The mission of the incident management process is to resolve incident requests as quickly as possible in a prioritized fashion. The Incident Management module is designed to support this goal.

When dealing with incident requests, Incident Management is typically initiated in response to a customer call, a service request, or an automated event. An example of an automated event might be an alert from a monitoring system, such as BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management (BMC BPPM). The primary goal of the incident management process, according to ITIL standards, is "to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible with minimum disruption to the business, thus ensuring that the best achievable levels of availability and service are maintained."

When dealing with incident requests, the following best practices are critical for success:

• Prioritization, so that incidents that cause the organization the most pain, such as lost sales or work stoppage, are fixed first.
  This approach conserves your resources, and uses them where they are most needed.
• Consistent recording of incident request details. These details are then made available to other applications, such as BMC Change Management.
  This means that entries can be searched, analyzed, and communicated throughout the organization.
• Integration with BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database (BMC Atrium CMDB).
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  Note

  An incident is any event that is not part of the standard operation of a service and that causes an interruption to or a reduction in the quality of that service. Normal service operation is the operation of services within the limits specified by the service target. BMC Service Level Management, when integrated with Incident Management, monitors service targets.

  
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  The incident management process also handles customer requests for service, such "I need a new laptop," or "I need access to this network resource." Customers can use BMC Service Request Management to enter service requests. If BMC Service Request Management is not available, your organization can use Incident Management.