Ability to provide configurable problem process and categorization templates
Ability to provide standard required problem record data fields
Provide problem process templates based on industry best practices and/or ITIL
Ability to prevent closure of a problem before all assignments have been resolved
Ability to automatically update status or close all related incidents to a problem upon updating of status or closure of the problem
Ability to integrate problem management with incident and change management
Ability to automate opening of a problem record from an incident record based on business rules and SLAs
Ability to integrate with event and alert monitoring tools, and allow for automatic creation, update and closure of tickets from these tools
Ability to provide for documenting and managing knowledge artifacts pertaining to problem and error control (e.g., data entry point for knowledge management databases, posting of FAQs)
Ability to view impacted CIs from within a problem record, and to view upstream and downstream affected CIs and IT services through a visual depiction
Ability to track the total amount of time the problem was worked on and how long it was open
Ability to link problems/known error records to a CI, group of CIs or a service
Ability to assign impact and urgency codes to problem records
The ability for authorized users to create new problem records, and enforce data rules and required fields.
The ability of differentiating between problems and known errors.
The ability of assigning tasks to individuals to be accomplished within a specified time frame. The tool shall notify the assignee of the task and due date and the associated Problem record.
The ability to make problem and known error details available to Incident Management for use in matching, troubleshooting and resolution.
The ability to integrate with Incident Management allowing for the linking of Incident records to Problem records in order to provide full visibility into incidents caused by problems and the impact of problems to the business users.
The ability to integrate with Change Management allowing for the linking of Problem records to Change records in order to provide full visibility into problems caused by changes and changes that are input to resolve problems.
The ability to integrate with Configuration Management allowing for the linking of Problem records to CI records in order to make CI information readily available to assist in the classification and prioritization of problems and to allow visibility into problems associated with a CI or set of CIs.
The ability to route and assign problem records to pre-defined support staff or groups
The ability to present historical data on problems and known errors for use by support staff during the investigation process
The ability to support free text, screen captures, and file attachments for the recording of problem descriptions and resolution activities
The ability for the problem management team to communicate status and progress reports, as well as temporary solutions and workarounds to the Service Desk staff
The ability to increase/decrease the severity or impact classification of a problem according to the number of associated incidents and/or the number of end users affected
The ability to create, maintain and monitor a knowledgebase
The ability to link with third party knowledge bases
The ability to report on the number of proposed solutions, most used solutions, and least used solutions in the knowledgebase
The ability to publish FAQ’s and supporting reference documents within the knowledgebase that is accessible by end-users
The ability to use solutions developed in response to past incidents to create new knowledge base entries
Ability to develop templates for recurring problems
The ability to search for known solutions, work around and known errors based on the description of the problem
The ability to track multiple tasks and assignments with a problem
The ability to document root cause analysis