
View a service request From the Requests table, select the service request, and then click View.
Only the requests that the logged in user has submitted appear in the
Requests table. Change requests are prefixed with CRQ and Incident requests
are prefixed by INC.
Add work information From the Requests table, select the service request, and then click View.
Click the Add Work Info link in the console’s Functions section of the
Navigation pane.
You can add:
! A summary of the work log in the Summary field.
! Additional information in the Notes field.
! An attachment. You can add only one attachment for each work
information entry. To add multiple attachments, add multiple work
information entries.
Search for a request by request In the Functions area of the Navigation pane, click Search by Request ID, and
ID then enter the complete Request ID or the numeric part of the ID.

38 User’s Guide
 Working with service requests

Table 2-1: Additional service request functions (continued)

Function Action
Print a service request From the Requests table, select the service request, and then click Print.
Review the report, and then click the Print icon on the toolbar.
Note: If you are having problems printing from BMC Remedy User, choose
Tools > Options in BMC Remedy User. On the Advanced tab of the Options
dialog box, make sure the ODBC Use Underscores option is selected.
Cancel a service request From the Requests table, select the service request, and then click Cancel. The
Status changes to Canceled.
You can only cancel a service request that is open.
Reopen a request From the Requests table, select the service request, and then click Reopen.
The Status changes to New, Staged, or In Progress.
You can only reopen service requests that are completed or rejected.
Complete a survey From the Functions are of the Navigation pane, click View Survey, select a
survey, and then click Respond. Type your responses to the questions, and
then click Save.
View broadcast messages View the broadcasts by clicking the Broadcast link in the Navigation pane.
Note: If there are new broadcasts, the label on the link changes to New
Broadcast, and the color of the link changes from gray to red.
To view more details, select a broadcast entry, and then click View.
Broadcasts are filtered by the logged-in user’s company. If the logged-in
user’s company cannot be determined, only Global broadcasts appear. Only
“Public” messages are shown to the users.

Troubleshooting service requests with errors

If the service request cannot be completed because of an error from BMC Remedy
Change Management or BMC Remedy Incident Management, you can view which
service requests contain errors and review the event log to troubleshoot the service
request. If the error is the result of integration or other configuration issues, you
can also see the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide for information
to help you troubleshoot the problem.

NOTE
To see service requests with errors, you need Command Event Master permissions
in addition to Requester console Master permissions.

Chapter 2 Working with the Requester console 39

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

! To view requests with errors

1 From the Navigation pane of the Requester console, choose Request Errors > View
Requests with Errors.

Figure 2-2: Service Request form—entries containing errors

2 Click the Change/Incident Data tab.

3 Click Reset Error to restart the service request.
Users can now continue to work on the service request.
4 Click View Events to review the event log and troubleshoot the service request.
5 View the event details:
! Protocol
! Access Mode
! Error Code
! Error Message
6 Take any of the following actions for events that are in error:
! Retry
! Ignore

40 User’s Guide
 Working with service requests

It is best to retry each event in the order the events are generated. By default, the
event table is sorted with the recent event on top, in reverse chronological order.
Typically events should be retried when the problem indicated by the error
message has been fixed.

IMPORTANT
Delete service requests with caution. They cannot be recovered. You must have
BMC Remedy AR System administrator permissions to delete service request
records.

Chapter 2 Working with the Requester console 41

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

42 User’s Guide
Chapter

3 Working with the Overview

console

The information in this section is for people who fulfill one or more of the
following support roles:
Use the Overview console if you must respond to, manage, or track individual or
group work assignments from a variety of sources. For example, if your company
runs the full BMC Remedy ITSM Suite, either you or the group you manage might
receive work assignments from BMC Remedy Incident Management, BMC
Remedy Problem Management, and BMC Remedy Change Management. From
the Overview console, you can quickly get information about all your work
assignments and perform the procedures that you use most often.
The following topics are provided:
! Functional areas (page 44)
! Console list table (page 46)
! Selecting status values (page 47)

Chapter 3 Working with the Overview console 43

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Functional areas
Figure 3-1 illustrates the functional areas of the Overview console. Table 3-1
describes what you can do in each of the functional areas.

Figure 3-1: Overview console and its functional areas

Overview Console header

Console list panel

Navigation pane

Table 3-1: Overview console functional areas

Functional area Purpose

Overview console header

Company and This area contains the following fields: Company and View By. These fields
View By combine to provide a way that you can indicate the company name and the
assigned-to categories used to filter the records in the Console list table.
Refresh Refreshes the data in the tables.

44 User’s Guide
 Functional areas

Table 3-1: Overview console functional areas (continued)

Functional area Purpose

Navigation pane
View Broadcast, or New Opens the broadcast dialog box, from where you can view, create, modify,
Broadcast and delete broadcasts.
When there are unread broadcast messages, this area displays a message:
New Broadcasts, followed by the number of new messages. When there
are new broadcast messages, the area also turns red.
See “Broadcasting messages” on page 139.
Note: If you open the Overview console with no new broadcast messages,
but the View Broadcast link is red, open the Application Preferences
dialog box and make sure that a Console View preference has been
selected. For information about how to view and select Console View
preference, see “Creating a problem from an incident” on page 125.
Functions Use the links in this area to do the following actions:
! Select Status Values—See only those records in a certain state, which you
specify from the Select Status Values dialog box. See “Selecting status
values” on page 47.
! My Profile—Set your profile. See “Viewing your profile” on page 125.
! Application Preferences—Set your program preferences and options.
This function is also available from the BMC Remedy Incident
Management console. See “Creating a problem from an incident” on
page 125.
Consoles Depending on your permissions and what other applications are installed,
use these links to open:
! IT Home Page
! Incident Management
! Problem Management
! Change Management
! Release Management
! Asset Management
! Contract Management
! Software Asset Management
! Approval console
! ROI console
! CMDB

Console list panel

Print Prints the selected record.

View Displays a form containing detailed information about the selected record
in the Console list table.
Create Creates a new record.

Chapter 3 Working with the Overview console 45

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Table 3-1: Overview console functional areas (continued)

Functional area Purpose

Search for Ticket Opens a dialog box from which you can select the type of ticket you are
searching for. After you select the type of record from the menu, click the
Select button to open a search form specific to the type of ticket you are
searching for.
Note: To see activity records and CI unavailability records, you must search
for those tickets, because these records are not displayed in the Console
List table.
Console list table Lists the different types of requests. See “Console list table” on page 46.

Console list table

The Console list table lists different types of requests. The types of requests that
you can choose from depend on the applications that are installed.
A specific prefix identifies each type of request:
! CRQ—Identifies change requests. To view and define change requests, BMC
Remedy Change Management must be installed.
! RLM—Identifies release requests. To view and define release requests, BMC
Remedy Change Management must be installed.
! TAS—Identifies tasks.
! SDB—Identifies solution database entries. To view and define solution entries,
BMC Remedy Service Desk must be installed.
! INC—Identifies incidents. To view and define incidents, BMC Remedy Service
Desk must be installed.
! PBI—Identifies problems. To view and define problems, BMC Remedy Service
Desk must be installed.
! PKE—Identifies known errors. To view and define known errors, BMC Remedy
Service Desk must be installed.
! PR—Identifies purchase requisitions. To view and define purchase requisitions,
BMC Remedy Asset Management must be installed.

46 User’s Guide
 Selecting status values

Company and You can also change the table’s contents by using the Company and View By filters
View By filters at the top of the console:
Company—Shows records associated with a particular company (useful in a
multi-tenancy environment).
View By—Shows records that either are assigned to you or to your support
groups, according to the following list.
! Personal—Displays records assigned to you.
! Selected Groups—Prompts you to select any support groups to which you
belong. You can select to display all records assigned to your group, or records
assigned to your group that are not yet assigned to an individual.
! All My Groups—Displays records assigned to all your support groups. You can
choose to display all records, or records that are not yet assigned to an
individual.

Selecting status values

You can use the Select Status Values dialog box to filter the requests that appear in
the Overview console based on their status.

! To select status values

1 From the Navigation pane , choose Functions > Select Status Values.
2 In the Select Status Values dialog box, select the status values for each category
from the lists, then click OK to close the dialog box.
3 If the Assigned Work table does not refresh with the filtered records, click Refresh
to reload the table’s contents.

Chapter 3 Working with the Overview console 47

BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

48 User’s Guide
Chapter

4 Registering and assigning

incident requests as support
staff
The information in this section is for people who fulfill the support role of service
desk analyst.
Group coordinators and on-duty managers should also be familiar with the
information in this section to better understand the support staff tasks and so they
can fulfill the role of support staff if necessary. Using the Incident Management
console, support staff can create, track, and resolve incident requests. The tasks
described by this section are organized according to the stages of the incident
management lifecycle as described by the BMC Service Management Process
Model (SMPM). See Figure 1-7 on page 26 for an illustration of the incident
management lifecycle.
Figure 4-1 illustrates the SMPM stages covered in this section.

Figure 4-1: The SMPM stages covered in this section

Support Staff 1 2a
(Service Desk Registering Assigning
Analysts & incident incident
requests requests
Specialists)

The following topics are provided:

! Functional areas of the console (page 50)
! Managing service targets (page 53)
! Registering incident requests (page 56)
! Assigning incident requests (page 70)

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BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Functional areas of the console

This section describes the areas of the Incident Management console and the
features and functions that you can access from them.
Figure 4-2 illustrates the functional areas of the Incident console. Table 4-1 on
page 51 describes what you can do in each of the functional areas.

Figure 4-2: The Incident Management console and its functional areas

Incidents table
Console and KPIs tabs
Incident Management

Navigation pane

Incident Detail and Tasks

50 User’s Guide
 Functional areas of the console

Table 4-1: Incident Management console functional areas

Functional area Purpose

Console tab
If the KPIs tab is open, click the Console tab to return to the console.

KPIs tab
Click the KPIs tab to select and to view the incident management flashboards. The flashboards that appear
represent, in graphical format:
! Process KPI—See “Using the KPI flashboards” on page 114 for information about how to use these
flashboards.
! Total Open Incidents—Click either All Open or By Status and Priority.

Incident Management console header

Company and This area contains the following fields: Company and View By. These fields combine
View By to provide a way that you can indicate the company name and the assigned-to
categories used to filter the incident request records in the Incidents table. See
“Searching for incident request records using Company and View By” on page 69.
Refresh Updates the console with the latest information.

Navigation pane
View Broadcast, or Opens the broadcast dialog box, from where you can view, create, modify, and delete
New Broadcast broadcasts.
When there are unread broadcast messages, this area displays a message: New
Broadcast, along with the number of new messages. When there are new broadcast
messages, the area also turns red.
See “Broadcasting messages” on page 139.
Note: If you open the console with no new broadcast messages, but the View Broadcast
link is red, open the Application Preferences dialog box and make sure that a
Console View preference has been selected. For information about how to view and
select the Console View preference, see “Setting application preferences” on
page 126.
Incident Counts This area shows the number of open, unassigned, unacknowledged, and breached
incidents for the combination of “Company” and “View By” fields.
Defined Searches This area provides a place from which you can run a series of predefined searches. For
more information about running Defined Searches, see “Running Defined Searches”
on page 127. You also have the ability to define custom searches using Manage My
Searches.
! Manage My Searches—Defines, edits, saves, and deletes custom searches. Saved
custom searches appear in the My Searches node of the Defined Searches list. See
“Creating a custom search” on page 128.
Note: If no custom searches are defined, the My Searches node does not appear.

! Watch List—Opens the Watch List. See “Watch List” later in this table and
“Working with the Watch List” on page 95.

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BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management 7.6.00

Table 4-1: Incident Management console functional areas (continued)

Functional area Purpose

Functions Use the links in this area to do the following actions:
! New Incident—Create a new incident request record. See “Creating an Incident
request record using a template” on page 58.
! Search Incident—Search the database for current incident request records. See
“Searching all records” on page 129.
! My Profile—Set your profile. See “Viewing your profile” on page 125.
! Application Preferences—Set your application preferences and application
options. See “Setting application preferences” on page 126.
! Reminders—View and create reminders. See “Creating reminders” on page 138.
! Reports—Create and run custom reports. See “Working with reports” on page 146.
! Manage CIs—Search for information about specific CI types and gives you access
to the CI records. See “Creating a CI” on page 154.
! Manage Inventory—Access the Manage Inventory form of BMC Remedy Asset
Management. See “Inventory management” on page 158.
! Surveys—Review and respond to customer surveys.
! Process Overview— Opens the detailed Incident Management process in SMPM if
the full SMPM application is installed and configured. Otherwise, it opens a high-
level diagram of the incident management process.
Consoles Depending on your permissions and what other applications are installed, use these
links to open:
! IT Home Page
! Overview
! Problem Mangement
! Change Management
! Release Management
! Asset Management
! Contract Management
! Software Asset Management
! Approval Console
! CMDB

Incidents table
Quick Actions Select the action from the menu. You can perform the following quick actions:
! Assign to group member—Reassigns the incident request to another member of
your group.
! Assign to me—Reassigns the incident request to yourself.
! Incident Closure—Moves incident requests with a status of Resolved to the
Closed status.
Print Prints the selected record in the Watch List and the Incidents table.
View Shows the incident request record that is selected in the Incidents table.
Create Creates a new incident request record.
Add to Watch List Adds the selected record to the Watch List. See “Working with the Watch List” on
page 95.

52 User’s Guide
 Managing service targets

Table 4-1: Incident Management console functional areas (continued)

Functional area Purpose

Table A list of the incident request records according to the company selected in the
Company field and the group selected in the View By field.

Incident Detail and Tasks

Incident Details—When selected, contains detailed information about the record selected in the Incidents
table. To see Incident Details when the Tasks table is showing, click Show Incident Details. The Create, View,
and Report icons relate to work information notes. For information about working with work information
notes, see “Creating work information entries” on page 82 .
Tasks—When selected, enables you to see tasks associated with the incident request record selected in the
Incidents table. To see Tasks when Incident Details is showing, click Show Tasks.

Watch List
To see the Watch List, click Watch List in the Defined Searches area of the Navigation pane. For information
about the Watch List, see “Working with the Watch List” on page 95.
Quick Actions, View, Perform the same actions described for the Incident table.
Create, Print
Remove From Watch Removes the selected incident request record from the Watch List.
List
Incidents table A list of the incident request records currently in the Watch List.

Managing service targets

If the BMC Service Level Management (BMC SLM) application is installed, the
Incident Request form shows both overview and in-depth information about the
incident in relation to the applicable service targets.
You can view request-based service targets attached to incident requests. This
enables you to see whether the service target has been met, missed, or is in a
warning state.

! To view service targets related to an incident request

1 From the Incident Management console, open the relevant incident request record.
2 View the SLM Status icon from the Navigation pane. Table 4-2 describes the SLM
Status icon states.

Table 4-2: BMC SLM Status icons

Icon Description
! Status: Not Attached.
! No service target is attached to the incident.

! Status: Attached.
! Green: The service targets are in compliance.

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Table 4-2: BMC SLM Status icons (continued)

Icon Description
! Status: Warning.
! Yellow: At least one service target is at risk.

! Status: Breached.
! Red: At least one service target did not meet its goal.

3 Click the icon to display the SLM:IntegrationDialog form to see in depth

information about the incident in relation to the applicable service targets.

Figure 4-3: SLM:IntegrationDialog form

Status
gauge

The status gauge on the SLM:Integration Dialog form shows the current status of
the selected service target. Table 4-3 explains the colors and fields on the status
gauge.
Table 4-3: Status gauge on the SLM:Integration Dialog form

Color or field Description

Green The service target is in compliance.
Yellow The service target has a warning status.
Red The service target has missed its goal.
Due Date and Time The goal time within which either a response or a resolution for the
incident must occur; otherwise the goal is missed.
Time Until Due The amount of time left until the goal is considered missed.
Time Past Due The amount of time that has passed since the goal was due.

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Table 4-4 describes the information in the SLM:IntegrationDialog form.

Table 4-4: Information about the SLM:IntegrationDialog form

Field Description
Incident ID The ID of the incident.
Details Click to see details about the selected service targets.
Service Target table
SVT Title The name of the service target.
Goal The type of goal for the service target:
! Response-time goal—The incident request must be responded to
within the time specified.
! Resolution-time goal—The incident request must be resolved
within the time specified.
Hours/Min The response or resolution time stipulated in the goal.
Cost Per Min The cost per minute for missing the response or resolution time
goal.
Due Date/Time The goal time within which either a response or a resolution for the
incident must occur; otherwise the goal is missed.
Progress The status of the service target:
! Attached—The service target has been attached to the incident.
! Detached—The service target has not been attached to the
incident.
! In Process—Work on the request is taking place.
! Pending—Work on the request is stopped (for example, waiting
for a part, or waiting for a response from the submitter).
! Warning—The service target is at risk.
! Missed or Met—The service target has either missed or met its
goal.
! Invalid—The service target is disabled.
Milestones for SVT
Title The title of the milestone.
Execution Time The time that the milestone actions are executed.
Status The current status of the milestone. The status is either active or
inactive (pending), or Action Performed.

For more information about service targets and milestones, see the BMC Service
Level Management User’s Guide.

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Registering incident requests

When a user contacts the service desk with an incident request, you first determine
the nature of the request. If the request is about a previously registered request,
you query the request and update the user with the current status.
If the request concerns an incident that was resolved, but for which the resolution
was not effective, reopen the incident request record and assign the incident to a
specialist.
If this is a new incident request, you create an new incident request record by
capturing key information about the user and the incident. If possible, you resolve
the incident immediately and then complete the incident request, otherwise you
make sure the incident request is assigned to the appropriate group.
Figure 4-4 provides an overview of the registering incident requests process, as
described by the SMPM.

Figure 4-4: Registering incident requests

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Reviewing the status of an incident request

If a customer calls to enquire about the status of a registered incident request, you
can quickly review all of the customer’s active records (that is, records that do not
have a status of Closed) from the incident request form, using the following
procedure.

! To review the status of an incident request

1 From the Incident Management console, click Create.
2 In the Customer or Contact field on the new Incident Request form, type the
customer’s or the contact’s information as described in “Using the Customer and
Contact fields” on page 18.
3 When the application updates the new incident request record with the customer’s
information, In the Quick Actions area, click Customer’s Incidents.
4 In the Customer’s Incidents window, select the incident request you are reviewing
the status for and click View.
5 When you finish reviewing the status in the Incident Request Information
window, choose one of the following actions:
! Close—returns you to the Customer’s Incidents window. Choose this to review
more incident records for the customer.
! Close All—returns you to the Search form. Choose this when you are finished.

Viewing incident request records

Use the following procedure when you want to view the an incident record in
detail.

! To view an incident request

! In the Incidents table, double-click the incident request you want to view.
Fields on the form display the incident status and other information that has been
collected about the incident.
Figure 1-2 on page 19 provides an illustration of the Incident Request form in the
Best Practice view. Figure 1-3 on page 20 shows the Incident Request form in the
Classic view.

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Creating an Incident request record using a template

The purpose of this stage is to accurately record and recognize disruptions to
services provided by IT to its customers. When creating a new incident request
record, you classify the incident and record user information, CI information, and
a description of the incident. The key to this activity is the accuracy and
completeness of the information recorded. To help ensure accuracy and
completeness, BMC recommends that you use a template to help create the record.
A template ensures consistency in the way information about the incident request
is captured. A template can also set a relationship to a CI. Your administrator can
define templates for commonly occurring incidents, as described in the BMC
Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide.

