When should you create a ticket?
We landed on this question (and the concept of IT Service Management (ITSM) continual improvement) during this Community Open Floor meetup. Tune in to hear the discussion, a workflow demo, process improvement use cases—and different ideas around alerting and monitoring.
ITSM Continual Improvement Process vs. Data Collection and Tracking
It seems obvious: when something goes wrong, a ticket should be created and tracked. But what if you found a way to circumvent ticket creation by reworking the process? This is the foundation of ITSM continual improvement. One customer showed us what works in his environment: the operations team monitors alarms, which kicks off a process that alerts Service Manager and makes ticket assignments to support agents or tiers. The idea is that operations doesn’t necessarily create a ticket when the alarm sounds. They can choose which alarms warrant ticket creation and escalation.
The benefit is that the service desk isn’t flooded with tickets from false alarms or false positives. Problems could be fixed before end users began submitting tickets. It’s a classic case of simplifying workload and creating efficiency (or ITSM continual improvement).
On the flipside, one can argue for the data point: if you document each occurrence of an issue, is it easier to spot problems, report on them and find preventative solutions?
There is no right or wrong answer, just interesting points to consider as you develop and refine your ITSM continual improvement processes.
How to Diagnose a Ticket Stuck in a Status?
Here’s what to look for to diagnose the issue:
If tickets are stuck in the wrong status in the grid (via My Work, Active Work or Team Work), it’s usually a cache builder issue. It’s common to see the ticket as New in the grid but In Progress when you click into the ticket.
Service or change requests should progress from New to In Progress to Submitted stages (if there are no activities). If the ticket is stuck in New, this is likely a workflow issue with Service Manager. Restarting Microsoft Monitoring Agent should help.
Either way, a sledgehammer restart of the entire Service Manager server, or at least the System Center Data Access and Management Configuration Service should get things moving again.
Need to brainstorm an ITSM continual improvement issue? Join us for Community Open Floor! We cover Cireson Portal and SCSM hacks, along with your insights and questions in biweekly Community Open Floor sessions, and we’d love for you to join us. Register now!
