Working with problem and incident tickets

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">Problem-and-incident tickets are useful when a problem or service interruption is reported by more than one person. For example, when the wireless network in an office stops working, several people might file tickets. You can treat the tickets as incident reports. Instead of handling each ticket separately, you can link the tickets to one problem ticket, and then solve the problem ticket to solve all the incident tickets.</p>
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<p class="p">Problem-and-incident tickets are useful when a problem or service interruption is reported by
more than one person. For example, when the wireless network in an office stops working,
several people might file tickets. You can treat the tickets as incident reports. Instead of
handling each ticket separately, you can link the tickets to one problem ticket, and then
solve the problem ticket to solve all the incident tickets.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" height="NaN" id="topic-1__image_pff_nqf_tj" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/incident_workflow.png" width="NaN">
</p>
<p class="p">Here's the general workflow:</p>
<p class="p">You must have the ticket <strong class="ph b">Type</strong> field available in your ticket form to create this
workflow. </p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic-1__ol_dft_qk2_tj">
<li class="li">Identify a service interruption or problem that's causing people to file tickets.</li>
<li class="li">Create your own ticket to address the problem.</li>
<li class="li">Change the other tickets to incident tickets and link them to your problem ticket.</li>
<li class="li">Solve the problem ticket.</li>
</ol>
<p class="p">When you solve the problem ticket, the status of all the incident tickets is automatically
set to solved. The comment added to the problem ticket when solved is added to all incident
tickets that aren't already solved.</p>
<p class="p">Refrain from solving any of the incident tickets directly. Solving an incident ticket still
leaves the other tickets unsolved. Save work by solving only the problem ticket. It
automatically solves all the linked incident tickets. When the problem ticket is solved, any
empty required fields on linked incident tickets are ignored and the tickets are solved
anyway. </p>
<p class="p">When you solve a problem ticket, linked incident tickets are updated with a comment.
Customers are not notified using the messaging channel.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="note note" id="topic-1__note_umd_2g5_wgc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9204149016346" target="_blank">AI agent tickets</a> can’t be linked to problem and incident
tickets.</div>
</div>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">To create and solve problem-and-incident tickets</strong></p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic-1__ol_yd2_vk2_tj">
<li class="li">After identifying a problem that's causing people to file tickets, create your own ticket
describing the problem and set the ticket type to <strong class="ph b">Problem</strong>.<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" height="NaN" id="topic-1__image_fhq_xk2_tj" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/incident_problem_ticket.png" width="NaN"></p>
</li>
<li class="li">For every other ticket reporting the same problem, set the ticket type to <strong class="ph b">Incident</strong>
and link it to the problem ticket.<p class="p">After you set the type to Incident, a second menu
appears that lets you link the incident to a problem ticket.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" height="NaN" id="topic-1__image_t4k_wl2_tj" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/incident_link.png" width="NaN"></p>
<p class="p">Make sure to click
<strong class="ph b">Submit</strong> to update and save the changes to the ticket.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">Return to the problem ticket to view the linked tickets and review the incident
reports.<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic-1__image_lv5_yl2_tj" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/incident_problem_link.png" width="450"></p>
</li>
<li class="li">When you're ready to solve the problem ticket and linked incidents, add a comment. Note
that the comment you add when solving the problem ticket is only included in unsolved linked
incident tickets.<p class="p">You may want to use placeholders to personalize the comment for wide
distribution. For example:
</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic-1__image_tk1_vhn_n1c" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/incident_comment.png" width="450"></p>
<p class="p">See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887218330-Using-placeholders" target="_blank">Using placeholders</a>.</p>
<div class="note attention">
<span class="attentiontitle"></span> Use caution when
using macros to update problem and incident tickets. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887656602#topic_abf_z5m_n1c" target="_blank">Using macros to update problem and incident
tickets</a>.</div>
</li>
<li class="li">Solve the problem ticket, then confirm that you want to solve all open linked incident
tickets.<p class="p"><img class="image" id="topic-1__image_ecl_3hn_n1c" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/problem_ticket_confirm_solve.png" width="300"></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p class="p">If you decide to reopen the solved problem ticket, the incident tickets aren't updated. They
stay solved. If you solved a problem ticket prematurely or if you need to communicate
something more to the requesters, you can reopen the incident tickets before solving the
problem ticket again. Click the <strong class="ph b">Incidents</strong> tab when viewing the problem ticket and bulk
edit all of the tickets. Submit the tickets as open and proceed with re-solving the problem
ticket.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Related topics</strong></p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_jxm_rl2_tj">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829669274" target="_blank">Streamline support using Problem and Incident tickets</a></li>
</ul>
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