! To use a template
1 On the Incident Management console, click Create.
2 In the Customer or Contact field on the new Incident Request form, type the
customer’s or the contact’s information as described in “Using the Customer and
Contact fields” on page 18.
3 Check the rest of the customer information for accuracy.
4 Type the incident request details in the Notes field.
5 Open the Incident Template Selection form as described in the following table.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
If you know the template name From the Quick Links section of the
! Type a portion of the template name in Navigation pane, click Select Template.
the Template field and then press Enter.
If you don’t know the template name
! Click inside the Template field and then
press Enter.

A list of templates available to your default support group appears in the Viewing
Templates for Support Group area of the Incident Template Selection form.

NOTE
If you belong to multiple support groups, you can select a template from another
of your support groups by selecting a different group from the Viewing Templates
for Support Group menu at the top of the form.

6 From the hierarchical list, select the appropriate template and then click Select.
7 Type a brief description in the Summary field.
8 Select the business service CI from the Service list.
You must select the business service CI from the menu. The business services that
appear in this menu have a relationship type of “Used By” either for the customer
directly or the organization the customer belongs to.

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9 If the incident request was caused by a CI, you can record the CI in the CI field.
This creates a relationship between the incident request record and the CI record.
The CIs that appear in the menu are all the other CIs related to the customer that
are not business service CIs. If there are no CIs related to the customer, click the
button beside the CI field to open a CI search form, from which you can search for
all CIs.
10 Complete the rest of the incident request form as appropriate.

NOTE
Use the Contact field to record the name of someone who reports an incident on
behalf of someone else. Use this field, for example, if an administrative assistant is
reporting an incident on behalf of an executive. By using the Contact field, you can
type the name of the person who is experiencing the incident in the Customer field.
This is especially important if the person experiencing the incident is registered as
a VIP or as a sensitive customer. It also ensures that the BMC Remedy Incident
Management application displays the correct set of business CIs in the Service field
selection list, and so on.

TIP
If your template does not supply categorizations (Operational Categorization and
Product Categorization), you can open a dialog box where you record this
information by clicking Categorizations in the Links area when using the Best
Practice view or the Classification tab when using the Classic view.

11 Click Save.

Creating an incident request record without a template

If your system does not have templates defined, use the following procedure to
create an incident request.

! To create an incident request record using the Best Practice view

1 On the Incident Management console, click Create.
2 Select the company from the Company list.
3 In the Customer field, type the customer’s information as described in “Using the
Customer and Contact fields” on page 18.
4 If necessary, in the Contact field, type the contact person’s information.

NOTE
Use the Contact field if one person is reporting the incident on behalf of another.
For example, use this field to record the name of an administrative assistant if that
person is reporting an incident on behalf of a vice president.

5 Type the incident request details in the Notes field.

6 Type a brief description in the Summary field.

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7 Select the business service CI from the Service list.

You must select the business service CI from menu. The business services that
appear in this menu have a relationship type of “Used By” either for the customer
directly or to the customer’s organization.
8 If the incident request was caused by a CI, you can record the CI in the CI field.
This creates a relationship between the incident request record and the CI record.
The CIs that appear in the menu are all the other CIs related to the customer that
are not business service CIs. If the CI you are looking for does not appear in this
list, click the button beside the CI field to open a CI search form, from which you
can search for all CIs.
9 Select values from the Impact and Urgency lists.
10 Select the incident type from the Incident Type list.
11 Select the appropriate incident type:
! User Service Restoration—Use this service type for typical service restoration
requests (for example, a request to restore printing services).
! User Service Request—Use this service type if the incident request is a simple
question or a request for information (for example, a request for “how to”
information).
! Infrastructure Restoration—Use this service type if the incident request is more
focused on the restoration of infrastructure service. Typically, these types of
incident requests are reported by system management tools (for example, if an
incident is detected on a piece of network infrastructure by system monitoring
software).
! Infrastructure Event—Use this service type when a system management tool
registers an event that does not require infrastructure restoration.
12 Complete any other optional fields.

TIP
To view, record, or update categorizations (Operational Categorization and
Product Categorization), click Categorizations in the Links area when using the
Best Practice view, or the Classification tab when using the Classic view. This
opens a dialog box where you can type categorization information.

13 Click Save.
The incident is automatically assigned based on predefined assignment routing. If
there is no appropriate predefined assignment routing, you are prompted to assign
the incident.
14 If prompted, assign the incident, then click Save.

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! To create an incident request record using the Classic view

1 In the Navigation pane, select Functions > New Incident.
2 In the Process Flow Status area, click the arrow in the Identification and Recording
box.
3 Choose Next Stage > Investigation and Diagnosis.
You can move directly to the Resolution and Recovery stage or the Incident
Closure stage by selecting the appropriate stage.
The Incident Request form appears. The tabs on this form prompt you to enter
required and optional information.

NOTE
This is a dynamic form. The fields on the Required and Optional tabs depend on
the information to move from the current stage or state to the selected stage or
state.

4 On the Incident Request form, type the customer’s last name in the Last Name field
and press ENTER.
If there are multiple customers with the same last name, you are prompted to select
the appropriate customer. The Company, First Name, and Phone Number fields
are completed from the customer record. The company drives the selection on
other menus, such as Operational, Product, and Resolution .
5 Type a brief description in the Summary field.
6 You can type additional details in the Notes field.
7 Select the business service CI from the Service list.
You must select the business service CI from menu. The business services that
appear in this menu have a relationship type of “Used By” either for the customer
directly or to the customer’s organization.
8 If the incident request was caused by a CI, you can record the CI in the CI field.
This creates a relationship between the incident request record and the CI record.
The CIs that appear in the menu are all the other CIs related to the customer that
are not business service CIs. If the CI you are looking for does not appear in this
list, click the button beside the CI field to open a CI search form, from which you
can search for all CIs.
9 Select values from the Impact and Urgency lists.
10 If appropriate, select a different service company.
When you select the customer, the service company is set to the customer’s
company.

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11 Select the appropriate service type:

! User Service Restoration—Use this service type for typical service restoration
requests (for example, a request to restore printing services).
! User Service Request—Use this service type if the incident request is a simple
question or a request for information (for example, a request for “how to”
information).
! Infrastructure Restoration—Use this service type if the incident request is more
focused on the restoration of infrastructure service. Typically, these types of
incident requests are reported by system management tools (for example, if an
incident is detected on a piece of network infrastructure by system monitoring
software).
! Infrastructure Event—Use this service type when a system management tool
registers an event that does not require infrastructure restoration.
12 Click Save.
If you did not assign the incident, the incident is automatically assigned based on
predefined assignment routing. If there is no appropriate predefined assignment
routing, you are prompted to assign the incident.
13 If prompted, assign the incident; then click Save.

Overview of incident ownership

Incident ownership is determined automatically by BMC Remedy Incident
Management when the incident request record is created. BMC Remedy Incident
Management assigns incident ownership based on the following criteria:
! the support group of the person who submits the incident request record.
! the support group the incident request record is assigned to.
For example, consider the following support groups:
! Support Group A has a support group role of Help Desk. Person A is in
Support Group A.
! Support Group B does not have a support group role of Help Desk; for
example, it might have a support group role of Tier 2. Person B is in Support
Group B.
! Support Group C does not have a support group role of Help Desk; for
example, it might have a support group role of Tier 3.

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Based on these support groups, the following example events show how the
incident owner is set when no incident owner assignment event is predefined:
! Person A submits an incident. Because Person A is a member of a support group
with the role of Help Desk, ownership of the incident is set to Support Group A,
regardless of who is assigned this incident.
! Person B submits an incident and assigns it to Support Group A. Ownership of
the incident is set to Support Group A because the group has the role of Help
Desk.
! Person B submits another incident, and assigns the incident to Support Group
C. Support Group B becomes the owner, because Person B is the submitter.

Adding or modifying a customer profile

Before you can record an incident, the customer must be listed in the People
database. Customers are usually added to the People database by your
administrator, as described in the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Configuration
Guide.
However, if you have Contact People User or Contact People Admin permissions,
and a customer is not listed in the database, you can add a customer’s profile from
the Incident Request form. (If you are unsure about your permissions, ask you
system administrator.) You can also modify the customer and the contact phone
number and site directly on the Incident Request form. A modification directly on
the Incident Request form, however, applies only to the current incident, it does
not update the People record permanently.
To update the People database permanently, you can open the People form from
the Incident Request record, as described in the following procedure.

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! To add a new, or modify a current, customer profile

1 Do one of the following actions.

To add a new customer profile To modify a customer profile

From the Incident Management From the Incident Management console,
console click Create to create a new open a current incident request record
incident request record. belonging to the customer whose profile you
are modifying.

2 Do one of the following actions.

To add a new customer profile To modify a customer profile

When using the Best Practice view

! Click the plus sign to the right of To make modifications to the current record
the Customer or Contact field 1 To modify the Company or
and complete the People form as Customer fields, click the
required. minus sign to the right of the
Customer field to clear it and
then complete the fields with the new
information.
2 To modify the Contact field, click the
minus sign to the right of the field to clear
it and then add the new information.
3 To update the Customer or Contact phone
and site information, click the double
arrow link above the Incident ID field.
This toggles to an area that opens these
fields.
4 Click the pencil icon beside the field you
are modifying.
5 In the resulting dialog box, make the
required changes.
6 Click OK to save the changes and to close
the dialog box.
7 Click the double arrow link above the
Customer Phone field to return to your
starting point.
To make permanent modifications
1 Click either the Customer or Contact link.
2 In the People form, make the required
changes.
3 Click Save and then Click Yes to save the
changes and close the form.

When using the Classic view

! Click Create on the Customer tab. ! Click Modify on the Customer tab.

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3 On the People form, complete or modify the required fields.

If adding a customer record, you do not need to add all the information for this
individual’s profile, only what is necessary to submit the record.

NOTE
You cannot define a Support Person record here. See the BMC Remedy IT Service
Management Configuration Guide for further details.

4 Click Save.
If adding a new customer, the status of the person you added has a default value
of Proposed. Your People/Contact administrator must verify those in proposed
status, update them to Enabled, and add any other information that is necessary.

First call resolution

Before you assign an incident request, determine if you can resolve the incident
yourself. To do this, use the BMC Remedy Incident Management’s Incident
Matching feature, or the BMC Remedy Knowledge Management application, if
you have access to it, to look for matching, or similar, incident requests, problem
investigations, known errors, and solution entries.

NOTE
BMC Remedy Knowledge Management is a separate application that must be
integrated with BMC Remedy Incident Management before you can use it. For
information about accessing BMC Remedy Knowledge Management, see “To
access BMC Remedy Knowledge Management” on page 67.

If you cannot resolve the incident request, assign the incident request to a
specialist. For information about how to do this, see “Assigning incident requests”
on page 70.

NOTE
You can also use the Advanced Search feature to look for similar incident records.
For information about how to do this, see “Searching for similar incident requests”
on page 67.

! To search for matching records

1 Open or create an incident request.
2 Use one of the following methods to search for a solution:
! Incident Matching feature. To use this method, continue with step 3.
! BMC Remedy Knowledge Management application. For information about how
to open this application, see “To access BMC Remedy Knowledge Management”
on page 67.

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3 Open the Incident Matching dialog box.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
In the Navigation pane, choose Quick In the Navigation pane, choose
Actions > Incident Matching. Functions > Incident Matching.

4 Select the appropriate check boxes to search for incidents, problem investigations,
known errors, or solution database entries.
5 Run the search by using either the incident request’s operational categorization or
product categorization.
! Operational Categorization—In the Search By Operational Categorization area,
click Current Operation.
! Product Categorization—in the Search By Product Categorization area, click
Current Product.

NOTE
To further filter the search results, you can specify the other fields in the search
criteria pages.

6 Click Search.
Matching incidents, problem investigations, known errors, and solutions appear in
the tabs at the bottom half of the dialog box.
7 To view details of a matching record, perform the following steps:
a On the bottom half of the form, click the appropriate tab, such as the Known
Errors tab.
This tab lists matching records, such as matching known errors.
b Select the appropriate record.
c On the top half of the form, click the appropriate Search and Solution tab, such
as the Known Error Search and Solution tab, then within that tab click the
solution tab, such as the View Known Error Solution tab.
This tab displays details of the selected record.
8 If the matching record resolves the current incident, from the Relationship Type
list, select Resolved by.
9 To relate the record and copy the solution to the resolution of the incident, click
Relate with Solution.
10 Alternatively, to relate the record without the solution, click Relate Without
Solution.

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! To access BMC Remedy Knowledge Management

! If you have access to BMC Remedy Knowledge Management, you can use that
application to look for a solution, as described in the following table.
When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
With the incident request record open, With the incident request record open, from
from the Links area of the Navigation pane, the Quick Links area of the Navigation
click Search Knowledge Base. For pane, click Search Knowledge Base. For
information about using BMC Remedy information about using BMC Remedy
Knowledge Management, see the BMC Knowledge Management, see the BMC
Remedy Knowledge Management User Guide. Remedy Knowledge Management User Guide.

Searching for similar incident requests

A tool you can use for finding similar incident requests is the Advanced Search
feature that is available when an incident request record is open.

! To search for similar incident requests

1 With the incident request record open, from the Navigation pane, chose Advanced
Functions > Advanced Search.
2 In the Advanced Search Selection dialog box, select the type of search you want to
perform, then click Select.
! Search incident request by Work Info—Searches for incident request using
fields from the Work Details tab (Work Info when using the Classic view) tab.
! Search incident request by Relationships—Searches for incident requests
using fields from the Relationship form.
! Search Incidents by Assignment Logs—Searches for Incidents using fields
from the Assignment Log form.
3 On the search form, provide as much information as possible, and then click
Search.
4 View the incident requests that match the search criteria in the table that appears.

TIP
You can use the advanced search bar to define a more complex set of criteria than
you can specify by using only fields in a form. For example, you can search for all
incident requests with two different values in the same field. Thus, you can search
for all incident requests that have a status of Resolved or Closed. For more
information about using the advanced search bar, see the BMC Remedy User
Client online help system. To access the help system, from the BMC Remedy User
Client tool bar, select Help > Contents and Index.

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Relating incident requests as duplicates

You can relate an incident request to another as a duplicate. The original incident
request resolves all its duplicates. When someone resolves, closes, or cancels the
original incident request, its Operational and Product Categorizations, Resolution,
and CI fields are copied to the related duplicates, marking them with a status of
Resolved. Also, if the original incident request record has a value in the Service
field that is also a valid service for the customer who submitted the duplicate
record, and the duplicate record’s Service field is empty, the program copies the
service from the original incident request record to the duplicate.

! To relate an incident request as a duplicate

1 Open the incident under investigation.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 From the Request Type list, select Incident, and then click Search.
The Incident Relationship Search dialog box appears.
4 Enter the search criteria to find the original incident, then click Search.
Incidents matching the search criteria appear on the form's bottom half.
5 Select the duplicate incident according to the following choices:
! If the current incident is a duplicate of the original incident, from the
Relationship Type list, select Duplicate of.
! If the current incident is the original incident, from the Relationship Type list,
select Original of.
6 Click Relate.
The Incident Relationship Search dialog box closes. The incidents are related as
duplicate and original. The status of the duplicate incident is Pending, with a
status reason of Pending Original Incident.

NOTE
To see the details of the related record, select the record in the table on the
Relationships tab, and click View.

7 Click Save.

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Searching for incident request records using Company and View By

This section describes how to search for incident request records that are related to
the company and the group selected in the Company and View By area of the
Incident Management console. For information about how to search for records
that are not associated with your ID or group information or to search all records,
see “Searching all records” on page 129.

! To search for incident request records

1 In the Company and View By area on the Incident Management console, make
sure the company and the support groups for which you want to view records are
selected in the Company and View By fields.
2 In the Defined Searches list, expand the node that corresponds to the type of search
criteria you want to conduct.
For example, to see all open incident request records matching the Company and
View by fields, expand the All Open node.

NOTE
If the Defined Searches list does not contain a search that meets your needs, you
can define a custom search. For information about custom searches, see “Creating
a custom search” on page 128.

3 Select the specific type of search that you want to view.

For example, to see all open records with critical priority, select Critical Priority.
This starts the search, which places the results in the Incidents table.

Restoring a resolved incident request record to In Progress status

If the recorded resolution did not resolve the incident, you can restore the incident
request record to the In Progress status. This also moves the incident back to the
Resolution and Recovery stage in the incident request lifecycle. For information
about how to do this, see “Moving a resolved incident request back to In Progress”
on page 89.

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Assigning incident requests

Service desk analysts and Group Coordinators each play a role in assigning
incident requests. The information in this section applies to service desk analysts.
For information about the group coordinator’s role, see “Assigning incident
requests as a group coordinator” on page 92.

When you register a new incident request, one of the following actions happen:

! The routing rules used by BMC Remedy Incident Management automatically

assign the incident request to the most appropriate group when the incident
request record is saved.
! If the incident request is created from a template that has an assignment group
predefined, the incident request is assigned to the predefined assignment group.
If you reopen a current incident request, you manually reassign the incident
request to the most appropriate group. For information about how to do this, see
“Reassigning incident requests” on page 72. The coordinator of the group to which
the incident request is assigned then reviews the request.
Figure 4-5 provides an overview of the incident request assignment process as
described by the SMPM.

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Figure 4-5: Assigning incident requests

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Reassigning incident requests

You can reassign an incident to either an individual or a support group.
Use the shortcut in the Quick Actions section (Quick Links in Classic view) of the
Incident Request form to reassign an incident to yourself (Assign to Me) or to
reassign an incident based on automatic routing (Auto Assign). This assigns the
incident based on predefined mapping. Automated assignment can be based on
the customer organization, location, operational categorization, or product
categorization.

! To reassign an incident
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Reassign the investigation.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
1 Click the Work Detail tab. 1 Click the Assignment tab.
2 Select the Assigned Group from the list. 2 Select the Assigned Group from the list.
3 After selecting an Assigned Group, 3 After selecting an Assigned Group, select
select the Assignee from the list. the Assignee from the list.

3 Click Save.

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5 Resolving and closing incident

requests as support staff

The information in this section is for people who fulfill the role of specialist.
Group coordinators and on-duty managers should also be familiar with the
information in this section to better understand the support staff tasks and so they
can fulfill the role of support staff if necessary. The tasks described by this section
are organized according to the stages of the incident management lifecycle as
described by the BMC Service Management Process Model (SMPM). See “Process
flow and the lifecycle of an incident request” on page 25 for an illustration of the
incident management lifecycle.
Figure 5-1 illustrates the SMPM stages covered in this section.

Figure 5-1: The SMPM stages covered in this section

Support Staff 4 6
(Service Desk Resolving Closing
Analysts & incident incident
requests requests
Specialists)

The following topics are provided:

! Resolving incident requests (page 74)
! Closing incident requests (page 86)

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Resolving incident requests

You review an assigned incident request to determine whether the resolution
requires a change.
If the preferred method of incident request resolution is through the change
management process, you escalate the incident request by assigning it to the
service owner. For information about how to do this, see “Creating a change
request” on page 84.
Perform an incident request resolution by using the change management process
when the resolution requires a change that will:
! have a negative affect on the service during the service hours (defined by the
SLA)
! change the functionality of a service
! require an update to the BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database
(BMC Atrium CMDB)
If the incident request does not require the change management process, you
resolve the incident.
After resolving the incident request, you update the incident request, to make sure
the user is notified of the resolution.
If the resolution information entered in the incident request might help users,
service desk analysts, or other specialists resolve future, similar cases, you can
create a solution database entry to document the solution.
If the incident request was resolved using a workaround, but the incident can
recur, you notify the problem coordinator, so that a problem investigation record
can be created.
Figure 5-2 on page 75 provides an overview of the incident request resolution
process as described by the SMPM.

