Defining a Child ticket

[stacey1840]

Anyone have advice on defining a child ticket?

Do we consider it a Child ticket if....
- Same application, same symptom
- Same application, multiple symptoms
- Same root cause (not always known in the Incident Management process)
- the service restoration actions in the Parent will restore service to the child also

Or can more than one of these apply? Why do I ask? Let me run some scenarios we've encountered by you all -

- 3 applications on the same server, server outage impacts all apps: Any calls Service Desk receives on the 3 apps should be logged as Child tickets?
- We know that when one piece of the mainframe is down it will impact X, X, X and X. Should any calls Service Desk receives on those be logged as Child tickets?

Appreciate any feedback.

[Diarmid]

Stacey,

no real need to start a new thread for this. But no harm either.

Okay, a "child" is a database construct (at least metaphorically if not in reality) and so it ought to depend on how you set things up.

If I was wanting to use the phrase "child incident" I would probably reject all of the options you suggest, but you really have to use the term in a way that is useful to you.

My personal preference would be to say that a "child ticket" is raised whenever a second or subsequent call is received for an incident already notified and being managed. In this way you have a record of everyone to notify/confirm that the incident is resolved or indeed to consult in the investigation of the incident (a pattern or common factor might emerge for example).

Your list illustrates why the term (like far too many terms in our industry) is not safe to use in mixed company (i.e. with people from different organizations) without making the precise context and intention clear. that is why it was difficult to answer your original question.
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[nisarg]

I would like to share my views w.r.t the example you provided

If there is a server outage which has impacted 3 diffrent applications , then any related calls regarding these 3 applications should be logged as a child to the Parent Incident.

By doing this
the exact impact and damage caused by the outage can be measured.

Its easy also easy to confirm and measure once the issue is resolved

[smehdi]

Hi All,

Ideally the impact of an outage should not be measured with the no. of child Incidents attached to a parent Incident but with the impact on the business.

For e.g , At a given time if any application is down and lets say at that time only person is using the application then definately we are going to receive one call and that could not belinked to the impact on the business.

I child the Incidents and eventually calculate how many extra calls have received due to the outage to calculate the impact on the service desk but not on the business.