Problem Management Overview

A problem is the underlying cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents. In Xurrent, Problem is its own record type, separate from a request. Problem Management is the practice of finding those causes, documenting a workaround so the service desk can keep users working, and eliminating the root cause for good so the same incidents stop recurring.

Why it matters

Resolving incidents keeps a service running, but it does nothing to stop the same incident from coming back next week. Problem Management is where Xurrent breaks that cycle. By relating recurring or high-impact requests to a single problem record, a Problem Manager can analyze one root cause instead of re-solving the same symptom over and over.

Xurrent supports this both reactively, starting from problems behind incidents that have already happened, and proactively, identifying potential problems before they cause incidents at all.

Known errors and workarounds

Documented known errors and their workarounds flow back to the service desk through the Service Hierarchy Browser, so analysts can resolve incidents faster while the permanent fix is still being worked.

How a problem is resolved

A problem is resolved by handing it to change enablement for implementation as a Workflow. The problem record tracks the analysis and the known error. The workflow carries out the permanent fix.

Related

See Problem for the problem record fields, and Request for how incidents are registered.