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Figure 5-2: Incident request resolution

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Accepting an incident request

There are several on-going tasks that you must perform when you accept and
begin working on an incident request, as described by the procedures that follow.
These on-going tasks help to keep the incident request record up-to-date with the
latest information about the work being performed to resolve the incident. These
on-going tasks include:
! Receiving notification of assignments
! Working with assignments
! Working with tasks
! Recording time worked on an incident request
! Creating work information entries
! Modifying work information entries

Receiving notification of assignments

When an incident is assigned to you, you can receive notification through:
! BMC Remedy Alert
! Email
You configure how you receive each notification from the People form, as
described in the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide.
All incidents assigned to you or your support groups appear in the Incident
Management and Overview consoles.
The purpose of the notification policy is to inform key IT support staff and
customers about incidents that have caused a service disruption. Notifications
from BMC Remedy Incident Management are automated and driven by BMC
Remedy Incident Management events.
Automated notifications are sent to individuals or groups, such as when an
incident is created, assigned, or resolved.
Individual and system-wide preferences indicate whether to send notifications by
alert, email, or pager. The administrator can configure the notification method, as
to whether business hours and holidays are included or excluded, and whether to
send individual or group notifications. For details about configuration, see the
BMC Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide.
The following scenarios are examples of notifications sent from BMC Remedy
Incident Management:
! Customers are notified by email when the incident is resolved. The message
includes the resolution.
! The incident owner is notified when an incident is resolved, if the assignee
group is different from the owner group.
! The Problem assignment group or assignee is notified when a solution entry is
created from an incident.

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Assignees of incidents related to problem investigations, known errors, and

change requests can receive notification from BMC Remedy Problem Management
or BMC Remedy Change Management. For details, see the BMC Remedy Service
Desk: Problem Management User’s Guide and BMC Remedy Change Management User’s
Guide.

Notifications If you are using BMC SLM, notifications can be sent out based on milestone actions
defined in BMC that are defined as part of service targets in the BMC SLM application. Service
SLM target escalations occur when the incident’s responded date is in danger of
breaching the service terms (for information about setting the responded date, see
“To set the responded date,” which follows). For example, this happens when:
! The target response time has elapsed and the incident is still assigned. .
! The target resolution time has elapsed and the incident is still open (not
resolved, closed, or canceled).
You can view the Responded Date on the Date/System tab. For details about
service target calculations, see “Overview of BMC SLM calculations” on page 94.
You can configure BMC SLM to send notifications to incident assignees, assignee
group coordinators, incident owners, or owner group coordinators by using
templates included with the BMC Remedy Incident Management when it is
integrated with BMC SLM. For details about how to configure the service targets
and the notifications in BMC SLM, see the BMC Service Level Management User’s
Guide.

! To set the responded date

1 Open the incident request
If the reported source is Email, Fax, Voicemail, Web, Self Service, BMC Impact
Manager Event, or Other, the Response field appears.
2 Select Yes from the Response field list.
3 Save the change to the incident request record.
The Responded Date field on the Date/System tab is updated with the date on
which you changed the Response field from No to Yes.

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Working with assignments

When you work on open incidents, you are working on incidents assigned to you
or to your support group. You can also assist with an incident assigned to another
support group when a task is assigned to you.

! To accept an assignment
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Assign the incident request record to yourself.
When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
From the Quick Actions section of the From the Quick Links section of the
Navigation pane, click Assign to Me. Navigation pane, click Assign to Me.

3 Change the Status to In Progress.

4 Click Save.

Working with tasks

You can assign tasks to one or more people without changing the assignment of
the incident. For information about working with tasks, see “Creating and
monitoring tasks” on page 99.

Searching for a solution

You can search for information that might help resolve the current incident request
in other incident requests, problem investigations, known errors, and solution
database entries. To do this, use the methods for finding similar incident requests
described in “First call resolution” on page 65.
If BMC Remedy Knowledge Management is installed, you can also use this
application to search for possible solutions. For information about accessing BMC
Remedy Knowledge Management, see “First call resolution” on page 65. For
information about how to use BMC Remedy Knowledge Management, see the
BMC Remedy Knowledge Management User Guide.

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Recording time worked on an incident request

You must keep track of the time that you spend working on an incident request.
If the incident request record is open on your desktop while you are working on it,
you can use a timer to keep track of the time. Or, you can enter the time manually.
If you receive assistance from someone else, you can also keep track of their time
through the Incident Assignment Log. The Incident Assignment Log contains a
record of who created the current incident request as well as individual records for
each group and person who was subsequently assigned to the request. Each record
contains the total effort duration for each assignee (that is, the amount of time each
group or person worked on the incident request), as well as other information.

NOTE
Because the Incident Assignment Log is historical, it does not contain a record for
the current assignee, only for previous assignees. The system updates the Incident
Assignment Log with a record for the most recent assignee each time the incident
request is reassigned. When the incident request is moved to the Closed state, the
system writes the final assignee record to the Incident Assignment Log.

You can also update the amount of time you spent working on an incident request
after it has been assigned to another assignee.

Recording your time

Use the following procedure to record time against an incident request that
currently is assigned to you.

! To record your time

1 Open the incident request record.
2 Perform one of the following tasks.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
! In the Work Detail area, click the ! Click the Assignment tab.
clock graphic beside the
Assignee field to open the Effort
Time Spent window.

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3 Enter the time you spent on the incident request in the Effort Time Spent (Minutes)
field.

TIP
Use the automatic timer to keep track of your time anytime you work on the
incident request while the incident request record is open on your desktop. To start
the timer, click the Stopped button (the text on the button changes to Started—the
button’s text reports the timer’s current status). When you finish working on the
incident request, make sure you click the Started button (the text on the button
changes to Stopped).

4 Click Save.

NOTE
The Effort Time Spent Minutes field is a data entry field only. When you click Save,
the time value that you provided in Effort Time Spent Minutes is written to a
database field called Total Time Spent, which totals the time spent on the incident
request for the current assignee. After the BMC Remedy Incident Management
writes the time value to Total Time Spent, it resets Effort Time Spent Minutes to
zero. If you reassign the incident request or resolve it, the cumulative time is
written from Total Time Spent to the Assignment Log and Total Time Spent is reset
to zero.

Recording time for an assistant

Use the following procedure to record time against an incident request for
someone who assisted you but who was not formally assigned to the incident
request.

! To record an assistant’s time

1 Open the incident request record.
2 Perform one of the following actions.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
! In the Work Detail area, click the ! Click the Assignment tab.
clock graphic beside the
Assignee field to open the Effort
Time Spent window.

3 Click Update Assignment Log to open the Incident Assignment Log dialog box.

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4 Add the assistant to the Assignment Log by selecting values for the following
fields:
! Support Company—the name of the assistant’s support company
! Support Organization—the name of the assistant’s support organization
! Assigned Group—the name of the assistant’s assigned group
! Assignee—the name of the assistant’s name of the individual.
5 In the Effort Time Spent (Minutes) field, enter the time the assistant spent on the
incident request .
6 Click Add.
An entry containing this information appears in the table at the bottom of the
Incident Assignment Log dialog box.

Updating your time after the incident request is

reassigned
Use the following procedure to update the time that you spend on an incident
request after it has been reassigned. For example, if the person or group to which
the incident request is reassigned asks for your help with some aspect of the
incident request resolution, you can update your record in the Incident
Assignment Log with the additional time.

NOTE
You can update the time only for your own Incident Assignment Log records. You
cannot update the records of other support groups or individuals.

! To update your time after the incident request is reassigned

1 Open the incident request record.
2 Open the Incident Assignment Log dialog box.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
! In the Work Detail area, click the clock ! Click the Assignment tab.
graphic beside the Assignee field to open
the Effort Time Spent window.

3 Click Update Assignment Log.

4 In the table at the bottom of the Incident Assignment dialog box, select your record.

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5 In the Effort Time Spent (Minutes) field of the Update Assignee Effort Duration
area, type the number of minutes that you are adding or subtracting from your
recorded time.
6 Click the plus button (+) to add the time to the record’s total amount of time, or
click the minus button (-) to subtract the time.
7 Click Close.

NOTE
You cannot delete a completed assignment log.

Creating work information entries

When you begin working on an incident request, you must make sure that you
keep careful work information entries in the Work Details area of the incident
request record (or in the Work Info tab when using the Classic view), explaining
what you have done.
For example, you might want to add a note that a particular CI was deployed, and
include the date.
You can add work information entries to an incident request record directly from
the Incidents table, or you can add them to open incident request records.

! To add work information entries from the Incidents table

1 From the Incident Management console, select the incident request record.
2 At the bottom of the Incident Management console, if the Tasks table is visible,
open the Incident Detail area by clicking Show Incident Detail.
3 Click Create.
4 Enter the work information details in the Incident Work Info dialog box.
5 To add an attachment to the record, right-click in the attachment table and select
Add from the menu that appears.
6 Choose whether to lock the work log.

IMPORTANT
If you select Yes, you cannot modify the work log after you save it.

7 Choose the type of view access:

! Internal—Choose this if you do not want the customer to see the work
information entry.
! Public—Choose this if you want the customer to see the work information
entry.
8 Click Save.

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NOTE
To see a report of selected work information entries, select one or more entries, and
click Report.

! To add work information entries to an open incident request record

! If you are working with an open incident request record, how you add work
information depends on the view.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
1 Open the incident request record. 1 With the incident request record open,
2 On the Work Details tab, click Create. click the Work Info tab.
3 Complete the fields in the Incident Work 2 Complete the fields on the tab as
Info dialog box as described in “Creating described in “Creating work information
work information entries” on page 82. entries” on page 82.

Modifying work information entries

If the work information entry is not locked, you can modify any field on it. The
following procedure describes how to modify the notes, add attachments, lock the
entry so it cannot be modified later, and change the viewing access level.

! To modify a work information entry from the Incidents table

1 From the Incident Management console, select the incident request record.
2 At the bottom of the Incident Management console, if the Tasks table is visible,
open the Incident Detail area by clicking Show Incident Detail.
3 From the list of work information entries, select the work information record that
you want to update.
4 Click View.
5 Make the required modification as described in Table 5-1.

Table 5-1: Modifying work information entries

Modification Action
To update the note Click inside the Notes field and type the changes.
To add an attachment Right-click in the attachment table and select Add
from the menu that appears, and then follow the
onscreen instructions.
Note: Attachments to work information entries
created in BMC Service Request Management are
not transferred with information sent to a back-
end application, such as an incident, a change
request, or a work order. You can access the
attachments only from the service request.

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Table 5-1: Modifying work information entries(continued)

Modification Action
To lock the entry From the Locked list, select Yes or No.
Note: If you select Yes, the work information entry
cannot be modified after you save it.
To change the view access level From the View Access list, select Internal or Public
from the View Access list.
! Internal—Select this if you do not want the
customer to see the work information entry.
! Public—Select this if you want the customer to
see the work information entry.

6 Click Save.

! To modify a work information entry from an open incident request record

! If you are working with an open incident request record, how you modify work
information entries depends the view.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
1 Open the incident request record. 1 With the incident request record open,
2 On the Work Details tab, select the work click the Work Info tab.
information entry that you want to 2 Select the work information entry that
update. you want to update.
3 Click View. 3 Complete the fields on the tab as
4 Update the fields in the Incident Work described in “To modify a work
Info dialog box as described in “To information entry from the Incidents
modify a work information entry from table” on page 83.
the Incidents table” on page 83.

Updating an incident request

To update an incident request, open the incident request and then update the
details as required. Click save when you finish.

Creating a change request

If infrastructure change is required to permanently resolve the incident request,
assign the incident request to a Change Coordinator. For information about how
to do this, see “Reassigning incident requests” on page 72.
If you have the correct change management permissions, you can create a change
request from the Incident Request form. If you are not sure about your change
management permissions, ask your system administrator.

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! To create change from an incident

1 Open the incident request record.
2 From the Navigation pane, select Create Other Requests > Create Change.
A Change Request form appears. The Product and Operational Categorization are
copied from the incident to the infrastructure change. A relationship is created
between the change and the incident.
3 Complete the Change Request form.
For information about recording change requests, see the BMC Remedy Change
Management User’s Guide.
4 Click Save.

Creating a solution database entry from an incident

If you have access to BMC Remedy Problem Management, you can publish the
resolution from an incident into the solution database.

! To create a solution entry from an incident

1 From the Incident Management Incidents table, open the incident.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 From the Request Type list, select Solution Database.
4 Click Create.
5 Edit the form as required.
6 Click Save.

Creating a knowledge base article from an incident

If you have access to BMC Remedy Knowledge Management, you can also create
knowledge base articles that described the resolution. These can be helpful in the
future, when trying to resolve similar incident requests.

NOTE
For complete information about creating knowledge base articles, see the BMC
Remedy Knowledge Management User Guide.

! To create a knowledge base article

1 Open the resolved incident request record.
2 Create the knowledge base article.
When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
From the Links area of the Navigation From the Quick Links area of the
pane, click Create Knowledge. Navigation pane, click Create
Knowledge.

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Closing incident requests

When you resolve the incident request, move the incident request status to
Resolved.
If you are in communication with the customer when you resolve the incident
request, and can verify the resolution, move the request status to Closed
immediately. For information about how to do this, see “Closing an incident
request” on page 88.
If you cannot verify the resolution at the time you make it, complete the incident
request with the Resolved status, and set the Status Reason field to Customer
Follow-up Required. For information about how to do this, see “Completing an
incident request” on page 87.

NOTE
The customer must verify the resolution within a specified period of time, or BMC
Remedy Incident Management automatically moves the incident request status to
Closed. The length of this period is configurable. Check with your system
administrator to determine how much time your organization specifies. The
default setting is 15 days.

If the resolution information entered in the incident request can help users, service
desk analysts, or other specialists resolve future, similar cases, you can create a
solution database entry to document the solution. For information about how to do
this, see “Creating a solution database entry from an incident” on page 85.
If the incident request was resolved using a workaround, but the incident can
recur, notify the problem coordinator so that person can investigate the issue in a
timely manner and then decide whether to create a problem investigation.
If the user does not accept the resolution, the user contacts the service desk and
asks for the incident request to be reopened. Depending on the incident request’s
status see either “Moving a resolved incident request back to In Progress” on
page 89 or “Reopening a resolved or closed incident request” on page 89 for
information about how to do this.
Figure 5-3 provides an overview of the incident request closure process as
described by the SMPM.

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Figure 5-3: Incident request closure

Completing an incident request

Use this procedure when you have resolved the incident request, but are unable to
have the user verify the resolution.

! To complete an incident request

1 Open the incident request record.
2 Change the Status field to Resolved.
3 Select the appropriate status reason.
The status reason can indicate action required before the incident is closed, such as
Customer Follow-up Required.

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4 Click Save.
The status of the incident is set to Resolved.
If CI unavailability was created from this incident and your support group is
responsible for the CI unavailability, you are prompted to update the CI
unavailability.
! To update the CI unavailability, for example, if the CI is now available, click
Update. For details about CI unavailability, see “Recording CI unavailability”
on page 132.
! To continue resolving the incident without updating the CI, click Close and
Continue Save.
! To return to the Incident Request form without saving, click Close and Cancel
Save.

NOTE
When you resolve an incident request that has related duplicate requests, BMC
Remedy Incident Management also updates those duplicate requests as resolved.
It can take up to several minutes to update duplicate requests, because BMC
Remedy Incident Management processes these updates in the background. For
information about duplicate incident requests, see “Relating incident requests as
duplicates” on page 68.

Closing an incident request

This activity makes sure that the incident has successfully restored the service to
the user and that the user is satisfied with the outcome. When the user agrees that
the incident can be closed, review the incident request record for completion and,
if appropriate, create a solution database entry.
If you leave an incident as resolved, after a period of time BMC Remedy Incident
Management closes the incident. The time for your installation to close the incident
is configurable, so check with your administrator to find out the interval for your
organization. The default setting is 15 days.

! To close an incident request

1 Open the incident request record.
2 Review the Incident Request form to make sure that it is complete and accurate.
3 In the status field, choose Closed.
4 Click Save.
The status is now set to Closed. If the incident was broadcast, the broadcast is
removed.

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Moving a resolved incident request back to In Progress

Use the following procedure to move an incident request record with a status of
Resolved back to the In Progress status. You do this if the reported resolution did
not resolve the incident request, and further work is needed.

! To move a resolved incident request to In Progress

1 Open a resolved incident.
2 In the Status field, select In Progress.
3 Click Save.
The incident moves back to the Resolution and Recovery stage, and the status
changes from Resolved to In Progress.

Reopening a resolved or closed incident request

Use the following procedure when you want to reopen a resolved or a closed
incident request.

NOTE
If the status of the incident request record is Resolved, anyone can reopen it. If the
status of the incident request record is Closed, then only someone with Incident
Master permissions, or support staff who have either Support Group Manager or
Support Group Lead functional roles can reopen it.

! To reopen a closed incident

1 Open a closed incident.
2 From the Navigation pane, select Functions > Re-open incident.
A new Incident Request form appears with a new incident number. The basic
details from the closed incident are copied to it and a relationship is created
between the new and closed incident request.

NOTE
The Re-open option is only enabled under Functions when the status of the
selected record is Closed.

3 On the new Incident Request form, click Save.

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 Chapter

6 Working with incident

requests as a manager

The information in this section is for people who fulfill the management role of
group coordinator. On-duty managers should also be familiar with the
information in this section.
Other people in your organization, who occasionally fulfill the role of group
coordinators and on-duty managers, should also be familiar with the information
in this section. Using the Incident Management console, managers can assign and
track incident requests, make escalations when necessary, and approve solutions.
The tasks described by this section are organized according to the stages of the
incident management lifecycle as described by the BMC Service Management
Process Model (SMPM). For more information about the incident management
lifecycle, see Figure 1-7 on page 26.
Figure 6-1 illustrates the SMPM stages covered in this section.

Figure 6-1: The SMPM management stages covered in this section

2b 3 5 7
Managers Assigning Tracking Handling Approving
(Group Coordinators incident incident incident solutions
& On-Duty Managers) requests requests escalations

The following topics are provided:

! Assigning incident requests as a group coordinator (page 92)
! Tracking incident requests (page 93)
! Handling incident escalations (page 96)
! Approving solutions (page 97)

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Assigning incident requests as a group

coordinator
This information in this section applies to group coordinators.
When an incident request is assigned to a group by the service desk analyst, you
must review it before assigning it to a specialist.
If important information is missing from the incident request or if it is assigned to
the wrong group, you send it back to the service desk for correction by reassigning
it back to the service desk. For information about how to do this, see “Reassigning
incident requests” on page 72.
If the incident request is accepted, you check whether the request requires the
change management process. If it does, your escalate (or assign) the incident
request to the service owner. For information about how to do this, see “Assigning
incident requests” on page 70.
The resolution of an incident request is performed using the change management
process when the resolution requires a change that will:
! have a negative affect on the service during the service hours (defined by the
SLA)
! change the functionality of a service
! require an update to the BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database
(BMC Atrium CMDB)
If the incident request does not require the change management process, you
assign the incident to a specialist within your group.
If a change is required, you assign the incident request to the change coordinator
of the affected service. For information about how to do this, see “Assigning
incident requests” on page 70.

