Incident Management Procedures

Technology Services has implemented procedures for the handling of incidents that come to the IT Service Desk. We strive to adhere to the ITIL Best Practices methodology at the Service Desk for timely and accurately completing and documenting all incidents. There are four distinct ways in which incidents are introduced into the system and are handled by the WSU IT Service Desk.

The most common way is for customers to call or leave a voice-mail message at the Service Desk number (626-7777) with an issue. This issue can 1) be resolved over the phone, 2) initiate a work order ticket, 3) initiate an Insta-Tech visit to the workstation of the caller, or 4) initiate a Level 2 referral or ticket.

Issues resolved over the phone (1) typically can take 2 – 5 minutes to resolve, depending on the issue – and can take longer depending on the issue of the caller.

Issues requiring a ticket to be generated (2) are assigned to a TSS (individual or pool of individuals) or department professional depending on the location of the caller’s office. Techs are then instructed to contact the caller to set up a time that is convenient for both to work through the ticket.

Insta-Tech visits (3) are assigned to the Insta-Tech folder so the Technical Support Specialists (TSS) on duty can retrieve the assignments. Insta-Tech shifts begin at 10:00 a.m. M-F and end at 5:00 p.m. An Insta-Tech call is defined by the Service Desk as a work order that can be resolved in about 15 minutes and requires someone to visit the office of the caller. The TSS employee taking the call will determine if the issue meets the Insta-Tech requirements based on a discussion with the caller as to the issue needing attention. Sufficient gathering of information should be done at the desk before deciding if the incident can be identified as an Insta-Tech job.

Level 2 referrals (4) are usually assigned to Professional staff on issues identified where only Professional-level staff members can resolve the issue.

The second way incidents are introduced is the Walk-In method. Customers come to Lampros Hall to the Tech Room requesting help. Customers are instructed to sign in (recording their visit) and the Tech Room employee handles the incident. Often these customers are students, but faculty and staff occasionally come to the desk as a walk-in customer. Typical walk-in customers have password issues, wireless access issues, or laptop computer issues. Their incidents are usually handled right away and entered into the system as completed. In the case of a person who may bring a desktop computer in for help, the person may be asked to leave the computer and come back at a later date to pick it up.

The third way incidents are introduced into the system is through web entry. This is the quickest way for issues and incidents to be assigned as work order tickets. The Web entry form is available to all current faculty and staff. Each will use their Wildcat username to submit the work order ticket, explaining their issue and providing contact information. A work order ticket is generated, and the ticket will enter the assignment process based on the customer’s information. Work orders will be sent to a pool of techs allowing a tech to retrieve and take ownership of the next work ticket, assigning it themselves.

The IT Service Desk ticketing software includes features that enhance the ITIL best practice methods for tracking and completing work orders. An auto-escalation process is built into the ticketing system, which effectively holds each TSS accountable for completing their work in a timely and efficient manner.

Issues at the Davis campus that affect everyone in the building are reported to a team of people as identified by the Davis Computing Specialist. If issues directly affect the Testing Center, Registration, Facilities, and the Student open lab, they are appropriately notified. If there are issues or problems in the COAST maintained labs, a group of people have been identified that will receive an email from the Davis Computing Specialist.

For help at Davis campus, customers are to call 626-7777, contact the Davis Computing Specialist at 395-3527 or by email. An expected response time should be within 24 hours on weekdays, or on the afternoon of the next business day for weekend or holiday issues.

Outage Notifications

The standard procedure for handling outages at the IT Service Desk first begins by verifying that an outage being reported actually exists. Second, The IT Service Desk will contact the Operations Desk to alert them of the outage being reported and to obtain any information the Operations Desk may have about the outage. Third, the Service Desk determines what system messages should be updated after communicating with the Operations Desk and Systems/Network Management about the status of the outage and how long the outage is expected to last.

The standard procedure is to change the phone message if an outage is expected to last longer than 15 minutes. If an outage is expected to last beyond 30 minutes or if it is unknown how long the outage will last, then the http://help.weber.edu website is also updated. The status messages are updated when new information is received from Operations or Network/Systems Management. If there is no change in the status or new information, the time stamp on the voice status message is updated hourly.

Service Desk personnel will initiate an email to Locals (TSS and shared techs), Nomads (Professional techs working in academic colleges across campus), and NOPs (Network Operations Professional staff) with a specified Subject line tag to identify outages and issues. Emails will be sent High Priority and will be in a specified format, such as: New Outage (Date) (Time Stamp) or New Issue (Date) (Time Stamp). This will include Outage Update and Outage Resolution or Issue Update and Issue Resolution subject lines with the similar date and time stamp requirement. The body of the email will contain the specifics about the event, and emails will be archived for history tracking.

Tickets Escalated due to Negligence

Any work order tickets where the customer has not been contacted or the issue not addressed within a reasonable period of time (an SLA will be established to define reasonable response times) is automatically escalated to the second-level support team. If a work order ticket is not handled at that level either, due to negligence, the work order will be escalated to a professional staff member of Computing Support Services (CSS) who must assume responsibility for satisfactorily resolving the ticket. The professional staff member will hold the TSS employee accountable for work orders that are escalated due to non-performance issues such as not contacting the customer and completing the ticket in a timely manner.

Customers have a responsibility to respond to messages from TSS and provide access at a reasonable time for the TSS to complete the work order ticket.

TSS Time to Resolve Issues/Tickets

All tickets should be resolved in a timely manner. The IT Service Desk software allows for a history to be maintained on all tickets, tracking when the ticket was submitted, when it was opened by TSS, and all information added by either side about the incident. The customer has the ability to close an open ticket if it is resolved by them without the need of a TSS. The customer also has the ability to add additional information about the problem or incident at any time – and the TSS who has been assigned the incident will receive the updates via email.

As the system is used and incidents are recorded and completed, an SLA will be established to ensure that tickets are resolved and escalated within a reasonable amount of time.

Any issues or incidents that may be the result of a known error or problem will be linked to that specific problem within the ticketing system, which will be tracked by the Problem Management group. When the problem is resolved or a work around has been identified, the incidents will be updated, adding information to the history of the appropriate work order tickets. (Refer to the Problem Management Procedures for more details.)

The resolution of problems is the goal.