Incident Management
For IT service organization, it is essential to manage the event that disrupts the normal operation of a service. Usually the event is known as Incident, which may reduce the quality of service by means of any interruption. The challenge for the IT service provider is managing the Incident in an effective way to quickly restore the normal service operation as per Service Level Agreement and with least impact on business. The objective of service team is to analyze the incident, and provide work around to restore the normal service. But often, Incidents may initiate due to failure or error in IT infrastructure, and if work around is not available then Change may need to occur. Incidents, which are not identified as an out come of any IT infrastructural failure, nor have any workaround, are recorded as Problem.

Highlights of Incident Management in Kovair ITSM
Scope to create Incident from Service Request Management, and it is applicable only for IT-related service requests. An incident can be created manually or automatically. If a similar Incident exists, then the service team should link the Incident with an existing Service Request. Otherwise (in absence of similar Incident), the application will automatically create an Incident against the Service Request, and establish a relational link among them.
Provision to classify Incident on different parameters, and accordingly route it to a respective service team. Classification of Incident is necessary because an Incident may have workaround to restore the service, or in absence of any suitable workaround it may be identified as a Change or a Problem. The classification done at the beginning helps to take quick action on the Incident, and streamline the activities of a service team.

Defined process to identify interruption in service (that may be recorded directly in the system or transmitted from a Service Request), and to restore the service quickly by suitable workaround following a Service Level Agreement. This pre-defined process can be enhanced (customizable) as per business need, and meet the objectives of the incident management work flow of service provider.

Closure of Incident is managed through the process. Multiple Incidents can be linked to a Change or a Problem, in that case, closure of all these Incidents is strictly dependent on the closure of a linked Problem and/or a linked Change.

Problem Management
The significant difference between Incident Management and Problem Management in Kovair IT Service Management is that Incident Management focuses on a quick restoration of quality service, and Problem Management focuses on the origin/cause of service interruption. When the occurrence of an Incident is frequent or has severe impact on business operations, then Problem Management comes into the picture to determine the cause of Incident, and to seek solution. When the origin/cause of a Problem is identified it becomes Known Error. Problem Management can be of two types Proactive and Reactive. The objective of Proactive Problem Management is to prevent Incident before they occur in IT environment. This can be achieved by continuous inspection of service quality and analysis of IT infrastructure. The Reactive Problem Management, on the other hand, focuses on root-cause analysis of occurred Incidents and to provide solutions against them.

Highlights of Problem Management in Kovair ITSM:
Scope to create Problem from Incident Management. It can be created manually or automatically. If a similar Problem exists, then the service team should link the Incident wit an existing Problem. Otherwise (in absence of similar Problem), the application will automatically create a Problem against the Incident, and establish a relational link among them.

Supports analysis and investigation to identify the origin/causes of any interruption or malfunction in service quality (which is referred as Incident). It can be done for already occurred Incident or for a potential Incident that could be a threat to the quality of service in future.

Provides the scope to raise Requests for Changes (RFC), against the interrupted service that can be restored only by making changes in the IT infrastructure. A defined process for a root-cause analysis, a solution delivery, and post implementation review. A post implementation review and confirmation is necessary to make sure that solutions are appropriate to restore the quality service without any adverse impact that may degrade the quality. This pre-defined process can be customized as per business need and objectives problem management work flow of the service provider.

Closure of Problems is managed through the process. Multiple Problems can be linked to Change; in that case, closure of all these Problems strictly depends on closure of that link Change.