Rejecting an incident
If the incident request does not contain enough information for the specialist to
work with, or if it is assigned to the wrong group, you can reject the incident
request by assigning it back to the service desk. For information about how to do
this, see “Reassigning incident requests” on page 72.

NOTE
Make sure you include a note in the Work Info section of the incident request
record explaining why the incident request was rejected. Include the name of the
correct group to which the incident request needs to be assigned, if known.

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Tracking incident requests

If BMC Service Level Management (BMC SLM) is installed, you receive a
notification when the incident request is in danger of breaching the service terms.
For example, this happens when:
! The target response time has elapsed and the incident is still assigned.
! The target resolution time has elapsed and the incident is still open (not
resolved, closed, or canceled).

NOTE
You can view the Responded Date on the Date/System tab of the Incident Request
form. For details about service target calculations, see “Overview of BMC SLM
calculations” on page 94.

You can configure BMC SLM to send notifications to incident assignees, assignee
group coordinators, incident owners, or owner group coordinators, by using
templates included with BMC Remedy Incident Management when you integrate
it with BMC SLM. For details about configuring service targets and notifications in
BMC SLM, see the BMC Service Level Management User’s Guide.
When you receive an escalation, you determine the cause of the notification and act
accordingly.
For example, if the notification occurred because an SLA was breached, you
escalate the incident request to the service owner of the affected service.
If, however, the escalation notification occurred because an SLA threshold is
approaching a breach, you determine whether the incident request needs to be
reassigned to another specialist with different skills, greater experience, or with
different access rights.
If you decide not to reassign the incident request, then you must notify the
assigned specialist that the incident request must be resolved quickly to avoid any
service level objective (SLO) violations.
Beginning with BMC Remedy Service Desk: Incident Management version 7.6.00,
you can place incident requests that require special monitoring on the Watch List
(see “Working with the Watch List” on page 95 for information about using this
new feature).
Figure 6-2 on page 94 provides an overview of the tracking incident requests
process, as described by the SMPM.

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Figure 6-2: Tracking incident requests

Overview of BMC SLM calculations

From the Incident Request form, you can view incident service targets defined in
BMC SLM. Service targets can be defined in BMC SLM for response time and
resolution time. Service targets for an incident can be determined by related CIs,
product and service categorization, and many additional criteria.
The service target response time applies when an incident request’s reported
source is: Email, Fax, Voicemail, Web, Self Service, BMC Impact Manager Event, or
Other. In these cases, the Responded Date is blank until someone indicates that the
incident has been responded to by updating the Response field on the Incident
Request form to Yes (for information about updating the Response field, see “To
set the responded date” on page 77. When support staff respond to an incident
request from one of the previously noted sources, the Responded Date is set to the
date that the incident was responded to.

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The service target resolution time is configurable, a typical scenario would be from
when the incident is recorded until it is resolved. The following scenarios can affect
the calculated resolution time:
! When an incident is in a pending state, it might not be included in BMC SLM
calculations, depending on the status reason.
! When a resolved incident is reopened, the BMC SLM calculations account for
time spent in the resolved state.

Working with the Watch List

The Watch List provides a separate area where you can place records that you
particularly want to monitor.

NOTE
You can use the Watch List to track an incident request record throughout its
lifecycle, even if it is reassigned to a group that you do not belong to. After you add
an incident request record to the Watch List, it stays there until you remove it.

Table 6-1 describes how to add and remove records from the Watch List.

Table 6-1: Working with the Watch List

Action Note
Viewing the Watch From the Defined Searches list in the Navigation pane , click
List Watchlist.
Returning to the From the Defined Searches list in the Navigation pane , run one of
Incidents table the searches.
Adding records From the Incidents table, select the record to add.
Click Add to Watch List
Note: When you add a record to the Watch List, it is still enabled in
the Incidents table.
Removing records From the Watch List table, select the record to remove.
Click Remove From Watch List
Note: This does not delete the record from the database; it only
removes it from the Watch List.

NOTE
When you are viewing the Watch List , the Company and View By fields at the top
of the Incident Management console are disabled.

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Handling incident escalations

If an incident request is escalated to the service owner, the service owner consults
with the specialists who were handling the request to understand the request’s
current status and what solutions have been tried already.
If the service owner determines that the best way to restore service is through the
continuity site, the service owner escalates the incident request to the on-duty
manager to implement the continuity site strategy (see “Reassigning incident
requests” on page 72 for information about how to do this).
If activating a continuity site is not practical, the service owner determines whether
service can be restored through the change management process. If possible, the
service owner creates a change request (see “Creating a change request” on
page 84 for information about how to do this).
The resolution of an incident request is performed using the change management
process when the resolution requires a change that will:
! have a negative affect on the service during the service hours (defined by the
SLA)
! change the functionality of a service
! require an update to the BMC Atrium CMDB
If the change management process is needed, the service owner also consults with
the specialists assigned to the incident request to understand the risks that might
cause the change implementation to fail, and what affect, if any, the change will
have on the users. Through this consultation, they develop a strategy to minimize
the affect of the change. When this is done, the service owner asks the specialist to
implement the change as an emergency change.
If change management is not required, the service owner makes sure that the most
appropriate specialists continue to resolve the incident within the incident
management process.

NOTE
The role of service owner is performed by the on-duty manager when the service
owner of the affected service is not available.

Figure 6-3 on page 97 provides an overview of the escalation handling process as

described by the SMPM.

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 Approving solutions

Figure 6-3: Escalation handling

Approving solutions
When the specialist proposes a solution, you must review the proposed solution to
make sure the information is complete and accurate. You might need to contact the
specialist for clarification or to better understand the proposed solution.
When you agree that the proposed solution is accurate and complete, and
appropriate for the incident request, you approve the solution by changing the
Status field on the Solution form from Inactive to Active.
If you do not agree that the proposed solution is appropriate for the incident
request, you perform the following steps on the Solution form:
! record the reason for disagreement in Work Info
! set the Expiry Date field to today’s date
! leave the Status field reading Inactive

! To approve or reject a solution

1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the Relationship tab.
3 From the Relationships table, select the solution database entry you are working
on, and then click View.

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4 Perform the following steps, as required.

Approving a solution Rejecting a solution

Change the Status field from Inactive Leave the Status field at Inactive.
to Active. On the Date/System tab, change the Expiry Date
to today’s date.
Add a work information note to record the reason
for disagreement.

5 Click Save.
Figure 6-4 Provides an overview of the solution approval process as described by
SMPM.

Figure 6-4: Approving solutions

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Chapter

7 Creating and monitoring

tasks

The information in this section is for people who fulfill one or more of the
following support roles:
! service desk analysts
! group coordinators
! specialists
The following topics are provided:
! Tasks overview (page 100)
! Adding tasks using task templates (page 101)
! Creating ad hoc tasks (page 102)
! Accepting task assignments (page 103)
! Opening and viewing individual task records (page 104)
! Reassigning task sequence numbers (page 104)
! Assigning and reassigning tasks (page 106)
! Updating task record details (page 106)
! Planning task times (page 106)
! Tracking the time spent working on tasks (page 107)
! Adding work information to a task (page 109)
! Canceling tasks (page 110)
! Closing tasks (page 110)
! Resolving, closing, and canceling incident requests with open tasks (page 111)

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Tasks overview
A task is a unit of work that needs to be completed as a step in resolving an incident
request. If the solution to an incident request involves more than one action,
procedure, or process, consider dividing the solution into separate tasks. Dividing
the solution into separate tasks can help you to better manage and to monitor the
incident request as it moves toward resolution.
You can assign the tasks to the same person, to several people, or to a support
group. The person or support group to whom the task is assigned is the “task
implementer.”
When the group coordinator sets the task status to In Progress, the task
implementers are notified of the tasks assigned to them by email, BMC Remedy
Alert, pager, or some additional means. After a task is assigned to the task
implementers, they can log their progress as they complete each task.
You can use a task template to add a task to an incident request, or you can create
an ad hoc task. Task templates are predefined tasks that you can quickly add to an
incident request. For information about how to do this, see “Adding tasks using
task templates” on page 101. An ad hoc task is any task that is not included in the
list of task templates and, therefore, you must create it manually. For information
about how to do this, see “Creating ad hoc tasks” on page 102.
When using task templates, you can also add tasks that are divided into sub-tasks.
A task that has sub-tasks is called a “task group.” The sub-tasks of the task group
are called “children” of the task group.
Although tasks and task groups are related to specific incident request records,
information about the tasks and task groups is stored on a separate Task form. You
can relate an unlimited number of tasks or task groups to an incident request.
After a task or task group is assigned to a task implementer, the task implementer
receives notifications to perform each of the assigned tasks.

Opening the Task form

How you open the Task form depends on whether you are using the Best Practice
view or the Classic view.
Table 7-1 describes how to open the Task form from both of the BMC Remedy
Incident Management views.

Table 7-1: Opening the Task form

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
1 Open the incident request record. 1 Open the incident request record
2 From the Navigation pane, select Links > 2 Click the Tasks tab.
Tasks.

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Adding tasks using task templates

To save time, you can use a task template to add a task to an incident request
record. Task templates are created by your system administrator. A task template
is a predefined task; usually for the most commonly performed tasks that your
service desk handles. Because the Task form is predefined (that is, the fields are
already completed), you do not need to spend time manually completing the Task
form fields as described in “Creating ad hoc tasks” on page 102.
The following are the types of tasks that you can add to an incident request record
when using templates: “Task Template” and “Task Group Template.” Task
templates associate a single task to the incident request record. Task Template
tasks can be either “Manual” or “Automatic.” Manual tasks must be performed by
a person. Automatic tasks are preformed by a computer or automated system, but
you must still assign automatic tasks to a person, so there is someone to monitor
the task.
The Task Group template generates a task that has two or more sub-tasks. Task
Group tasks can be defined either as standard or sequencing. Standard task group
tasks can be performed in any order. In a sequencing task group, however, the
tasks must be performed in the sequence indicated on the Task form.

! To add a task using task templates

1 Open the Tasks form, as described in “Opening the Task form” on page 100.
2 From the Request Type list, select either Task Template or Task Group Template,
and then click Relate.

TIP
To manage a large number of task templates, you can filter the list by selecting
from the Type and Category lists at the top of the dialog box.

3 From the list of tasks in the Select Template dialog box, select the template for the
task you are adding, and then click Relate.
When you click Relate, the Task form closes.
4 Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all tasks you want to add to the incident.
The templates you selected are displayed in the Tasks and Task Groups list. If there
are no templates listed, click inside the list to refresh the table.
5 If necessary, redefine the numeric sequence of the children tasks created by any
group template, as described in “Reassigning sequence numbers to task group
children” on page 105.
The task management subsystem enforces the dependencies between tasks. These
relate to the sequence order specified in the Incident Request form.
6 Click Close.
7 When you finish adding templates, save the incident.

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Creating ad hoc tasks

Add hoc tasks are tasks that are not predefined by a task template and, therefore,
must be created manually.

! To create an ad hoc task

1 Open the Tasks form, as described in “Opening the Task form” on page 100.
2 From the Request Type list, choose Ad hoc.
3 Click Relate.
The Create Task form appears. Certain fields in the form are already filled in with
the data for the incident.
4 In the upper region of the form, fill in the following required fields:
! Name—Enter a descriptive name of the task.
! Summary—Enter a brief description of the task.
The Type field is set to Manual by default when you create an ad hoc task.
5 On the General tab, fill in information about the company.
The Company field defaults to the contents of the Incident Location field in the
Incident Request form. Your task can be assigned to an different department or a
different company.
6 On the Requester tab, fill in information about the person creating the task
(Requester) and the intended target of the task (Requested For).
Some information is set by default from the Requested By information of the
incident.
7 On the Classification tab, fill in information about the product and operational
categorizations.
8 In the Assignment/Dates tab, assign the task by completing the following fields:
! Assignee Group—Optionally, select a task implementer group from the list.
! Assignee—Optionally, select a task implementer from the list.
The BMC Remedy Assignment Engine automatically assigns the task when the
task is created according to how the administrator has configured BMC Remedy
Incident Management, but you can override this if necessary. For more
information about assignment configuration, see the BMC Remedy IT Service
Management Configuration Guide.
! Scheduled Start Date—Optionally, enter an estimated start date.
! Scheduled End Date—Optionally, enter an estimated end date.
You can set the Start Date and End Date to be different from the dates of the
parent incident.

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9 On the Relationships tab, search for and then relate configuration items that are
needed with this task.
You can perform quick actions that are with the task, for example, get related
relationships.
10 When you finish creating the task, click Save.
The task information form closes and returns you to the Incident Request form.
The task management subsystem enforces the dependencies between tasks. These
relate to any Sequence order you might have specified in the Incident Request
form.
11 Click Save on the Incident Request form.

Accepting task assignments

You receive notification of assigned tasks by way of BMC Remedy Alert, email,
and so on. You can also use the Overview console or the Incident Management
console to view all tasks assigned to you. Tasks are identified by the TAS prefix. To
access the Incident Management console, the task implementer must have Incident
Master, Incident User, Incident Submitter, or (at minimum) Incident Viewer
permissions.

NOTE
When you follow the recommended lifecycle of an incident, the status of a task
must be Scheduled before you accept the task.

! To receive notification of task assignment by BMC Remedy Alert

1 Log in to BMC Remedy Alert.
When you or your group receive a notification that you or your group have been
assigned to a task, the information appears in BMC Remedy Alert.
2 To evaluate a task, select the task listed in the BMC Remedy Alert window.
3 Choose Alerts > Details.
The task appears in a Task form in Modify mode.
You accept a task by changing its status to Work in Progress. When an incident is
set to In Progress and a task is not assigned to a person or group, the task status is
set to Pending. Later, when the task is assigned, it moves automatically to the
Assigned status. However, you can only change the status to Work in Progress
manually.

NOTE
When the incident is in Assigned status, all the tasks have a status of Staged.

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! To accept an assigned task

1 Open the Tasks form, as described in “Opening the Task form” on page 100.
2 Select the task that you want to accept.
3 Click View.

NOTE
To view the related incident request record, click Open next to the Request ID field
on the Task form.

4 If the Status Field of the incident is set to In Progress, manually set the Status field
to Work in Progress.
This is an important step, because the task then moves into Work in Progress
status. In addition, different escalations occur based on the task’s status. If the task
is still in the Scheduled state while you are working on it, an inaccurate escalation
can occur.
5 Click Save.

Opening and viewing individual task records

You can open and view the contents of individual task records. This enables you
to see detailed information about the individual records and to update them.

! To view task records

1 Open the Tasks form, as described in “Opening the Task form” on page 100.
2 Click inside the Tasks and Task Groups table.
A list of the tasks and task group appears in the table.
3 In the Tasks and Task Group table, select the task record you want to view, and
then click View.

Reassigning task sequence numbers

When you relate tasks or task groups to an incident, they are automatically
sequenced in the order in which you related them to the incident. This sequence is
strictly enforced inside the incident.
You can, however, reassign the sequence in which tasks and task groups are
performed. You can also assign the same sequence number to more than one task
or children tasks of a task group. If two tasks or children tasks of a task group have
the same sequence number, they are considered peers. You can work on peer tasks
in any order.

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 Reassigning task sequence numbers

! To reassign a sequence to task groups and tasks

1 Open the Tasks form, as described in “Opening the Task form” on page 100.
2 In the Tasks and Task Groups table, select the task that you want to resequence.
3 Click either the up arrow or the down arrow located to the right of the table. This
moves the selected task either higher or lower in the sequence.
4 Click Close.

Reassigning sequence numbers to task group children

You can change the order in which the children of a group template task are
sequenced.

! To reassign sequence numbers to task group children

1 Open the Tasks form, as described in “Opening the Task form” on page 100.
2 In the Tasks and Tasks Groups table, select the task group.
The tasks assigned to the task group appear in the Children of Selected Task Group
table.

NOTE
You might need to click inside the Children of Selected Task Group table to refresh
its contents.

3 In the Children of Selected Task Group table, select the task you want to reassign.
4 Click either the up arrow or the down arrow located to the right of the table. This
moves the selected task either higher or lower in the sequence.

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Assigning and reassigning tasks

After creating a task or adding a task template to an incident request record, you
assign it. You can assign tasks to individuals or to a support group.
If you cannot resolve one of your assigned tasks, you can reassign the task, or you
can ask your group coordinator to reassign the task. For example, you might ask
the group coordinator to reassign the task in situations where you want to reassign
the task to someone outside your group.

To assign a task using the Best Practice view To reassign a task using the Classic view
1 Open the task record as described in 1 Open the task record as described in
“Opening and viewing individual task “Opening and viewing individual task
records” on page 104. records” on page 104.
2 Select the Assignment tab. 2 Click the Assignment tab.
3 From the Assignee or Assignee Group 3 In the Assignee or Assignee Group fields,
lists, select the person or support group choose the group or person to you want to
to work on the task as the task reassign the task to.
implementer. 4 Make sure the Notify Assignee field is set
4 Save and close the form. to Yes.
The task implementer for that task is 5 Click Save.
notified of the task assignment. The new task implementer is notified of
the request assignment. Until the new
implementer accepts the task assignment,
you are still assigned to the task and have
responsibility for it.

Updating task record details

After a task record is created, you can change the details that appear on the record.
To do this, open the task record as described in “Opening and viewing individual task
records” on page 104 and then update the details as needed. Save the changes and
close the form.

Planning task times

You can plan the time for individual tasks. The Dates tab in the Task form includes
fields where you can enter scheduling information. You can create the time
segments that are required to complete individual tasks.

! To plan the time for tasks

1 Open the task record as described in “Opening and viewing individual task records”
on page 104.
2 Click the Dates tab.

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 Tracking the time spent working on tasks

3 In the Dates/Time region of the form, provide dates for the Scheduled Start Date
and Scheduled End Date fields.
4 In the Time Segment Action field, select the following options:
! Analyze Time Segments
! Create Business Event Time Segment
! Modify Business Event Time Segment
! Create Categorizational Time Segment
! Modify Categorizational Time Segment
! Create/Modify CI Time Segment
5 Save and close the form.

Tracking the time spent working on tasks

You can track the time spent working on a task at any time after it is created. Use
this feature between the time the task status is in Implementation In Progress and
Closed. You can track the time spent working on a task in different ways:
! Use the start and stop clock buttons—The time is automatically calculated
based on when you click the start and stop clock buttons.
! Manually enter in the time—You can enter a time into the Time Spent field
directly.
! Enter work into the effort log—You can create an effort log entry.

! To use the start and the stop buttons to track the time spent working on a
task
1 Open the task record as described in “Opening and viewing individual task records”
on page 104.
2 Click the Assignment tab.
3 Click the Start Clock button.
The current date and current time are displayed in the read-only Start Time field.

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4 Click Save.
5 When you finish working on the task and want to stop tracking the time, click Stop
Clock. You must repeat steps 1 and 2 first if you closed the task after saving it in
step 4.
A message reports the number of minutes spent working on the task. The time
spent is also added to the value in the read-only Total Time Spent field.
6 Save and close the form.
You can use the start and stop clock buttons as many times as is required. Each
successive time, the new time is added to the value already in the Total Time Spent
field.

! To manually track the time spent working on a task

1 Open the task record as described in “Opening and viewing individual task records”
on page 104.
2 Click the Assignment tab.
3 Enter a number of hours or minutes manually in the editable Time Spent fields.
4 Click Save.
The time you entered is automatically added to the value already in the Total Time
Hours and Minutes fields.

