Executing the Incident and Problem Management Solution Scenario

The Incident and Problem Management Solution Scenario can be executed to view the end-to-end execution, view reports, and also view the transaction state using the different forms and reports.

Before you begin

Ensure that the following prerequisites are complete before you execute the Solution Scenario:
  • Add and configure users and groups by performing the steps provided in - the Installation Guide.
  • Verify that the Incident and Problem Management Solution Scenario artifacts are successfully installed in IBM® Process Server.
  • Start the IBM Process Designer, from the Process Apps tab, click Open in Designer for the Incident and Problem Management process application, and then click File > Update Tracking Definitions.
  • Perform the following steps only if you are using the IBM Business Process Manager Advanced:
    • Verify that the process application is in a deployed and activated state within the IBM Process Admin Console. For more information on activating and deploying process applications, refer to the IBM Business Process Manager Advanced documentation.
    • Ensure that you execute the Solution Scenario at least once using IBM Process Designer before you execute it using IBM Process Portal or Business Space. This ensures that the process application is successfully deployed on the server.
Note: As part of the installation, the endpoints used within the Solution Scenario are set to port 9080 by default. If the Solution Scenario EAR files are deployed on different ports, use a monitoring utility, such as TCPMon, to act as a proxy to the actual endpoint.

About this task

A Customer Service Representative can execute the Incident and Problem Management Solution Scenario by logging on, creating a trouble ticket for a customer or network-related problem, providing details using forms, and submitting the data for processing. After the problem is resolved, the Customer Service Representative can verify and close the trouble ticket.
Note: Some of the fields used in the forms for this Solution Scenario are programmed using basic validations. If the form is submitted and does not conform to these validations, the form is displayed with a list of errors.

The roles and page mapping for this Solution Scenario are given in the following table.

Table 1. Widgets to roles mapping
Roles/Pages Getting Started My Task Reports
Customer Service Representative Yes Yes N/A
Field Technician Yes Yes N/A
NOC Technician Yes Yes N/A
Business Manager Yes N/A Yes

The roles for this Solution Scenario are given in the following table.

Table 2. Roles and users mapping
Group User User ID Password
Customer Service Representative Jay Walk, Saya Khan tc_jay, tc_saya password
NOC Technician Adam Smith, Peter Henderson tc_adam, tc_peter password
Field Technician Kim Edward, Susan Thomas tc_kim, tc_susan password
Business Manager Martha Green tc_martha password
This Solution Scenario is based on the following scenarios:
  • A problem is reported by the customer.
  • The problem is reported by a network adapter, such as IBM Tivoli® Netcool®/Impact.

Step 1: Initiating an outbound policy using Tivoli Netcool/Impact

You must log on to IBM Tivoli Netcool/Impact to trigger an outbound policy that posts a JMS message on a JMS queue. The IPMIntegration module uses this JMS message and initiate the Incident and Problem Management Solution Scenario with the network trouble details.

About this task

To log on to Tivoli Netcool/Impact to trigger outbound policy, perform the following steps:

Procedure

  1. Log on to Tivoli Netcool/Impact with the user ID admin and password netcool.
  2. From Policies, open the outbound policy.
  3. Click the trigger icon to start the execution.
  4. Click Execute in the window that is displayed. The execution completes and a successful message is displayed as shown in the following figure.

    This will post a message on the JMS queue. The integration module has a JMS listener that reads this message and calls the Incident and Problem Management solution scenario. In this scenario, the “Detect” and “Enrich” steps are skipped for the Incident and Problem Management solution scenario and a task is created for diagnosis. This task must be retrieved and diagnosed by the NOC Technician.

Step 2: Logging on to Business Space

You must log on to Business Space to verify that the pages for the Solution Scenario are displayed.

About this task

To log on to Business Space, perform the following steps:

Procedure

  1. Log on to Business Space with the user ID as Jay and Password as password.
    Note: The password is password when you configure the Solution Scenario using scripts. You must specify the password that you provided during configuration when you configure the Solution Scenario manually. For more information, see the Configuring the user registry in IBM Process Server section in the Installation Guide.
  2. Open the Incident and Problem Management space.
    Note: For more information about configuring the Solution Scenario, see the Configuring the Incident and Problem Management Solution Scenario topic in the documentation.

Step 3: Diagnosing the problem for the trouble ticket

The root cause for the error that is diagnosed is updated in the system using the Perform Network Trouble Diagnosis form.

Procedure

  1. In the Tasks List widget, select the Perform Network Trouble Diagnosis check box and click the Accept and edit the task icon Accept and edit the task. The Network Trouble Diagnosis page is displayed in the Task Information widget.
  2. Select Root Cause Found from the list, and then click Submit.

Step 4: Fixing the network problem

The problem details are displayed on the Determine Problem Resolution Staff Page form. A Field Technician can also update the resolution for the problem using this form.

Procedure

  1. Log on as Kim, the Field Technician. In the Tasks List widget, select the Fix Network Trouble check box and click the Accept and edit the task icon Accept and edit the task. The Determine Problem Resolution Staff page is displayed in the Task Information widget.
  2. View the information displayed, click Next, enter the resolution, and then click Submit.

Step 5: Verifying the fix

The Verify Problem Resolution page enables you to confirm that the incident is resolved. You can also specify the closeout comment and close the ticked using this form.

Procedure

  1. Log on as tc_adam, the NOC technician. In the Tasks List widget, select the Verify by NOC Technician check box and click the Accept and edit the task icon Accept and edit the task. The Verify Problem Resolution page is displayed in the Task Information widget.
  2. View the information displayed, click Next, select the Yes option, enter a comment, and then click Submit. IBM Tivoli Netcool/Impact and the Solution Scenario are integrated and hence the problem ticket details and resolution are sent to Tivoli Netcool/Impact when the problem is resolved.

    A web service is invoked to report the trouble resolution to externals systems. The integration module receives this resolution message and then posts a JMS message to the external JMS queue. This JMS message is then read by the IPMListener configured on the Tivoli Netcool/Impact Suite.

    Note: For more details about configuring an external JMS queue and the IPMListener on Tivoli Netcool/Impact Suite, see the configuration section in the Installation Guide.