Key Highlights
A problem is the cause of one or more incidents. Incident management restores service fast. Problem management asks the harder question: why did this happen, and how does it stop recurring? ServiceOps gives that investigation a structure. Each problem record captures symptoms, impact, and confirmed root cause with a documented workaround the desk can issue immediately. Transition models and custom rules enforce investigation quality and auto-close related incidents on closure.
Document the cause, issue a workaround today.
Capture the symptoms, the impact, and the confirmed root cause in dedicated fields.
Record a documented workaround on the problem record.
The service desk can mitigate related incidents while the permanent fix is still in flight.
Similar Item Detection brings up related problems, requests, changes, releases, and knowledge articles that share attributes.
Raise a change request directly from the problem record, with lifecycle traceability to the fix.
Status that progresses itself as the investigation does.
From-State / To-State transition definitions with condition groups.
A problem's status changes automatically when conditions match.
Open advances to In Progress the moment an assignee is set, removing manual status-keeping.
Closure that always means the work was done.
Make Root Cause, Impact, Symptoms, and Solution mandatory before Resolved or Closed.
Require notes on sensitive field changes.
The same rules hold during merge and bulk operations, where a side panel prompts for any mandatory notes before the action completes.
Force a problem through Resolved before Closed.
One closure that clears all related tickets
On closure, custom rules automatically close all related Requests.
The incidents that exposed the problem are cleared in one action, not one ticket at a time.
Intelligence
Any IT environment has issues that resurface. The VPN drops for a cluster of remote users, and a database server creeps toward full capacity each quarter. The service desk closes each ticket within SLA, but the cause goes unaddressed because each incident is treated as an isolated event.
The other failure is quieter. Finding a root cause does not force anyone to document it, so the fix lives in one engineers head and is reliably applied until that engineer is unavailable.
How It Works
Log a problem from one or more related incidents.
Categorize it (General, Software, Hardware, Network, IT Administration, or custom categories) and set its priority.
Capture symptoms, impact, and affected services on a configurable problem form.
The form is built from system and custom fields.
A transition model advances the status automatically as conditions are met.
For example, Open to In Progress when an assignee is set.
Document the confirmed root cause and record a workaround on the problem record.
The service desk can issue that workaround against related incidents immediately.
Resolved rules block the move to Resolved until Root Cause, Impact, Symptoms, Solution, and assignment are complete.
: All linked tasks must be closed.
Closed rules require the record to pass through Resolved first.
They then automatically close all related Requests via custom rules.
Role-Based Value
Recurring incidents stop being rediscovered, root causes are eliminated, so the same issue stops returning to the queue.
Recurring incidents stop being rediscovered, root causes are eliminated, so the same issue stops returning to the queue.
Custom rules guarantee each Resolved or Closed problem carries a real root cause, documented impact, and a recorded fix.
Custom rules guarantee each Resolved or Closed problem carries a real root cause, documented impact, and a recorded fix.
One closure clears all related tickets, so the desk is not reconciling a problem record against the incidents behind it.
One closure clears all related tickets, so the desk is not reconciling a problem record against the incidents behind it.
A documented workaround lets the desk mitigate matching incidents the moment they arrive, before the root cause is removed.
A documented workaround lets the desk mitigate matching incidents the moment they arrive, before the root cause is removed.
From Visibility to Control
Fewer repeat incidents: root causes are eliminated rather than rediscovered, so the same issue stops returning to the queue.
Faster recurring-issue resolution: a documented workaround lets the service desk mitigate matching incidents the moment they arrive.
Investigation quality the team can trust: custom rules guarantee each Resolved or Closed problem carries a real root cause, documented impact, and a solution.
Institutional knowledge that compounds: each closed problem leaves a root cause and workaround on record, building a reference the desk draws on.
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