! To use the Task Effort log to track the time spent working on a task
1 Open the task record as described in “Opening and viewing individual task records”
on page 104.
2 Click the Assignment tab.
3 Click Effort Log.
The Task Effort Log window appears.
4 Enter information into the effort log.
For example, you can enter time spent in hours and minutes and additional details.
5 Click Add to Effort Log.
An entry is added to the effort log. You can view the entry or delete it as needed.
6 Close the task effort log to return to the task.
7 Click Save.

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Adding work information to a task

Work information is a note about any work you performed while completing or
trying to complete the task. You can add work information to each task included
in the incident. The work information for each task appears in the Work Info of
Selected Task table on the Task form.

! To add work information to a task

1 Open the task record as described in “Opening and viewing individual task records”
on page 104.
2 Click the Work Info tab.
3 If needed, modify the work information type.
4 From the Source list, select the source of this information.
Information sources can include, for example, email messages, system assignment,
or the web.
5 Enter the details of your work information record in the Date, Summary, and
Notes fields.
6 To add attachments to the record, right-click in the attachment table and select
Add from the menu that appears.
7 From the Locked list, select Yes or No to lock the log.
8 Select the view access:
! Internal—Only users within your organization can see the entry.
! External—Everyone with access to the system can see the entry.
9 When you finish updating, save your changes.
The Save operation adds your entry to the task’s work history. You filter out
specific work entries in the Show field, based on the type of activity that appears
in the table.
10 To see a report of the activities you performed against this task, click Report.
11 To display all current entries for work information history, click View.
12 Close the Task form when you finish with it.
13 When you return to the Incident Request form, refresh the work information entry
of the Assigned Task table to display all the entries.

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Canceling tasks
You can cancel tasks by accessing them through the Incident Request form. This
action does not delete the task; it sets the status of the task to Closed and the closure
code to Canceled.

NOTE
If you cancel an incident with open tasks, all the tasks associated with the canceled
incident are also canceled. For information about canceling an incident with open
tasks, see “Resolving, closing, and canceling incident requests with open tasks” on
page 111.

To cancel tasks using the Best Practice view To cancel tasks using the Classic view
1 Open the incident request record. 1 Open the incident request record.
2 From the Links section of the Navigation 2 Click the Tasks tab.
pane, click Tasks. 3 In the Tasks and Task Groups table,
3 In the Tasks and Task Groups table, select select the task you want to cancel.
the task you want to cancel. 4 Click Cancel.
4 Click Cancel. 5 The status of the task is
5 The status of the task is automatically set to automatically set to Closed.
Closed. 6 Save the incident request record.
6 Save the incident request record.

Closing tasks
When you have completed a task, you are ready to close it.

IMPORTANT
Depending on how your system is configured, you might not be able to resolve the
incident until you close the task.

! To close a task
1 Open the task record as described in “Opening and viewing individual task records”
on page 104.
2 Click the Assignment tab.
3 Update the time you spent on the task.
You can create an entry in the effort log as needed.
4 Click the Work Info tab.
5 Make an entry in the Work Info History field.

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 Resolving, closing, and canceling incident requests with open tasks

6 At the top of the Task form, set the Status field to Closed.
When a task is set to a status of Closed and certain conditions apply, you have the
option of updating related CIs that might be affected by this modification.
7 Select a status reason to describe how the task was closed. The closure codes are:
! Success
! Failed
! Canceled
8 Click Save.

Resolving, closing, and canceling incident

requests with open tasks
You resolve and close incident requests with open tasks the same way that you
close other types of incident requests. However, depending how your
environment is configured, if you resolve or close an incident request with open
tasks, you might receive either an error message or a warning message. Depending
on your configuration, it is also possible to receive no message.
The following section describes what to do if you receive an error message. It also
describes what happens when you receive a warning message or when you receive
no message.
For information about what happens if you cancel an incident request, see
“Canceling an incident with open tasks,” which follows.

Error message If you receive an error message when closing an incident that has open tasks, you
must close all the open tasks before you can close the incident.
When the Incident Resolution with Open Tasks rule is configured to generate an
error message, the error condition stops all workflow processing and prevents the
incident from being closed.
This is the default configuration.

Warning If you receive a warning message when closing an incident that has an open task,
message you can still close the incident successfully. The task remains open, however.
No message It is possible to close an incident that has an open task and receive no message,
depending on how your installation is configured. If you receive no message when
closing an incident with an open task, the task remains open.

Canceling an incident with open tasks

If you cancel an incident that has an open task associated with it, the open task is
also canceled.

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112 User’s Guide

Chapter

8 Supplemental BMC Remedy

Incident Management
features
This section contains descriptions of supplemental features that you might also use
if you work with the Overview console or the Incident Management console.
The following topics are provided:
! Using the KPI flashboards (page 114)
! Using the Service Desk ROI flashboard (page 119)
! Viewing your profile (page 125)
! Creating a problem from an incident (page 125)
! Setting application preferences (page 126)
! Searching for records (page 127)
! Working with records (page 130)
! Using the decision tree (page 131)
! Using scripts (page 131)
! Recording CI unavailability (page 132)
! Working with relationships (page 133)
! Creating reminders (page 138)
! Broadcasting messages (page 139)
! Paging and sending email messages (page 143)
! Working with reports (page 146)
! Updating assignment availability (page 152)

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Using the KPI flashboards

The KPI flashboards graph incident management business processes against the
incident management key performance indicators (KPIs), which are described in
“BMC Remedy Incident Management KPIs” on page 115. If you have BMC Service
Management Process Model (SMPM) installed, you can also view the incident
management KPI definitions there.

TIP
The SMPM defines a key performance indicator as, “A vital and measurable result
to track the efficiency, effectiveness, and predictability of a process.”

The KPI flashboard component collects the data according to the selected customer
company. Each KPI flashboard contains graphs that present the following types of
information:
! Relevant historical data—Use this graph for trending purposes. The most
recent historical data displayed in the graph is collected from the previous
month. Historical data goes back to a maximum of one year.

NOTE
Historical data only appears in a graph when that historical data exists in the
database. Typically, new or recent installations, or upgrades, of BMC Remedy
Incident Management might not have historical data available.

! Current, or real time data—Use this graph to see what is happening with the
business process now. In most cases, the displayed real time data is collected
from the first day of the current month to today’s date.
You can also view the individual incident request records that are reported by the
real time flashboard graph. For example, you can view all of the incident request
records that are reported by the Incident Backlog KPI flashboard. For information
about how to do this, see “Viewing and displaying data” on page 118.

NOTE
KPI flashboards are available only for version 7.6.00 (and later) of the BMC
Remedy ITSM applications. If you are running a mixed environment, that is, if you
are running some BMC Remedy ITSM applications at version level 7.5.01 (or
earlier), you see flashboards with only the version 7.6.00 (or later) applications.

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BMC Remedy Incident Management KPIs

Table 8-1 lists and describes the incident management key performance indicators.

Table 8-1: BMC Remedy Incident Management KPIs

KPI name Description of graph content
Incidents Resolved This graph displays:
! The number of closed incident requests with the Service Type field set to Service
Restoration and that were resolved without escalations
! The total number of closed incidents
Rejected Solutions This graph displays:
! The number of times that an incident request was reopened because its solution was
not accepted
! The total number of resolved incident requests
Incident Backlog This graph displays the number of incident requests that do not yet have their Status
field set to Resolved, Closed, or Canceled.
Service Desk This graph displays:
Resolutions ! The number of incident requests that were both registered and resolved at the service
desk without assistance from another group
! The total number of incident requests registered by service desk analysts

KPI flashboard variables

KPI flashboards use variables to fetch the data that is used to create the flashboard
graphs for the selected company. In most cases, you can control what data appears
in the graph. For information about how to hide or display one or more of the
active variables, see “Hide or display active variables” on page 119 .
Table 8-2 on page 116 lists the KPI graph types and the active variable names, and
describes the information they provide. This helps you to understand the effects of
hiding or displaying a specific variable.

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Table 8-2: KPI flashboards variables

Graph type Variable name Data displayed by the variable

Incidents Resolved
Historical HPD:INC:KPI_Incident_ Displays the number of escalated incident
ResolvedHistory_V1 requests that were closed in the past year.
This data is shown in the blue portion of the
graph.
HPD:INC:KPI_Incident_ Displays the number of non-escalated
ResolvedHistory incident requests that were closed in the
past year.
Real Time HPD:INC:KPI_Incident_Resolved_Real Displays all of the closed incidents for the
User Service Restoration service type that
were closed without breaching the target
date. This data is shown in the blue portion
of the graph.
HPD:INC:KPI_Incident_ Displays all of the escalated closed
Resolved_Real_V1 incidents for the User Service Restoration
service type. This data is shown in the
yellow portion of the graph.

Rejected Solutions
Historical HPD:INC:KPI_Rejected_SolnHistory Displays the number of rejected solutions
for the past year. This data is shown in the
blue portion of the graph.
HPD:INC:KPI_Rejected_SolnHistory_V1 Displays the number of resolved incidents
for the past year. This data is shown in the
yellow portion of the graph.
Real Time HPD:INC:KPI_Rejected_Soln Displays the number of rejected solutions
for the current reporting period. This data is
shown in the blue portion of the graph.
HPD:INC:KPI_Rejected_Soln_V1 Displays the number of resolved incidents
for the current reporting period. This data is
shown in the yellow portion of the graph.

Incident Backlog
Historical HPD:INC:KPI_BacklogHistory Displays the number of incident requests
that do not yet have Resolved, Closed, or
Cancelled status for the past year.
Note: This graph uses only one variable.
Hiding this variable prevents the graph
from displaying any information.
Real Time You cannot select active variables for this graph. This real time graph does not use active
variables. It displays the number of incident
requests that do not have Resolved, Closed,
or Cancelled status for the current reporting
period.

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Table 8-2: KPI flashboards variables (continued)

Graph type Variable name Data displayed by the variable

Service Desk Resolutions

Historical HPD:INC:KPI_ServiceDeskHistory_v1 Displays the number of incident requests
that were created by the service desk during
the past year. This data is shown in the
yellow portion of the graph.
HPD:INC:KPI_ServiceDeskHistory Displays the number of incident requests
that were created and resolved by the
service desk during the past year. This data
is shown in the blue portion of the graph.
Real Time HPD:INC:KPI_ServiceDesk_V1 Displays the number of incident requests
that were created by the service desk during
the reporting period. This data is shown in
the blue portion of the graph.
HPD:INC:KPI_ServiceDesk Displays the number of incident requests
that were created and resolved by the
service desk during the reporting period.
This data is shown in the yellow portion of
the graph.

Opening the KPI flashboards

Use this procedure to open the KPI flashboards.

! To open the KPI flashboards

1 At the top left corner of the BMC Remedy Incident Management console, click the
KPIs tab.
2 From the Company list at the top, select the customer company for which you want
to view KPI flashboards.

NOTE
Your access level determines the companies that you see in the Company list.

3 From the Navigation pane, choose Process KPIs > KPIflashboardLink.

KPIflashboardLink is the link to the specific KPI flashboard that you want to see.

TIP
Click the triangle beside the Process KPI text to open and close this area of the
Navigation pane.

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Viewing and displaying data

Controls on the open flashboard help you view and display the data. The actions
that you can perform and the procedures that you use to perform them are
described in Table 8-3.

NOTE
Not all of the KPI flashboards support all of these procedures.

Table 8-3: KPI flashboard actions and procedures

Action Procedure
View specific records used to create the real time KPI flashboard data 1 Click anywhere inside the real-time
Use this procedure, for example, to view all of the incident request graph.
records that are reported by the Incident Backlog KPI flashboard. 2 In the search results list, select the
That is, you can see all of the records that do not yet have their Status record you want to view.
field set to Resolved, Closed, or Canceled for the reporting period.
This function is not available on the historical data graph.
Zoom a graph 1 Click the arrow in the lower left
Use the zoom feature to enlarge a section of the graph. You can also corner of the graph to expand the
use full screen mode to enlarge the entire graph as described by bottom control panel.
“View a graph in full screen mode,” which appears later in this table. 2 Click the magnifying glass icon, and
then follow the onscreen
instructions.
Hide or display the graph legend 1 Click the arrow in the lower left
The default setting is to show the graph legend. The legend provides corner of the graph to expand the
information about how to interpret the graph. Not all graphs have a bottom control panel.
legend. 2 Deselect or select the Show Legend
check box to either hide or display
the legend.
Change the graph style 1 Click the arrow in the lower left
There are many different graph styles from which you can choose. corner of the graph to expand the
For example, you can select to display the KPI data in a line graph, a bottom control panel.
bar graph, a stacked bar graph, an area chart, and so on. However, be 2 Click the double-arrow button, and
aware that some data is best represented in a particular format and then select the graph style you want.
that changing the format might affect the way in which the data is
interpreted. Not all graphs support all graph styles.
Change the graph titles 1 In the upper right corner
You can customize the title text that appears on the graphs to suit of the graph, click the
your organization’s needs. For example, you can change the titles of Open Options Panel
the X and Y axis. icon.
2 Change the label text
appropriately to your organization’s
needs.
3 Click Apply when you finish
updating the text.

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Table 8-3: KPI flashboard actions and procedures (continued)

Action Procedure
Hide or display active variables 1 In the upper right corner
See “KPI flashboard variables” on page 115 and “ROI Active of the graph, click the
variables” on page 123 for descriptions of the active variables. Not all Open Options Panel
graphs have active variables that you can turn on or off. icon.
2 Select or clear the active
Note: This procedure can also be used on ROI flashboards.
variables that you want to display or
hide.
View a graph in full screen mode 1 In the upper right corner
You can display the selected graph across the entire screen for better of the graph, click the
visibility. Not all graphs display in full screen-mode. Full Screen icon.
2 When you finish
viewing the graph in
full-screen mode, press ESC to
restore regular display mode.

Using the Service Desk ROI flashboard

The Service Desk ROI flashboards provide a platform from which you can
compare the baseline incident request call-handling and the baseline CI outage
costs that were incurred prior to implementing BMC Remedy Incident
Management with the actual costs realized after the installation. This information
is displayed in graphs on the Cost of Incident Handling flashboard.

NOTE
In some cases, if the relative difference between the numbers reported in each
graph is large enough, the smaller graph might not appear on the flashboard.
However, a number representing the value of the smaller graph is always visible.

The information displayed in these graphs helps you to determine the return on
investment (ROI) that your organization achieves from the BMC Remedy Incident
Management implementation.
Additional ROI flashboards are available on the ROI console that provide similar
information for other BMC Remedy ITSM applications. For more information
about those flashboards, see the BMC Remedy Change Management User’s Guide.

NOTE
To view the ROI console you must have ROI Viewer or ROI Admin permissions.

The ROI data is collected by the ROI flashboard component according to:
! The customer company that you select in the ROI console
! The date range that you specify in the ROI console
! A set of parameters that are configured by someone with ROI Admin
permissions.

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For information about configuring the ROI flashboard parameters, see the BMC
Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide . For descriptions of what the
configured parameters mean, see “Configured parameters” on page 121.

NOTE
ROI flashboards are available only for version 7.6.00 of the BMC Remedy ITSM
applications and later. If you are running a mixed environment, you see only the
version 7.6.00 (or later) application flashboards listed on the ROI console. For
example, if you are running version 7.6.00 of BMC Remedy Change Management
and version 7.5.01 of BMC Remedy Incident Management, you see only the BMC
Remedy Change Management flashboards on the ROI console.

! To open the ROI flashboards

1 In the Navigation pane of the Overview console, click the ROI Console link.
2 From the Navigation pane, choose ROI Console.
3 From the lists at the top of the ROI console, select the following parameters:
! Company—The client company for which you want to make the comparison.
! Start Date—The start date of the period for which the graph is created.
! End Date—The end date of the period for which the graph is created.

NOTE
Your access level controls the companies that you see in the Company list. The
Effort Input, Effort Estimate, Baseline Effort, and Cost fields are configured
parameters and are completed automatically by the application. For information
about what the configured parameters mean, see “Configured parameters,” which
follows.

Although you can enter a date range that includes a day of the month, the day of
the month is ignored and only the month and the year are considered. For the
purposes of the system calculations, Start Date is always assumed to be the first
day of the selected month and year, and the End Date is always assumed to be the
last day of the selected month and year. For example, if you enter May 21st, 2009
as the Start Date, and July 10th, 2009 as the End date, the system uses May 1st, 2009
as the start date and July 31st, 2009 as and end date.

4 In the ROI Navigation pane, choose Service Desk > FlashBoardName.

NOTE
If other BMC Remedy ITSM applications are installed, you also see links to those
ROI flashboards in the Navigation pane.

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Configured parameters
This section helps you understand the ROI parameters that are configured from
the Application Administration console by someone with ROI Admin
permissions.
Table 8-4 lists and describes the configured parameters for the Cost of Incident
Handling.
Table 8-4: Cost of Incident Handling parameter descriptions
Parameter Description
Cost The estimated per-hour cost of incident handling used by your
organization for creating projections.

Effort Input For Effort Input, the ROI Administrator can select from: Specify
Effort Estimate, Use Baseline Effort, or Calculate Cumulative
Effort.
! Specify Effort Estimate
Your organization selects this Effort Input value if it wants to
specify an estimate that is different from the one specified in the
Baseline Effort field. This parameter represents he estimated
number of hours to complete an incident request.
! Use Baseline Effort

Your organization selects this Effort Input value if it wants the

flashboard to use the same value as that specified in the Baseline
Effort field to determine effort input.
! Calculate Cumulative Effort

Your organization selects this value if it wants the flashboard to

calculate the Effort Input value by totaling the effort of all people
who recorded work against any given incident request that was
closed during the reporting period selected by the user.
Note: Calculate Cumulative Effort is used only if your organization
is tracking effort in the BMC Remedy Incident Management
application.
Effort Estimate (in The actual value of the Specify Effort Estimate parameter, if that
hours) parameter is configured.
Baseline Effort The estimated average number of hours required to handle an
incident request, expressed in hours, used by your organization for
creating projections.

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Table 8-5 lists and describes the configured parameters for the Cost of Outages
flashboards.
Table 8-5: Cost of Outages parameter descriptions
Parameter Description
Company The customer company to which the rest of the parameters
described in this section apply. If they apply to all companies, select
Global.
Cost (per minute) The estimated cost of outages used by your organization for
creating projections. For example, if your organization estimates
that CI outages costs 95 dollars per minute, then enter 95. If your
organization estimates that CI outages costs 50 euros per minute,
then enter 50, and so on. The default setting for this parameter is 10.
Monthly Outages The estimated amount of time lost to CI outages per month,
(in minutes) expressed in minutes, used by your organization for creating
projections. The default setting for this parameter is 10.
Outage Input For Outage Input, the ROI Administrator can select from: Calculate
Cumulative Outage and Specify Estimated Outage.
! Calculate Cumulative Outage
Your organization selects this Outage Input value if it wants the
system to use the total amount of time lost to CI outages (in
minutes) for the specified date range. This is determined from
examining the closed incident request records that also have
related CI Unavailability records. For each CI Unavailability
record, the system calculates the duration of the unavailability
and then adds that amount of unavailability to the running
unavailability total for the specified date range. This is the default
selection for Outages Input.
! Specify Estimated Outage
Your organization selects this Outage Input value if it wants the
system to use the number specified in the Estimated Outage (in
minutes) field to calculate the actual outage cost. When you select
Specify Estimated Outage (in minutes), the Estimated Outage (in
minutes) field appears below the Outage Input field. For more
information about the Estimated Outage (in minutes) field, see
the explanation of that field, which follows. The default value is
100.
Estimated Outage The estimated amount of time, in minutes, lost to outages on a
(in minutes) monthly basis, used by your organization for creating projections.

