Incident Management Overview

The following is a short overview of Incident Management using the SysAid Service Desk. Incident Management begins with submitting an incident and ends with resolving and then closing the incident.

Submitting an incident as an end user

Submitting an incident from the End-User Portal

End users can access the end user portal from any computer and at any time by going directly to the login URL, as would an administrator. In addition, once you've installed the SysAid agent on their computers, they can reach the End-User Portal through the desktop shortcut you deploy or simply press the SysAid hotkey (F11 by default). The F11 hotkey is the best option, as it attaches both a screenshot and the end user's computer to the incident. (Administrators can access the End-User Portal by clicking on their user name in the top right corner and choosing End-User Portal.)

To submit an incident from the End-User Portal:

1. Go to any computer on which you've installed the agent and press F11 now. It's OK if you're logged in as an administrator-- administrators can view the End-User Portal as well.
2. You'll see that the End-User Portal offers a lot of options, which you can read about here. For the moment, click on "Submit an Incident."
3. Go ahead and fill out the form to submit an incident. Notice how your computer is preselected as the asset, and a screenshot is attached. This is because you accessed the end user portal by hitting F11.
4. Make sure to check the box "Send screen capture" in order to submit your screenshot.
5. Add attachments, if necessary.
6. Click Submit. Your incident has now been submitted.

Submitting an incident by email

An alternative option for your end users to submit incidents is for them to send an email. All you need to do is give them the email address you chose when you configured the incoming email integration in SysAid. Any email they send to this address will open a new incident. Go ahead and send an email now to try this out yourself.

Incoming emails are processed every few minutes, so don't worry if you don't see the new incident immediately. It should show up shortly.

Submitting an incident as an administrator

There are times when you will need to create incidents in your role as IT service desk support. This could be if an end user phones in an incident, or if the incident is for an asset without an end user, such as a server or router. SysAid gives you two forms you can use to create incidents from the administrator portion of SysAid:

1. Phone Call form
   Click on the favorites Icon on the top menu and then choose Phone Call. The Phone Call form is a simplified version of the SR form, and it only has basic fields on it. These are the sorts of fields you would expect to fill out during the course of a phone call. The idea is to quickly collect the information required from the end user so that you can begin working on the SR as soon as possible, and to minimize time spent on the phone.
2. New SR form
   Click on the favorites Icon on the top menu and then choose New Incident. The New Incident form is a full version of the Incident form. You create service records from this form when you need to add advanced details to the incident as you are creating it, such as attached asset, attachments, etc.

Keep in mind that both of these Submit Incident forms can be customized using the design form icon , so you are not restricted to the default fields they display.

When you submit an incident as an administrator, you must manually select the request user of the incident. Note that a request user can be either an end user or an administrator-- it's whoever's requested the service.

In addition to the Request User field, you must fill out all other fields with an asterisk (*). When you are done, click OK/Apply to create the new incident.

Working on an incident

Go back to the service desk list now (Service Desk > Help Desk > Incidents). (If you are still in the End-User Portal, you can return to the admin portion of SysAid by clicking the house icon  in the top right corner of your screen.) You should see the new incidents you've submitted. Click on the incident that you submitted from the End-User Portal to open it.

Attached screenshot and attached asset

After reading the Getting Started Guide, you should already be familiar with the different fields on the SR form. You can choose the priority of the incident, assign it to an administrator, change the status, and more. What is new now is that there is both a screenshot and an asset attached to this incident. This is because you submitted this incident from the End-User Portal. The screenshot you can view by clicking on it. The attached asset (found in the Main Asset field) tells you which asset is affected by this incident. If this asset is not the correct asset, you can change it by clicking on the Change button. You can also view complete details for the asset by clicking Show Details, or even initiate a remote control session by clicking Remote Control.
Important: By attaching your assets to your incidents (as well as requests, changes, and problems, as appropriate) using the Main Asset field, you build the SR history for an asset under asset management. Therefore, it is very important to always attach the relevant asset to an incident. Incidents submitted from the End-User Portal will usually have an asset attached. For SRs created by administrators, you must make sure to attach the appropriate asset using the Change button.

Sending an email from an incident

Locate the Request user field on the incident. As you can see, the Request user field allows you to chat with the request user, remote control to the request user's computer, view the request user's profile (by clicking Show Details), and send an email. By clicking Send Message, you have the ability to quickly and easily send the request user an email. When you send an email like this, SysAid will save the email and attach it to the incident. If the end user answers, SysAid will save their response in the incident as well. In this way, you'll have all correspondence related to the incident in one place, and you won't spend any more time searching for lost or deleted emails. You can view the full email correspondence if you click on the Messages tab.

Leaving notes and logging an activity

As you work on an incident, you will want to record the work that you've done, and any progress you've made. There are several fields you can use to do this.

Notes: Click Add a note. Type your note in the popup that opens, and click Add. Your note is added to the incident along with your name and the time the note was added. Note that, by default, end users can view the contents of this field (but not edit them) and add their own notes to the incident. An alternative field that end user cannot view is the activities field.

Activities: Click on the Activities tab along the top of the SR form. You now see the activities form. The activities field allows you to leaves notes on your incidents with a few notable benefits: You can include the amount of time spent working on the activity, including start and end times, and you can run activity reports from the Analyzer module to view summaries for all SR activities. To add an activity, select the start and end time of the activity, enter the activity description, and click Add. Your activity is added to the incident. Note that, by default, end users cannot view activities.

Closing an incident

By this point, you've been working on your incident for a while. You've done troubleshooting, you've emailed back and forth with the request user, you've left several activities/notes, and you've updated the status on a couple of occasions. Finally, you try one last trick which solves the problem.

At this point, you do several things. On the Solution tab of the incident, you add a solution that explains how you resolved the problem. In the Resolution field, you add some additional technical notes (by default, the Solution field is visible to end users and the Resolution field is not). You then return to the General Details tab of the incident, change the status to closed, and save the incident. A popup opens asking if you would like to add the incident to the Knowledge Base. You click yes, and add the solution so that future administrators will have access to your insights and solution regarding the problem you just solved.

After closing the SR, the request user automatically received a notification informing him that his issue was resolved, as well as a link to fill out a satisfaction survey.