Creating a Record Producer to Log Incidents

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Incident Management
Logging Creating a Template Creating a Record Producer Defining an Inbound Email Action Categorizing Defining an Assignment Rule for Incidents Diagnosis Attaching Configuration Items Checking Related Incidents Copying Attachment Contents into a KB Field Resolution Promoting Incidents Best Practice Resolution Workflow Plugin Closure Creating Knowledge Closing Resolved Incidents Automatically Closing Multiple Incidents Continual Service Improvements Reporting on Incidents
Related Topics
ITIL Implementation Guide Task Administration Workflow

Functionality described here requires the Admin role.

Overview

The Service Catalog provides a front-end for service requests, but it can also be used as a front-end for incident management. An administrator can set up record producers that create records on the incident table, allowing the end-user to log incidents directly from the Service Catalog. This can be useful in giving end-users one front-end from which they can make all of their requests to their IT Department.

An out-of-box example of this is the Service Catalog category Can We Help You? which features record producers such as Report an Incident to allow end-users to directly log incidents from the catalog homepage.

Creating a Record Producer

The first step in using the Service Catalog as a front end is to create a record producer. Record producers appear in the Service Catalog like catalog items, but instead of creating a service request, they create a record on any record in the system, populating the record as defined in the record producer.

This example will show how to create a record producer to request a wireless router reset.

To define a record producer:

1. Navigate to Service Catalog > Record Producers.
2. Populate the form as follows:
   • Name - Request to Reset Router.
   • Table Name - Incident [incident].
   • Category - Can We Help You?

   

3. Right click the form and select Save. The related lists Variables and Variable Sets will now appear at the end of the form.
4. Scroll down to the Variables related list and click New.
5. Populate the New Variable form as follows:
   • Type - Reference.
   • Name - Router.
   • Reference - IP Router [cmdb_ci_ip_router
   • Question: - Which router needs to be reset?

   

6. Click Save.

To see how the new record producer appears to the end user, click the Preview Item link:

Now, when a user would like to request that IT reset a router, they can navigate to the Service Catalog and select the Request to Reset Router link:

Creating a Record Producer with a Template

If a pre-defined template for an incident exists, it can be used with the record producer to fill in standard information for the Record Producer. The following example uses the sample template used in Creating an Incident Template.

To define a record producer with a template:

1. Navigate to Service Catalog > Record Producers.
2. Populate the form as follows:
   • Name - Bond Trade Access Request.
   • Table Name - Incident [incident].
   • Template - Bond Trade Access Denied
   • Category - Can We Help You?

   

3. Right click the form and select Save. The related lists Variables and Variable Sets will now appear at the end of the form.
4. Scroll down to the Variables related list and click New.
5. Populate the New Variable form as follows:
   • Type - Multi-Line Text.
   • Name - Comments.
   • Question: - Comments
6. Submit.

   

7. Click Save.

The record producer will appear to the end user as such:

Once filled and submitted, it will create the incident with the information from the template, and with the comments supplied on the record producer form, if any.