Viewing and displaying data

The Cost of Incident Handling flashboard controls help you view and display the
data. The actions that you can perform and the procedures that you use to perform
them are the same as those described for the KPI flashboards in Table 8-3 on
page 118.

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ROI Active variables

The ROI flashboards use active variables to fetch the data that is used to create the
graphs. For information about how to control the flashboards appearance by
hiding or displaying active variables, see “Hide or display active variables” on
page 119 . The following tables list and describe the Cost of Incident Handling and
the Cost of Outages active variable names and the meaning of the information they
provide.

NOTE
The active variable used to determine the actual cost of incident handling and the
actual cost of outages depends on which value is selected for the Effort Input
parameter (for incident handling) and Outage Input parameter (for outages) by the
ROI administrator. For information about the ROI Administrator-configured
parameters, see “Configured parameters” on page 121.

Table 8-6 through Table 8-10 on page 121 through page 124 list and describe the
ROI active variables.

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Table 8-6: Cost of Incident Handling active variables (Effort Input = Specify Effort
Estimate)
Active variable name Meaning
ROI:Costofcallhandling_Baseline Baseline costs
ROI:Costofcallhandling_Actual Actual costs

Table 8-7: Cost of Incident Handling active variables (Effort Input = Use Projected Effort)
Active variable name Meaning
ROI:Costofcallhandling_Baseline Baseline costs
ROI:Costofcallhandling_Usingprojected Actual costs
effort

Table 8-8: Cost of Incident Handling active variables (Effort Input = Calculate Cumulative
Effort)
Active variable name Meaning
ROI:Costofcallhandling_Baseline Baseline costs
ROI:Costofcallhandling_Usingcumulative Actual costs
effort

Table 8-9: Cost of Outages - (Outage Input=Cumulative Resolution)

Active variable name Meaning
ROI:CIUnavailability_Baseline Displays the projected cost. The values for
the cost are selected from the configuration
form.
ROI:CIUnavailability_INC Displays the Actual cost . The values are
selected from Incident form and the
configurations to arrive at the Actual Cost.

Table 8-10: Cost of Outages - (Outage Input=Specify Estimated Outages)

Active variable name Meaning
ROI:CIUnavailability_Baseline Displays the projected cost. The values for
the cost are selected from the configuration
form.
ROI:CIUnavailability_Estimated Displays the Actual cost. The values are
selected from configuration forms directly
for calculation.

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 Viewing your profile

Viewing your profile

You can view and modify your personal profile. When you click My Profile, the
People (Search) form appears. In this form, you can:
! Update company information such as organization, business, and home
address, and so on.
! View permissions.
For detailed information about the People form, see the BMC Remedy IT Service
Management Configuration Guide.

! To modify your profile

1 From the Incident Management console Navigation pane, choose Functions > My
Profile.
2 On the People form, update the information at the top of the form, or click the tab
corresponding to the area in which you want to change the profile information.
3 Make your changes by selecting from the various lists that are available.
4 When you finish making the changes, click Save.

Creating a problem from an incident

If you fulfill the Problem Coordinator role, you can create a problem investigation
from an incident request.

! To create a problem investigation from an incident request

1 Open the incident request record.
2 From the Navigation pane, select Create Other Requests > Create Problem.
The Problem form appears. The details are copied from the incident request to the
Problem form and a relationship is created between the problem investigation and
the incident request.
3 Complete the Problem form, as described in the BMC Remedy Service Desk: Problem
Management User’s Guide.
4 Click Save.

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Setting application preferences

You can set preferences to:
! Automatically use decision trees, if available, whenever you record a new
incident.
! Set defaults for the consoles.
! Determine the action that occurs after you save an Incident Request form.
! Determine which console appears by default when you open BMC Remedy
Incident Management.

! To set your preferences

1 From the Navigation pane of the Incident Management console, choose Functions
> Application Preferences.
2 Update the form as appropriate.
Table 8-11 describes the settings available on the form.
Table 8-11: Application preference settings

Setting Description
Preferences for This is a read-only field that identifies the user.
Default Home Select the console that you want to appear as your home page when you
Page log into the BMC Remedy Action Request System (BMC Remedy
AR System) server. For example, if you want the Incident Management
console to appear, select Incident Management Console.
Company Select the company that you want to appear in the Company field of the
Incident Management console by default.
Console View The default console view, with the search criteria, controls which
problem investigations appear in the Assigned Work area. You can
temporarily change this setting from the Navigation pane of the console.
The following list shows you the available selections:
! Personal—Displays work assigned to you.
! Selected Groups—Prompts you to select any support groups to
which you belong.
! All My Groups—Displays work assigned to all your support groups.
You can choose to display all work, or work that are not yet assigned
to an individual.
Data Set Name When multiple data sets exist, such as production and training data sets,
select the appropriate data set.

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Table 8-11: Application preference settings (continued)

Setting Description
Form ! After New Save—This setting controls the action after you click Save
on the Incident Request form. The following list shows the available
selections:
! No Action—Leaves the Incident Request form open and it is ready
for you to record a new incident.
! Reopen in New—Opens the current incident in modify mode in a
new window. The original window is ready for you to record a new
incident.
! Reopen in Current—Opens the current incident in modify mode in
the current window.
! Enable Auto-Decision Tree—If you select Yes from this list and a
decision tree is set up; you are prompted by the decision tree when
you record a new incident. For more information about decision trees,
see “Using the decision tree” on page 131.
Tab Views Note: These preferences apply only when you are using the Classic view.
You can choose whether to show the Vendor, Financials, or Date System
panels.
Overview You can choose whether to show incidents or incident tasks on the
console Overview console.

3 Click Save.

Searching for records

You can search for incident request records from the Incident Management
console.
To do this, you can run a series of predefined searches, search all of the records
using the Search Incident form, or create and save your own custom searches using
advanced qualifications.

Running Defined Searches

The Defined Searches area of the Navigation pane contains a series of predefined
searches that you can use to look for incident request records. For example, you
can use a predefined search to locate all open incident requests with a priority of
Critical.
The predefined search looks only through records that are in some way associated
with you through your login ID or group ID (for example, records assigned to you
or to your support group, and so on). You run this type of search from the Defined
Searches area of the Navigation pane.

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NOTE
You can view the support groups you belong to by clicking the My Profile link in
the Navigation pane, then opening the Support Groups tab. For more information
about this link, see “Viewing your profile” on page 125.

! To run a Defined Search

1 Ensure the Company and View By fields in the Incident Console area are pointing
to the appropriate company and support group.
2 From the Defined Searches area of the Navigation pane, click the plus sign to open
the Defined Searches node.
3 Open the search category that corresponds to the search you want to run and then
select a specific search.
For example, to see all open, unassigned incident requests, select All Open
Unassigned > All Priorities.
4 Click the search name to run the search. In the preceding example, you click All
Priorities.

TIP
If the contents of the Incident table does not update after you run the search, click
the Refresh button.

Creating a custom search

You can define and save a custom search. After you save the custom search, it
appears in the My Searches node of the Defined Searches list.

NOTE
The My Searches node only appears after a custom search is defined.

! To create a custom search

1 In the Defined Searches section of the Navigation pane, click Manage My Searches.
2 In the Search Name field, type a name for the search.
3 Click Build Search Qualification to open the Advanced Qualification Builder
dialog box, and then define the search qualification.

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4 From the Keywords or Fields selection boxes, select the keywords or record fields
on which you want to search.
To insert operators (+, =, >, <, and so on), click the appropriate operator button. Do
not forget to place literal values between double quotation marks.
For example, if Allen Allbrook is performing an incident request review and he
needs to search for incident requests that meet the following criteria:
! Impact => 2-Significant/Large or 1-Extensive/Widespread
! Service = Payroll Service
! the Last Resolved Date >= 07/19/2008
then his query would look like this:
(‘Impact’ = “2-Significant/Large” OR ‘Impact’ = ”1-Extensive/Widespread”) AND ‘Service’ =
“Payroll Service” AND ‘Last Resolved Date’ >= “07/19/2008”

NOTE
Date formats can vary, depending on how your system is configured. The date
shown in this sample query is only an example.

5 Click Select to close the Advanced Qualification Builder, and then click Save.
6 Close the Manage My Searches dialog box.
The search appears in the Defined Searches list, under the My Searches node.

NOTE
The My Searches node appears only when a custom search is defined.

! To edit or delete the custom search

1 Open the Manage My Searches dialog box as described in the preceding
procedure.
2 From the list of searches, select the search you are modifying or deleting.
3 Perform one of the actions described in the following table.

To modify the search To delete the search

1 Edit the search as required. 1 Click Delete.
2 Click Save. 2 Click Close.
3 Click Close.

Searching all records

The following procedure describes how to search all incidents. Use this type of
search when you are looking for an incident that is not associated with your ID or
your group’s ID, or any time you search all incidents.

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! To search all records

1 From the Incident Management console Navigation pane, choose Functions >
Search Incident.
A form appears that you can use to perform the search.
The form is laid out in a similar way to the Incident Request form.
2 Use the tabs and fields to build your search condition.
To reduce the number of records found by the search, enter as much information
into the form as you can.

NOTE
If the Customer field is configured to search on an attribute other than First Name
or Last Name, you can still search using the customer’s name by opening the
Additional Search tab and using the First Name or Last Name fields.

3 When you finish entering your search criteria, click Search.

When the search finishes, the search results table lists all the records that match the
search criteria.
4 Scroll through the table to find the specific record you want.
5 When you find the record, select it to display it in Modify mode.

Working with records

This section discusses some of the common functions related to record handling.

Printing records
You can print a copy of a record to keep for filing purposes or to share with
someone who does not have access to BMC Remedy Incident Management.
Use this procedure to print a record.

! To print a record
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click Print at the bottom of the form to open the Business Objects Report Preview
dialog box, then go to step 3.
The Business Objects Report Preview dialog box appears, enabling you to view the
record before you print it.
3 Click the Print icon on the menu bar at the top of the dialog box.
4 When the print confirmation dialog box appears, click the Print icon to send the
record to your local printer.
5 Close the Business Objects dialog box.

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Modifying records
After you generate a record, you can modify or update the information it contains.
Use the following procedure to modify a record.

! To modify a record
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the field, tab, or link in the Navigation pane that contains or takes you to the
information you want to update.
3 Make the appropriate changes.
4 Click Save.

Using the decision tree

A decision tree takes you step-by-step through a questionnaire. Based on your
answers, the decision tree completes part of the form for a new incident request
record. Each element in the decision tree displays a list of items. Your final
selection completes part of the incident.
Decision trees are built by a manager or administrator at your company.
You can set up your preferences to use available decision trees whenever you start
a new incident. For information about setting up your application preferences, see
“Setting application preferences” on page 126.
For information about configuring decision trees, see the BMC Remedy IT Service
Management Configuration Guide.

Using scripts
Scripts are detailed instructions that have been set up at your company to help you
record important information about an incident request. You have access only to
scripts that have been set up for your support group. Scripts might include a list of
questions to ask the user. These questions can assist you in resolving or assigning
the incident.
The following list describes the types of scripts:
! Initiator scripts—Select an initiator script when you record an incident after
you indicate the user.
! Assignment scripts—Select an assignment script when you assign or reassign
an incident after you indicate the assignee. The assignment scripts correspond
to the group to which you are assigning the incident. For example, a networking
group might have specific questions for you to ask the user when you assign the
incident.

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This table describes how to open a script.

Using an Initiator script Using an Assignment script

1 On the Incident Management 1 On the Incident Management console, open an
console, click create. incident request record or click create.
2 Record the user’s information in the 2 Ensure the user’s name is recorded in the
Customer field. Customer field.
3 From the Navigation pane, select 3 From the Navigation pane, select Advanced
Advanced Functions > Initiator Functions > Assignment Script.
Script.

Recording CI unavailability
CI unavailability is the actual down-time of a CI. You can record CI unavailability
due to an unexpected circumstance from the incident.

NOTE
You can record CI unavailability only if BMC Remedy Asset Management is
installed.

! To record CI unavailability
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 From the Request Type list, select Configuration Item, and then click Search.
4 Click inside the CIs table to refresh the contents and then select the CI record
against which you want to record the unavailability.
5 In the Relationship Type field of the CI Relationships Search dialog box, select the
relationship type.
6 Click Relate with Unavailability.

NOTE
Relate with Unavailability is available only when you are searching for CIs to
relate to an incident.

7 In the Unavailability Type list, select whether the unavailability is scheduled or

unscheduled, and whether it is full or partial unavailability.
8 Select the actual start date of the unavailability.
9 Complete additional fields of the form, as appropriate.
10 Click Save.
11 Close the CI Relationship Search dialog box.

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Working with relationships

By defining and maintaining relationships among records, you can create a
sophisticated overview of the connections and interdependencies among the
current record and additional service issues being tracked by BMC Remedy
Incident Management.
An incident can be related to any of the following record types:
! Configuration item
! Another incident
! Solution database entry
! Known error
! Problem investigation
If you have BMC Remedy Asset Management and BMC Remedy Change
Management, an incident can also be related to the following record types:
! CI unavailability
! Release
! Infrastructure change

Defining relationships
Use the following procedure to define a relationship.

! To define a relationship
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 From the Request Type list, select the type of record to you want to relate the
current record to.
4 Click Search.
5 In the dialog box that appears, complete the search criteria tabs with the relevant
information, and then click Search.

NOTE
The content of the dialog box depends on the type of record you chose in the
Request Type list.

TIP
Try to supply as much information as possible in the search dialog box to reduce
the overall number of records returned by the search.

6 From the search results table that appears, select the request type with which you
want to create the relationship.

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7 From the Relationship Type list at the bottom of the search dialog box, select the
type of relationship you want to create.
8 Create the relationship by clicking the appropriate relate button at the bottom of
the dialog box.

NOTE
The specific text on the relate button depends on the type of relationship you are
creating. For example, if you are creating a relationship with another incident
request record, the button reads Relate. If you are creating a relationship with a
known error, there are two relate buttons: Relate With Solution and Relate Without
Solution, and so on.

9 Click OK to dismiss the dialog box.

Copying relationships
When you define a relationship between the current incident request record and
another record, the other record might already have one or more records related to
it. To more thoroughly document all the record relationships, you can chose to
relate the other record’s related records to the current incident request record.
For example: you are creating a relationship between Incident Request Record A
and CI B. Unknown to you, CI B already has a relationship with Incident Request
Record C. However, by using the procedure described in this section, you discover
the relationship between CI B and Incident Request Record C and subsequently
decide to make a relationship between Incident Request Record A and Incident
Request Record C.
To view the other record’s other relationships and relate them to the current
incident request record, use the procedure that follows.

NOTE
You cannot use this procedure to copy related CIs.

! To copy relationships
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 From the Relationships table, select the record with the other relationships that you
want to copy.
4 From the Quick Actions list, select Get Related Relationships, then click Execute.
The Copy Related Relationships dialog box appears. This dialog box contains a
table of all other records related to the record you selected in step 3.
5 From the table of related records, select the other record that you want to relate to
the current record.

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NOTE
To see the details of the other record, select it, then click View. A form appears with
detailed information about the selected record. Use this feature to help you
determine whether you want to relate the other record to the current record.

6 Click inside the Relationship Type field.

NOTE
The contents of the Relationship Type list depends on the type of record you are
trying to create the relationship with.

7 Select the type of relationship you want to create, and then click Select.
8 Click OK to dismiss the note that confirms the relationship creation.
9 Close the Copy Related Relationships form.
The newly created relationship appears in the Relationships table.

Indicating impacted areas

The Impacted Areas dialog box gives you a place to show the region, site, location,
and so on, that are affected by the content of the record. Use the following
procedure to indicate the impacted areas.

! To indicate an impacted area

1 Open the incident request record.
2 In the Navigation pane, choose Advanced Functions > Impacted Areas.
3 From the Impacted Areas dialog box, select items from the various lists that help
describe the impacted area appropriate for the incident you are working on, for
example, Company, Region, and so on.

NOTE
Required fields are marked with an asterisk.

4 Click Add.

NOTE
You can add as many impacted areas as necessary. You can also delete areas that
you have previously chosen in this dialog box.

5 When you finish indicating the impacted areas, click Close.

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Modifying relationships
After you define a relationship, you change the relationship type and then update
the relationship description. Use the following procedure to modify the
relationship.

! To modify a relationship
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 From the Relationships table, select the relationship you want to modify.
4 From the Quick Actions list, select Modify Relationship Type, and then click
Execute.
5 Enter the new relationship details according to the onscreen instructions.
6 Click Save to save your changes.

Performing quick actions on a relationship

You can perform many other actions on a relationship. For a list of these actions,
see Table 8-12 and Table 8-13.

! To perform a quick action

1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 From the Relationships table, select the relationship entry for which you want to
perform the action.
4 From the Quick Actions list, select the action you want to perform, such as Get
Impacted Areas.
Table 8-12 lists available quick actions for any related item.

Table 8-12: Effects of general relationship actions

Relationship action Effect
Get Related Relationships Copies the relationships of the selected record to the
current incident’s relationships.
Modify Relationship Type Prompts you to modify the relationship type, as
described in “Modifying relationships” on page 136.

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More quick actions are available when you select a related configuration item, as
indicated in Table 8-13.

Table 8-13: Effects of relationship actions for related CIs

Relationship action Effect
BMC Atrium Explorer Opens a graphical relationship viewer that shows a
selected CI’s relationship with other records.
Create New CI Unavailability If Asset Management is installed, you can create CI
unavailability for the selected CI.
Get CI Impact/Urgency Copies the impact and urgency of the selected CI.
Get CI Product Categorization Copies the product categorization from the selected
CI to the classification of the current incident.
Get CI Resolution Product Cat. Copies the product categorization from the selected
CI to the resolution of the current incident.
Get Impacted Areas If Asset Management is installed, prompts you to
select impacted areas, as defined in the selected CI,
into the current incident’s impacted areas.

5 Click Execute.

Removing relationships
Use the following procedure to remove a relationship.

! To remove a relationship
1 Open the incident request record.
2 Click the Relationships tab.
3 In the Relationships table, select the relationship you want to remove.
4 Click Remove.
5 Click Yes when BMC Remedy Incident Management prompts you to confirm the
removal.
BMC Remedy Incident Management refreshes the Relationships list.

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Creating reminders
Use reminders to create notes for yourself and others. You can send the reminders
by email or by BMC Remedy Alert, and can specify when they are sent. You can
create generic reminders, or you can create reminders that are associated with a
specific request.
For example, you can send yourself a note about a specific incident to remind
yourself to check on it.
You can create and view reminders from either the Incident Management console
or from within a specific incident request record. Where you create or view a
reminder determines which reminders you see, as described in the following list:
! Incident Management console—You can view all reminders that you created.
! Incident Request form—You can view all reminders associated with that
incident. This includes the reminders that were created by other users of BMC
Remedy Incident Management.

! To create a reminder
1 From the Navigation pane either on the Incident Management console or with the
incident request record open, choose Functions > Reminders.

NOTE
If you create a reminder from the Incident Management console, the reminder is
general in nature. If you open a record and create a reminder, the reminder is
specific to the open record.

