You can configure your system for managing your service desk operation, setting global options for the Service Desk, as well as defining values for the parameters used on call windows.
IPK Tiers
The IPK management functionality encompasses ITIL guidelines for Incident Problem Known Error (IPK) Management. According to these guidelines, a three-tiered approach is recommended for managing incidents, the tiers being Incidents, Problems, and Known Errors also referred to as IPK.
To understand this system better, you should have an understanding of the tiers.
- Incidents are call records where a fault (about a service) is reported by a User is logged. The objective is to get the User’s issue resolved.
- When a number of Incidents pertaining to the same service is logged, one of them is promoted to a Major Incident. A Major Incident occurs when the impact of a fault affects a number of Users.
- Problems are logged when they require an investigation to determine the cause of an Incident. The objective is to get the service operational.
- When the cause is identified and a Request for Change is initiated to rectify the issue if appropriate, a Problem record can be converted to or cloned to a Known Error.
Using this concept, when an Analyst logs a new Incident, the Incident is matched against existing Incidents, Problems, and Known Errors. Available workarounds are applied to ensure that the Incident is resolved quickly. The benefits that this approach provides include an improvement in the quality of service provided by the service desk, a reduction in the turnaround time in providing a resolution, and subsequently reducing the volume of Incidents logged.
Setting up your System for IPK Management
The standard steps for setting up your system for optimal service desk operation are as follows, and they are typically carried out by the system administrator:
- Configure the IPK settings.
- Set up the entities that will be partitioned.
- Set up IPK tiers or IPK Statuses.
- For each status, your organization may choose to set up streams, if required.
- If you are not using IPK tiers for your organization’s service desk, you can set up different call screens based on issue type so that a specific screen is displayed depending on the type of incident being logged. Values can be specified for call statuses, impact, urgency, and priority. Call screens may be configured through the Designer, and Call Templates can be created to configure the screens used for different call types.
- Analyst access to different areas of IPK Management can be restricted through the IPK Management Security Role settings.
If you are an organization that provides computer hardware maintenance services, you could set up your streams as PCs, notebooks, servers, etc, and when service desk Analysts log incidents they can select the relevant stream.
As some parameters are read from the database at application start-up, you should always make changes to settings when there are no Analysts logged onto the system. You may need to log out of the application then log in again before the changes take effect.
Below is a list of all the IPK Management options. Select an option to find out more about it.
| IPK Settings | to configure the global settings for IPK Management. These settings can be used to enable ITIL on your system and call screen linking |
| IPK Settings (Partitioned) | to configure IPK settings for each partition defined in your system |
| Action Type | to define categories of activities that can be selected by analysts when they forward a call |
| Call Attributes | to define categories of information related to a call such as User reference or User phone |
| Call History Types | to specify a descriptive name for the system values for your reference, or rename the history types to reflect terminology used by your organization |
| Call Impact | to create and define impact levels and specify what their criteria are |
| Call Physical Status | to rename the system defined physical statuses to better reflect your organization’s procedures |
| Call Priority | o define priorities that can be assigned to calls at the time of logging them |
| Call Screen Set | to define custom call screen sets |
| Call Stakeholder Roles | to define different types of stakeholders who are interested in the progress and status of call |
| Call States | to rename call states automatically assigned to indicate the current stage of the call |
| Call Status Titles | to configure the Call Status Titles which Analysts can select when a call is forwarded, deferred, or closed to indicate the status of the call |
| Call Urgency | to create different urgencies, reflecting how quickly the issue must be attended to. The urgencies created here are used to define the Priority Matrix. |
| Closure Group | to set a closure group for a partition so that calls in that partition will be forwarded to the corresponding group for closure |
| Custom Call Profiles 1, 2, 3, and 4 | to create additional fields used by analysts to record non-standard information on the Call Details window. Custom Profiles are largely superseded by the enhanced functionality of the Designer in vFire Core. |
| User Survey | to view, create and delete User Survey systems. Each survey system includes a set of rules about how the surveys are to be sent out and the message to be used in the email. |
| User Survey Screen Set | to define User Survey screen sets. These are then selected when you define the content for User Surveys. |
| IPK Classes | to display and rename the list of report grouping classes defined in vFire Core |
| IPK Streams | to define your IPK Streams (such as Hardware and Software) and link them to IPK Statuses (including Incident, Major Incident and Problem) |
| IPK Statuses | to add new IPK statuses and manage existing ones |
| Link Stream/Status to Call Screen Set | to make a call screen set available to a particular IPK status and stream |
| Link Type/Stream/Status to Call Screen Set | to link a call screen set to a specific issue type, IPK status, and IPK stream combination |
| Limit Type by IPK Status | to make issue types available for particular IPK Statuses, so that when Analysts log a call, only the issue types linked to the status are available for selection |
| Link Type to Call Screen Set | to link issue types to call screen sets, including specific Call Details windows you may have configured in the Designer |
| Link Type to Reason | to link call reasons to specific issue types |
| Priority Matrix | to define exactly how Priorities are derived from Urgency and Impact |
| Quick Solutions | to define macros that automatically update details in the Call Details window and optionally close the call |
| Reasons | to identify a number of reasons why calls may have been logged |
| Scripting | to create call scripts that Analysts can use when responding to a call |
| Type Tiers | to define issue types for your environment |