Overview

According to ITIL, an Incident is "An unplanned interruption to service or reduction in the quality of service." 

Incident Management is the process of reducing interruptions and disruptions due to an incident. The ultimate goal of Incident Management is to minimize business outages and ensure business continuity.

Incident Management Process 

Figure: Incident Management Process 

• Incident Identification - Identification is the process of identifying and acknowledging incidents via user reports, monitoring systems, or other channels. 
• Incident Categorization - Incident categorization involves sorting incidents according to different characteristics like severity, impact, and nature.
• Incident Prioritization - Incident prioritization is the process of establishing the sequence for addressing incidents, considering factors such as their impact on business operations, severity, urgency, and potential risks.
• Incident Resolution - Incident resolution entails effectively completing measures aimed at addressing and correcting an incident, returning impacted systems or services to their usual functioning state, and mitigating any disturbances to business operations.
• Incident Closure - Incident closure marks the official end of an incident management process, indicating that all required actions have been executed, the incident has been resolved, and any associated tasks or follow-ups have been finalized.

A quick overview of the Incident Management Process in Apex is provided below. 

Figure: Incident Management in Apex 

Incident Lifecycle 

• New: The status New cannot be selected by the users, it is assigned by the application after an Incident is logged.
• Assigned: After the Incident is logged, it is assigned to a Workgroup/Analyst, based on the selected Tenant. The Workgroup then specifies the Category, Classification, Urgency, Impact, Priority, Workgroup, and SLA Service Window based on the Symptom provided by the End User. The status of the Incident changes to Assigned.
• In Progress: When the Incident is assigned to an Analyst, the status of the Incident is changed to In Progress. The Analyst can refer to various Knowledge Articles to work on the Incident.
• Pending: When the Analyst requires some information or action from the End User, the ticket is moved to a pending state.
• Resolved: After the Incident is In Progress, the Analyst should resolve the Incident within the provided Service Window. After an Incident is resolved, the status of the Incident is changed to Resolved. Resolved incidents can be added as a Knowledge Base by selecting, Add to KB check box option on the Incident Details page. 
• Closed: After an Incident is resolved, the status of the Incident can be changed to Closed based on the configuration (manual closure or auto closure).
• Cancelled: The status of an Incident can be changed to Cancelled if the End User does not want any further investigation on the Incident (For reasons, such as the issue is resolved or unable to replicate the issue). This option is available to the users if configured by the Administrator.

Productivity Tools

There are certain productivity tools designed in Apex to enhance efficiency, organization, and effectiveness in the tasks and workflows of Incident Management. The following are a few of the productivity tools used by Apex. 

Figure: Productivity Boosters

To get clarity on the actions taken by the Admin, End Users, Approvers, and Analysts in Incident Management, navigate to the links below. 

Admin	End User	Approver	Analyst