2 Click the Create Reminder tab.

NOTE
If you are creating the reminder from the main console, skip the next step.

3 To remove the link between the reminder you are creating and the open record,
select, then delete the contents of the Link to Request-ID field. The Request-ID and
Form fields are filled in automatically by BMC Remedy Incident Management. The
Request-ID field links the reminder to the open record.
4 From the Notify list, select either Individual or Group, depending on whether you
are sending the reminder to a single person, or a support group.
5 In the Recipient field, type the name of the person or group to whom you want to
send the reminder.
If you type a person’s name and press ENTER, BMC Remedy Incident
Management automatically fills in the BMC Remedy AR System Login field. If
BMC Remedy Incident Management discovers multiple matches with the name
that you entered, another dialog box appears, from which you can specify which
of the matching names you want to receive the reminder.

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6 In the Time field, enter the date and time that you want BMC Remedy Incident
Management to send the reminder.
You can type the information directly into the field, or you can click the button next
to the field and select the date and time from the calendar that appears. By default,
the Time field contains the current date and the current time, plus one hour (that
is, if it is 3:00 p.m., the Time field reads 4:00 p.m.).
7 In the Subject field, enter information about the reminder.
If you need more space to type the entry, click the Browse button next to the field.
A larger text entry box appears.
The information in this field appears in the subject line if the reminder is sent by
email.
8 In the Message field, type the reminder message text.
If you need more space to type the entry, click the ellipsis button next to the field.
A larger text entry box appears.
9 Click Save.
10 Click Close to close the Reminders dialog box.
The reminder is sent at the time you specified.

Broadcasting messages
With this feature you can send messages to your entire organization, selected
groups within the organization, and to external customers. You can send messages
about work in progress, system status, planned work, and so on. You can also view
messages that were broadcast to you from other groups in your organization.

Creating broadcast messages

To create a broadcast, you must have the functional role of Broadcast Submitter.
For information about having this functional role added to your system ID, either
see the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide or contact your
system administrator.

! To create a broadcast message

1 Open the New/Modify Broadcasts form.
How you do this depends on where you are when creating the broadcast message.

NOTE
When you create a broadcast message from the Incident Request form, it is related
to the incident request record currently open. When you create a broadcast
message from the Incident Management console, it is not related to any specific
incident request record.

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! Incident Management console—Click the View Broadcast link (or New

Broadcast link, if there are unviewed broadcast messages) and then click Create.
! Incident Request form—Perform one of the following actions.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
From the Navigation pane, select Quick From the Navigation pane, select Functions
Actions > Broadcast Incident. > Broadcast Incident.

2 Enter information in the required fields.

Table 8-14: Required fields

Field Explanation
Company Select the company to which this broadcast pertains. Only users
with access to this company can see the broadcast. If you select
Global from the Company list, the broadcast is sent to everyone.
Note: Of the various Location fields, only Company is mandatory.
The other Location fields: Region, Site Group, Site, Organization,
and Department, are informational fields that allow you to
specify the physical location, and so on, to which the broadcast
applies. These fields otherwise do not restrict who can see the
broadcast. All people assigned to the specified company will see
the broadcast.
Subject A short description of what the broadcast is about.
Broadcast Message The text of your message.
Broadcast Type Select a broadcast type from the list.
Broadcast Start Date To start the broadcast now, click inside the Broadcast Start Date
and Broadcast End field, and press ENTER. To select a date from the calendar, click the
Date Browse button next to the field, then use the calendar that appears
to select the date on which the broadcast is to start and the date on
which you want it to end. You can also specify times of the day
using the Time feature at the bottom of the calendar.
Broadcast This field is completed by the system. The contents depend on
Originated From where you are creating the broadcast. If you broadcast from an
incident, this is set to Incident.
Broadcast This field is filled in by the system, but only when you create a
Originated From ID broadcast from within a record. If you create a broadcast from the
main console, the field appears dimmed.
View Access Select Internal if you want the broadcast enabled only for members
of your organization. If you also want the broadcast enabled from
the Requester console, select Public.

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Table 8-14: Required fields (continued)

Field Explanation
Notify If you want a broadcast notification automatically sent to an
individual or group, select Yes.
If you select Yes, the Manual Email l button and the Notify Support
area appear.

Use the Manual Email button to manually send an email about the
broadcast to a person or group. When the Email System form
appears, enter the recipient’s email address in the Internet email
field, and then click Send Email Now.

Use the Notify Support area to indicate the group you want to
notify of the broadcast. You must complete all of the fields: Support
Company, Support Organization, and Support Group. The
notification is sent at the time and on the date specified in the
Broadcast Start Date field.
Priority Select a priority level for the broadcast. The choices are Low,
Medium, and High.

3 To add an attachment to the broadcast message, right-click inside the table and
choose Add from the menu that appears.
The Add Attachment dialog box appears. Use this to indicate the file you want to
attach. Click Open to attach the indicated file. You are limited to one attachment
for each broadcast.
4 To allow members of another group to modify the message, perform the following
steps:
a Click the Authoring Groups tab.
b Click Manage Authoring Groups.
The Authoring Group dialog box appears.
c Indicate the group that you want to have authoring rights by selecting from the
menus. Click Add when you finish.

NOTE
The support group that you belong to appears in the table by default.

You can indicate another group, or click Close to dismiss the dialog box.
5 Click Save to save the broadcast message and close the dialog box.

TIP
When viewing a broadcast message, you can also create new broadcast messages.
For information about how to do this, see “Viewing and modifying broadcast
messages” on page 142.

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Viewing and modifying broadcast messages

While viewing broadcasts, you can modify the message (if you belong to an
authorized authoring group), create a new broadcast message, and under some
circumstances (when viewing the message from the current record) relate the
broadcast message to the current record.
When viewing a broadcast from either the Incident Management console or the
Incident Request form, you can create a new incident request from the broadcast.
If you do this, and the broadcast was created originally from either: a problem
investigation, a CI (configuration item), a CI unavailability, or another incident
request, BMC Remedy Incident Management asks whether you want to relate the
new incident request to the originating record.

! To view or modify a broadcast message

1 Open the View Broadcasts form.
How you do this depends on where you are when viewing the broadcast message.
! Incident Management console—Click the View Broadcast link (or New
Broadcast link, if there are unviewed broadcast messages) and then click View.
! Incident Request form—Perform one of the following actions.

When using the Best Practice view When using the Classic view
Click the View Broadcast link (or New From the Navigation pane, select Quick
Broadcast link, if there are unviewed Links > View Broadcast.
broadcast messages) and then click
View.

TIP
When viewing broadcast messages from the Incident Request form, you see all the
broadcasts, not just ones related to the current record. If the View Broadcast table
contains many messages, you can sort the contents of the table using the table
column headers. To do this, right-click inside the table and then select Sort >
Column Header Name > Ascending/Descending.

For example, in the Best Practice view, to sort the broadcasts alphabetically by
broadcast title from A to Z, right-click inside the Broadcast View table and then
select Sort > Broadcast > Ascending. In the Classic view, right-click inside the
Broadcast View table, then select Sort > Broadcast_Type > Ascending.

2 Inside the View Broadcasts table, double-click the message you want to view.

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3 To modify the broadcast message, click Modify.

TIP
When viewing broadcast messages, you can create a new broadcast message by
clicking Create and then following the steps described in “Creating broadcast
messages” on page 139.

4 Change the fields as necessary.

5 Click Save.

Limiting the number of messages

NOTE
This section applies only when using the Classic view.

If a large number of messages appear in the Broadcast table of the current record,
you can reduce the number of messages that appear by opening the Broadcast
Search Criteria tab and defining a set of criteria that filters out messages that do not
match.

! To limit the number of messages

1 From the Navigation pane of an open incident request record, Select Quick Actions
(Quick Links in Classic view) > View Broadcast.

2 On the View Broadcast window, click the Broadcast Search Criteria tab.
3 Complete the fields on the search form according to your search parameters, and
then click Search.
The search results appear in the View Broadcasts table at the top of the search form.

Paging and sending email messages

BMC Remedy Incident Management gives you different methods of sending
messages to either individuals or organizations:
! Pages
! Email
This section describes how to send both types of messages.

NOTE
BMC Remedy Incident Management can send notification messages to
individuals, based on incident assignments and other events, as pages or emails.
To send information about configuring notification as pager messages or email
messages, see the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Configuration Guide.

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Paging a person or on-call group

You can page individuals or the on-call member of a group about the current
record using the Paging System feature.

! To page a person or an on-call group member

1 Open the incident request record.
2 In the Navigation pane, choose Functions > Paging System.
3 Select either:
! Page By Person—To page an individual.
! Page By On-Call Group—To page the on-call member of a specified group.
4 Select the recipient.
To select the recipient
a Complete the fields in the Search Criteria area, and then click Search.
b Click the recipient’s name in the search results table, and then click Select.

NOTE
If you are sending a page to a person (instead of an on-call group) and need help
determining the correct person, you can see more information about the individual
by selecting their name from the list, and then clicking View. This opens the People
form, which contains detailed information about the recipient.

5 Complete the fields in the Paging Information area, as follows, and then click Send
Page Now.
! Pager Service Provider—Select the recipient’s pager service provider from the
list.
If you are sending a page to a person, you can find this information by selecting
the person’s name from the search results list, and then clicking View (as
described in step 4). When the People form appears, click the Notifications tab
and look for the following field: Pager Service Provider.

NOTE
To learn more about the service provider, click the button with the globe icon
beside the field to open a link that takes you to the service provider’s website. This
link is configured by your administrator, as described in the BMC Remedy IT Service
Management Configuration Guide.

! Pager Type—BMC Remedy Incident Management fills in this field

automatically, using information already recorded about the receipt.
! Pager Number—BMC Remedy Incident Management automatically fills in this
field with the pager’s telephone number, when possible. If the pager number is
recorded, you must enter the pager number manually. See the Manual Pager
Number description in this list.

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! Pager Email—If the pager has an email address, type it here. If you are sending
the page to a person, this information is available on the Notifications tab, as
described previously.
! Manual Pager Number—If the pager’s telephone number is not available
automatically from the paging system, type the pager’s telephone number here.
! Alphanumeric Pager Message or Numeric Pager Message—Type your
message in this field. Be aware that only one of these fields is enabled,
depending on the type of pager the recipient carries.

Sending email
You can send messages about the current record using the Email System.
You can use this function to send email to any valid email address. This might
include an SMS recipient or a wireless PDA user, if you can send email to the
device.

! To send an email message

1 Open the incident request record.
2 In the Navigation pane, choose Functions > Email System.
3 Indicate the recipient by selecting one of the following options:
! Current Contact—If BMC Remedy Incident Management assigned a current
contact to the record when you open the Email System form, the contact’s name
with contact information appears in the table and is the default recipient.
! Current Assignee—To select the current assignee, click Select Current Assignee.
The current assignee’s name with contact information appears in the table.
4 To select another recipient, perform the following steps:
a Complete the fields in the People Search Criteria area.
b Click Search.
c When the search finishes, select the recipient’s name in the search results table.
If you need help determining the correct name in the list, you can see more
information about an individual by selecting their name from the list, and then
clicking View. This opens the People form, which contains detailed information
about the recipient.

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5 Complete the email information fields. See the list that follows for a description of
the fields.
! Internet Email—This displays the recipient’s email address.
When you select the email recipient, as described in steps 3 and 4, the Internet
email address updates from the people record.
! Email Subject Line—By default, the subject line contains the incident ID
number, to which you can append text or overtype.
! Email Message Body—You type the message text here. By using the series of
buttons to the right of the Email Message Body field, you can also automatically
insert text from the record into the message text; you can insert the following
values:
! Status
! Summary
! Details
! Resolution

NOTE
If one or more of these buttons are dimmed, it means the corresponding field in the
record contains no information.

! Email Attachment—You can attach a file to the email message (BMC Remedy
Incident Management limits you to one attachment). To do this, right-click
inside the Email Attachment table, and then click Add. The Add Attachment
dialog box appears. Browse to and select the file that you want to attach. Click
Open. Details of the attached file appear in the table.
6 Click Send Email Now.

Working with reports

BMC Remedy Incident Management provides a variety of predefined reports to
give you quick access to information. You use the Report console to generate these
reports. If the predefined reports return more information than you need, you can
manage the scope of the report using qualifications. For information about using
qualifications, see “Generating a report using qualifications” on page 149.

IMPORTANT
If you use Crystal Reports software to modify the prepared reports supplied with
BMC Remedy Incident Management, BMC Customer Support can provide only
limited assistance if you have a reporting problem. In addition, there is no
guarantee that BMC Customer Support can solve problems that result from these
modifications. The standard reports included with BMC Remedy Incident
Management are designed to be used without change.

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WARNING
If your database does not support the Not Equal To argument in the "!=" format,
the content of your reports can be affected. Reports that have additional
qualifications that filter out Group By fields (for example, ‘Department’ !=
"Engineering") also filter out the specified conditions and records that have Group
By fields set to Unspecified or Null. Check with your system administrator to
determine whether your database supports this form of the Not Equal To
argument.

Generating a standard report

Use this procedure to generate a standard report without using qualifications. For
information about generating reports with qualifications, see “Generating a report
using qualifications” on page 149.

! To generate a report
1 From the Navigation pane in the Incident Management console, choose Functions
> Reports.
2 On the Report console, select Incident from the Report Name list.
The Incident selection on the Report Name list is organized by categories. Some of
these categories also contain sub-categories.
3 Select the report you want to run from the Incident report categories or sub-
categories.
Table 8-15 contains a list of the available reports. The table also provides a brief
description of each report and shows you where to find it.

Table 8-15: Report names and descriptions

Report name Description

Asset > Configuration Items with Open Incidents

Configuration Items with Open Lists configuration items that have open incidents
Incidents on them.

Incident Information > Aging

Incidents By Activity Time Lists all open incidents and the amount of time since
the reported date.

Incident Information > All Incidents

High Volume Incident by Company Displays a pie chart of all incidents based on the
Chart company. This report is intended for use with multi-
tenancy.
High Volume Incident by Displays a pie chart of all incidents based on the
Departments Chart department.
High Volume Incident Requester Displays a pie chart of all incidents based on the
Chart user.

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Table 8-15: Report names and descriptions (continued)

Report name Description
Incident Details Lists details of all incidents. Details include
Summary and work information.
Incident Details by Date Range Lists details of all incidents based on a specified date
range. Details include Summary and work
information.
Incident Volume By Product Displays a bar graph illustrating all incidents based
Categorization Chart on Tier 1 product categorization.
Monthly Incident Volumes Provides a count of all incidents by month.
Weekly Incident Volume Chart Provides a count of all incidents by week.

Incident Information > Assignee Charts

Incident Activity by Assignee Displays a vertical bar graph illustrating all cases
based on status, and the breakdown by assignee.
Open Incident Volume by Assignee Displays a bar chart illustrating the number of open
incidents for each assignee.
Resolved and Closed Incident Displays a bar chart of the number of resolved and
Volume by Assignee closed incidents for each assignee.

Incident Information > Assignment Log Data

Group Assignment to Incidents Displays a history of the groups assigned to each
incident request.

Incident Information > Open Incidents

Incident Volume By Priority and Displays a bar graph illustrating all open incidents
Status Charts based on Tier 1 product categorization.
My Open Incidents Reports all open incidents that are assigned to the ID
from which the report is run.
Open Incident Counts by Product Provides a count of all incidents based on product
Categorization categorization.
Open Incidents - Current / by Date Provides a list of all open, current incidents or a list
Range of incidents based on a particular date range.

Incident Information > Related Configuration Items

Incidents with Related Returns a list of incident requests that have a related
Configuration Items CI. Included is the type of CI, a summary of the
incident request and the reported date.

Incident Information > Resolved Incidents

My Resolved Incidents Displays all resolved incidents that are assigned to
the ID under which the report is run.
Resolved Incident Counts by Provides a count of all resolved incidents based on
Product Categorization product categorization.
Resolved Incident Volume by Displays a pie chart illustrating all resolved cases
Company Charts based on company. This report is for multi-tenancy
clients.

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Table 8-15: Report names and descriptions (continued)

Report name Description
Resolved Incident Volume By Displays a pie chart illustrating all resolved cases
Department Charts based on a department.
Resolved Incident Volume By Displays pie charts illustrating all resolved and
Priority and Status Charts closed cases; one based on status, and the other
based on priority of all resolved cases.
Resolved Incident Volume By Displays a bar graph illustrating all resolved
Product Categorization Chart incidents based on Tier 1 product categorization.
Resolved Incident Volume By Displays a pie chart illustrating all resolved
Product Categorization Graph incidents based on Tier 1 product categorization.

Relationship Information > Change

Change Induced Incidents Lists incidents that were caused by changes.
Note: This report is available only if BMC Remedy
Change Management is installed.

4 If you select a report that requires a date range, the date range field appears.
5 Select a start date and end date for the report.
6 From the Destination list, select one of the following output destinations:
! Screen—Your report appears in a separate dialog box.
! Printer—The report is sent to the printer you specified in the Print Setup dialog
box.
! File—The report is saved to the path and file you specify.
7 Click Run Report.

Generating a report using qualifications

You can manage the scope of a report by adding qualifications to the criteria that
are used by the report engine to generate the report content. You can tell the report
to search only certain specified fields for particular values, or build advanced
qualifications using field names, keywords, and operators. By saving the
qualifications, you can rerun the qualified report without having to respecify the
qualifications.
The following procedure describes how to create basic report qualifications from
the Define Report Qualification area of the Report console. To create a report using
advanced qualifications, see “To generate a report using advanced qualifications”
on page 150.

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! To generate a report using qualifications

1 From the Navigation pane in the Incident Management console, choose Functions
> Reports.
2 From the Report Name list, select the name of the report you want to generate.
3 In the Define Report Qualification area, create your qualifications from the lists.
For example, to create the qualification
“Cost Center = 001”
select “Cost Center” from the list in the left column, select “=” from the operand
list (middle column), then type “001” in the right column.
You can use all of the rows in the area to define qualifications.
4 To save the qualification, click Save Qualification.
You are prompted to name the qualification.

NOTE
By saving the qualification, you can rerun this report without defining the
qualification again. See “To generate a report using a saved qualification” on
page 151.

5 In the Qualification Name field, enter a name for your qualification, and click OK.
6 Click OK.
7 From the Destination list of the Report Console, select one of the following output
destinations:
! Screen—Your report appears in a separate dialog box.
! Printer—The report is sent to the printer you specified in the Print Setup dialog
box.
! File—Saves the report to the path and file you specify.
8 Click Run Report.

! To generate a report using advanced qualifications

1 From the Navigation pane in the Incident Management console, choose Functions
> Reports.
2 From the Report Name list of the Report console, select the name of the report you
want to generate.
3 Click Advanced Qualification.
The Advanced Qualification Search Builder dialog box appears.
4 By using the buttons in the qualification builder, you can construct your
qualification.
5 Click Save.

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NOTE
By saving the qualification, you can rerun this report without defining the
qualification again. See “To generate a report using a saved qualification” on
page 151.

6 From the Destination list of the Report console, select one of the following output
destinations:
! Screen—Your report appears in a separate dialog box.
! Printer—Sends the report to the printer that you specified in the Print Setup
dialog box.
! File—Saves the report to the path and file you specify.
7 Click Run Report.

! To generate a report using a saved qualification

1 From the Navigation pane in the Incident Management console, choose Functions
> Reports.
2 Select a report name from the Report Name field of the Report console.
3 Click Select Saved Qualification.
4 Select the qualification from the Saved Qualifications dialog box table, and click
Return Selected.
5 From the Destination list of the Report console, select one of the following output
destinations:
! Screen—Your report appears in a separate dialog box.
! Printer—Sends the report to the printer you specified in the Print Setup dialog
box.
! File—Saves the report to the path and file you specify.
6 Click Run Report.

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Updating assignment availability

Your assignment availability status indicates whether you are available to accept
work assignments. If your status is Yes, you are available. If your status is No, you
are not available.
You can quickly update your status using the My Profile function.

NOTE
If you have management level permissions, you can also update the status of the
people in the support group that you manage.

! To update assignment availability

1 From the Navigation pane, choose Functions > My Profile.
2 From the Assignment Availability menu, choose the status you want.
3 Click Save.

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9 Managing configuration
items

A configuration item (CI) is a physical, logical, or conceptual entity that is part of

your IT environment and has configurable attributes.
Some CI types are virtual, while others are physical. The Service CI type is an
example of a virtual CI. In this context, a service can be provided from one business
or organization within a business to another. Service CIs can include customer
support, employee provisioning, web farms, storage, and so on.
Other CI types are physical and include hardware and software.
You can use the information in CIs to diagnose user incident requests and to
determine if a change to a CI or the IT infrastructure must be made. For example,
if a user calls in with a printing problem, you can check the printer’s CI to see
whether the printer is down.
To record information against CIs, such as CI unavailability, or to relate an incident
request to a CI, the CI must be recorded in the BMC Atrium Configuration
Management Database (BMC Atrium CMDB). If you do not have BMC Remedy
Asset Management, then BMC Remedy Incident Management provides limited
ability to manage CIs and inventory.

NOTE
This functionality is available even if your environment does not run BMC
Remedy Asset Management. If you have BMC Remedy Asset Management, you
have access to additional functionality, as described in BMC Remedy Asset
Management User’s Guide.

The following topics are provided:

! Creating a CI (page 154)
! Inventory management (page 158)

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Creating a CI
To create a CI, you must have Asset Admin permission. If you have Asset User
permission and you are modifying a CI, your administrator must open the
appropriate CI, and then relate your support group to the CI.
There are many different types of CIs that you can create. While the general
procedure for creating each CI type is similar, only the specific fields on the CI
form change depending on the CI type.
This section provides several examples of how to create CIs.

! To create a Service CI
NOTE
Step 1 to step 5 creates the service CI. Step 6 to step 14 relates the service CI to a
company. This is necessary to make sure the service CI appears in the Service field
menu on the Classification tab, when relating the incident request to a company.

1 From the Navigation pane of the console, choose Functions > Manage CIs.
2 From the CI Type list , select Logical Entity > Business Service and then click
Create.
3 On the Business System form, type the CI name in the CI Name field.
When creating a CI name, BMC recommends that you follow a consistent naming
convention. According to IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guidelines, identifiers
should be short but meaningful. For example, “Payroll” or “Network.” The name
can be followed by a numeric code, such as NETWORK100.
4 Complete the optional fields that appear on the form in a way that is appropriate
for the service you are creating.

Table 9-1: Optional fields when creating a Service CI

Field name Description
CI ID A customer specified identifier. You can use this to
augment the CI Name.
Company The company that owns the service.
Impact, Urgency, and Priority Used to determine service levels when assigning
support.
Supported Indicates whether the service currently is supported.
System Role A description of the role the service fulfills in the
organization.
Additional Information A place to record any additional information about
the service.
Users Affected The number of users who use this service.
Product Categorization Use this file to categorize the business service
through multiple tiers. This hierarchy is used to
drive assignment routing.

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Table 9-1: Optional fields when creating a Service CI (continued)

Field name Description
Location The location of the support group that supports the
service.
Lifecycle The date on which the service became active.

5 Click Save.

NOTE
Depending on how your application is configured, after you click Save to create a
Service CI, the Service CI form might be redisplayed in a Modify window.

The People tab referred to in the following procedure does not appear on the
Business Service form until you create and save the CI. The Relationships tab,
Outage tab, and Impact tab also appear after you save the new CI. If the People tab
does not appear after you click Save, then search for and open the CI record as
described in “To search for CIs from the console” on page 160, and then continue
with step 6.

6 Open the People tab and click Add.

7 From the Type list in the CI Person Type, select People Organization and then click
OK.
8 From the Company list in the Organization Search window, select the company to
which you are relating the service and then click Search.

NOTE
If you are relating the service to the entire company, then skip step 9.

9 If you are relating the service either to an organization within the company or to a
department within the organization, select the organization and, if necessary, the
department from the Organization and Department lists.
! Organization—If you choose Organization, the service is related to the specified
organization within the specified company.
! Department—If you choose Department, the service is related to the specified
department within the specified organization.
10 From the Choose a Relationship Level list, select how much of the company will be
related to this service.
For example, if you are relating the service to the entire company, then select
Company. If you specified department in the preceding step, then select
Department, and so on.

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11 Click Select.
12 From the Role list in the Asset Person Role window, select Used By and click OK.
13 Click OK to dismiss the confirmation note.
14 Click Save and then click Close.

! To create a computer system CI

1 From the Navigation pane of the console, choose Functions > Manage CIs.
2 From the CI Type list of the CI Type dialog box, select System > Computer System.
3 Click Create.
4 In the CI Name field of the Computer System form, type a name for the CI.
When creating a CI name, BMC recommends that you follow a consistent naming
convention. According to ITIL guidelines, identifiers should be short but
meaningful, and for hardware they should not based on supplier device names.
For example, the name can include an indicator of the CI’s function (such as
“Workstation” or “Monitor”) followed by a numeric code, such as MONITOR100.
5 In the CI ID field, type a unique alphanumeric value for the CI.
6 Select the company to which this CI belongs.
7 From the Primary Capability and Capability lists, select the roles this CI performs
in your company’s topology.
8 Select a status from the Status list.
The default value is Deployed. You can select one of the following options.

Table 9-2: Computer system CI status options

Status Description
Ordered The CI was ordered from the supplier.
Received The CI was received in shipping.
Being The CI is being assembled.
Assembled
Deployed The CI was installed.
In Repair The CI is down for maintenance.
Down The CI is down, but not yet in maintenance.
End of Life The CI is no longer being deployed.
Transferred The CI was transferred to another place.
Delete The CI is marked for deletion. You must be a member of the APP-
Management or APP-Administrator group to mark a CI for deletion.
In Inventory The CI is in inventory but not yet deployed. When you select this status,
you are prompted to select the inventory place.
On Loan The CI is on loan to another location.
Disposed The CI is no longer available and was disposed of.

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Table 9-2: Computer system CI status options (continued)

Status Description
Reserved The CI was reserved and taken out of inventory.
Return to The CI must be returned to the vendor as damaged or unwanted.
Vendor

9 Specify whether the CI is supported by selecting Yes or No from the Supported list.
10 Select what impact or urgency this CI will have if it goes down.
11 In the Users Affected field, specify the number of people who use this CI or are
affected if it goes down.
12 Complete the other fields in this area.

Table 9-3: Field names and descriptions

Field name Description
Tag Number The CI tag number. This is the number usually
placed on the product by a member of your IT
department to track the CI.
Serial Number The CI serial number.
Part Number The CI part number.
System Role The role this CI plays in your company.
Status Reason The reason this CI has the status it does.

13 Click the General tab.

14 Categorize your CI using the lists and fields in the Product Categorization area.
15 Specify the place of the CI using the lists and fields in the Location area.
16 Enter the dates of the CI in the lifecycle area.
17 Click the Specifications tab.
18 Add more information about the CI.
19 Click Save.

! To create a bulk inventory CI

NOTE
Bulk inventory items are not tracked by an separate record for each item. Instead,
bulk items are tracked by quantities of an item type. For example, cables used to
connect desktop computers to the network do not require individual records but
rather, one record for a bulk quantity of the specific cable type.

1 From the Navigation pane of the console, choose Functions > Manage CIs.
2 From the CI Type list of the Manage CI Information dialog box, select Bulk
Inventory > Bulk Inventory, and click Create.

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3 In the Bulk Inventory form, complete the following required fields.

Field name Description

CI Name Enter the name of the bulk inventory item, for
example, Microsoft Windows XP.
Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 Categorize the item.
Received Quantity Enter the number of items received.

4 Click Save.

! To create an inventory location CI

NOTE
You can use inventory location CIs to indicate where bulk inventory and other CIs
are located.

1 From the Navigation pane of the console, choose Functions > Manage CIs.
2 From the Type list of the Manage CI Information dialog box, select System >
Inventory Location, and click Create.
3 In the CI Name field of the Inventory Location form, enter the location name.
4 Complete the optional fields.
5 Click Save.

Inventory management
You can use the Manage Inventory function to track bulk inventory items and
other CIs that are available for deployment.
Before you can track inventory, you must:
! Create bulk inventory CIs, or other CIs to be tracked as inventory. For
information about how to do this, see “To create a bulk inventory CI” on
page 157 or “To create a computer system CI” on page 156.
! Create inventory location CIs. For information about how to do this, see “To
create an inventory location CI” on page 158.
! For bulk inventory, specify the received quantity and the inventory locations.
For information about how to do this, see “To place bulk CIs in inventory” on
page 159.
! For non-bulk inventory CIs, set the inventory status to In Inventory, and select
a location. For information about how to do this, see “To place non-bulk CIs in
inventory” on page 160.

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Placing bulk CIs in inventory

To place bulk CIs in inventory, you must specify the location or locations for them.

TIP
If you do not see a location, make sure that the CI has a CI type of inventory
location, and not physical location. For information about creating inventory
locations, see “To create an inventory location CI” on page 158.

! To place bulk CIs in inventory

1 Open a bulk CI, as described in “To search for CIs from the console” on page 160.
2 On the Inventory Location tab, click Add.
3 In the Search Inventory Locations dialog box, specify the search criteria and click
Search.
4 Select a location, and click Relate.
5 In the message about the relationship, click OK.
6 If the inventory is stored in multiple locations, for each location, repeat step 4 and
step 5.
7 Click Close.
On the Bulk Inventory form, the Inventory Location tab lists each of the related
locations.
8 Click in the Quantity Per Location field for a location, and type the quantity in that
location.
9 Continue to enter the quantity for each location, until all the quantity in stock for
the bulk CI is accounted for.
10 Click Save.
After items are in inventory, you can use the Manage Inventory function to:
! view
! relocate
! reserve and use CIs and bulk inventory items

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Placing non-bulk CIs in inventory

You can place non-bulk CIs that you want to manage in inventory by changing the
status of the CI to In Inventory, and then designating a location for that CI.

! To place non-bulk CIs in inventory

1 Open a CI, as described in “To search for CIs from the console” on page 160.
2 From the Status list, select In Inventory.
3 Click OK in the confirmation message that appears.
4 In the Search Inventory Locations dialog box , from the Location list, select a
location, make sure other values are correct, and click Search.
5 Select a location and click Return.

Managing inventory tasks

This section describes how to perform inventory management tasks that you most
commonly use.
The following tasks are described:

! To search for CIs from the console

1 From the Functions area of the console Navigation pane, click the Manage CIs link.
2 From the CI Type list on the Manage CI Information window, select the type of CI
you are looking for and click Search.
3 On the form that appears, provide as much information about the CI you are
searching for as possible and click Search.
4 From the search results list at the top of the window, select the CI.
The details appear in the CI form below the search results.

! To view inventory locations

1 From the Navigation pane of console, choose Functions > Manage Inventory.
2 Enter your search criteria in the Manage Inventory dialog box, and click Search.
Results matching your search criteria appear in the table.
3 Select a CI or bulk inventory item from the table, and click View Location.
4 View the CIs in the inventory listed in the Inventory Location form.
5 Click Close.

! To relocate CIs
1 From the Navigation pane of the console, choose Functions > Manage Inventory.
2 Search for inventory in the current location using the Manage Inventory dialog
box.

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3 Select the CI or bulk inventory item you want to relocate, and click Relocate CIs.
4 For the location where you want to relocate the CI, specify search criteria, and click
Search in the Search Inventory Locations dialog box.
5 Select the location where you want to relocate your CI.
6 In the Quantity field, enter the number of CIs you want to relocate.
7 Click Relocate.

! To reserve and use inventory

1 From the Navigation pane of console, choose Functions > Manage Inventory.
2 From the CI Type menu in the Manage Inventory dialog box, select the CI or bulk
inventory item you want to reserve and use.
3 Click Search.
4 Click in the Transaction Qty column and enter the number of assets or bulk
inventory items you want to use.
5 Click Reserve/Use Inventory.
The number of CIs or bulk inventory items in the Qty in Stock column is reduced
by the number reserved and used.

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Index

broadcasts
A creating 139
accelerators for process flows, best practice 26 limiting 143
active variables viewing 142
for KPIs, described 115
for ROIs, described 123
hiding and displaying 119 C
ad hoc requests 37 Calbro Services user data 20
adding calculations 94
predefined task groups to change requests 101 canceling change tasks 110
predefined tasks to change requests 101 categorizations, recording 59, 60
advanced search feature, using 67 Change Management, requester role 34
answers. See solutions change requests
application preferences, setting 126–127 adding predefined task groups 101
Assigned Work table, about 46 adding predefined tasks 101
assigning sequence numbers relating predefined task groups 101
task 104 relating predefined tasks 101
task group 104 change tasks
assignments accepting assignments 103, 104
accepting 104 assigning to task implementers 106
incidents, reassigning 72 canceling 110
notification of from Remedy Alert 103 closing 110
notification of, task implementer 103 creating 102
receiving notification of 76 notification of assignments 103
working with 78–82 predefined 101
audience 9 scheduling 106
automatic task, defined 101 tracking time 107
CI Field, behavior described 17, 19
CIs
B creating 154–158
Best Practice icon 9, 10 naming conventions, best practice 154, 156
best practices non-bulk 160
CI naming conventions 154, 156 problem diagnosis 153
using CIs to diagnose user problems 153 recording unavailability 132
BMC Remedy Alert notifications 103 relocating 160
BMC SLM searching for 59– 61
calculations 94 status 156
status gauge 54 Classic view, described 19
BMC Software, contacting 2 Command Event Master permission 39
Contact field, behavior described 17
copying relationships 134

Index 163
 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

creating
broadcasts 139
I
CIs 154–158 icons
custom searches 128 Best Practice 10
incident records 58–60 New 10
known errors from incidents 125 icons, Best Practice and New 9
reminders 138–139 impacted areas, indicating 135
service requests 37 Incident Assignment Log, described 79
solution entries from incidents 85 Incident Request form views, described 16
custom searches incident requests
creating 128 creating problem investigations from 125
editing 129 creating solution entries from 85
customer field, behavior described 17 lifecycle of 25–26
customer name, used when searching 130 matching 78
customer profile, adding and modifying 63 ownership, about 62
customer support 3 reassigning 72
relating as duplicates 68
using decision trees 131
D using templates 58
decision trees, using 131 viewing related service targets 53
defined searches Integration Dialog in SLM 54
described 127 inventory
using 127 managing 158–161
defining relationships 133 non-bulk CIs 160
Dialog, Integration in SLM 54 reserving 161
documents available for BMC Remedy ITSM 10–12 viewing locations 160
duplicating incidents 68 IT Home Page, to how open 15

E K
editing custom searches 129 Key Performance Indicator, See KPI flashboards
email, sending about CIs with 145–146 knowledge base articles
creating 85
searching 67
F known errors, creating 125
KPI flashboards
forms
active variables 115
SLM, Integration Dialog 54
changing the appearance of 118, 119
Task 102
described 114
Task Effort Log 108
enlarging 118, 119
opening the Flashboard console 117
G view and display controls 118
viewing underlying records 118
generating reports
about 147
with qualifications 149 L
without qualifications 147
lifecycle of an incident 25
limiting number of broadcast messages 143
logs, Task Effort 108

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M Q
manager role 23 qualifications, generating reports with 149
managing inventory 158–161
manual task, defined 101
modifying R
profile 125 recording
records 131 CI unavailability 132
relationships 136 records
modifying 131
printing 130
N relating and unrelating 133
New icon 9, 10 searching for 129
New Request Wizard, defined 37 refreshing data 44
non-bulk CIs, placing in inventory 160 registered users 35
notifications relating
assignments 76 change tasks 102
in BMC SLM 77 predefined task groups to change requests 101
predefined tasks to change requests 101
relationships
O copying 134
operational categorization, recording 59, 60 defining 133
Overview console impacted areas 135
Assigned Work table 46 modifying 136
Overview console, about 43 quick actions 136
ownership for incidents 62 relating and unrelating records 133
removing 137
relocating CIs 160
P reminders, creating 138–139
removing relationships 137
paging
reports
on-call groups 144–145
about 146
one person 144–145
generating 147, 149, 150, 151
peer task, defined 104
request masters
permissions
Command Event Master permission 39
Command Event Master 39
defined 35
Requester console 35
Requester console
predefined
functions 44
task groups 101
user permissions, Command Event Master 39
tasks 101
user permissions, Registered User 35
printing, records 130
user permissions, Request Master 35
process flow
user permissions, Unknown User 35
about 25
requester role 24, 34
accelerators 26
reserving inventory 161
Process Flow Status area 26
resolving incident requests 78
product categorization
responded date, setting 77
about 18
Response field, used in SLM calculations 94
recording 59, 60
retrying events in order, best practice 41
product support 3
reviewing an incident’s status 57
profile, viewing and modifying 125

Index 165
 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

ROI flashboards status values, selecting 47

access levels control companies 120 support staff role, about 22
active variables 123 support, customer 3
configured parameters described 121
described 119
opening 120 T
selecting parameters in console 120 task children, defined 100
view and display controls 122 Task Effort log 108
roles Task form
manager 23 relating ad hoc tasks to change requests 102
requester 24, 34 task groups
support staff 22 assigning sequence numbers 104
defined 100
predefined 101
S task implementers
scheduling change tasks 106 accepting assignments 103
scripts, about 131 change tasks, closing 110
searching defined 100
CI search form, opening 59, 60, 61 receiving assignment notifications 103
customer name, explained 130 tasks
defined searches, using 127 adding work information 109
for records 129 assigning sequence numbers 104
for similar incident requests 67 predefined 101
for solutions 78 working with 78
inventory locations 160 technical support 3
knowledge base articles 67 Template field, behavior described 17
sequence numbers templates
adding to task groups 104 predefined task 101
reassigning 104 predefined task group 101
reassigning for tasks 104 using 58
sequencing task, defined 101 tracking
Service field, behavior described 17, 19 task time automatically 107
Service Level Management. See BMC SLM task time in effort log 108
service requests task time, about 107
See also Requester console
ad hoc requests 37
creating 37 U
Service Request Wizard 37 unknown users
states 38 defined 35
service targets, viewing related incident requests 53 multi-tenancy 36
SLM users
Integration Dialog 54 registered 35
SLM Integration Dialog 54 request master 35
Solution database, creating entries 85 roles 14–23
solutions unknown 35
creating solution database entries 85
searching for 78
standard task, defined 101
status
gauge 54
reviewing an incident’s 57
viewing 54

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V
viewing
broadcasts 142
incident requests related to service targets 53
profile 125
views. See Incident Request form views

W
wizards
Process Flow Status 26
Service Request 37
work information
adding attachment 83
adding entries 82
attachments from BMC Service Request
Management 83
changing view access 83
locking 83
modifying fields 83
tab, using to add information 109

Index 167
 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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