Automating the calculation of priority based on impact and urgency values on issue creation
Some IT teams use an urgency-impact matrix to determine the priority of an issue. In this type of process, automatically setting the priority according to the urgency and impact values at the creation of an issue becomes handy because it helps with issue triage, for example, you can set up your service desk to have different queues for incidents of different priorities and incidents with the corresponding priority will be put into the correct queue as soon as they are created. The auto-setting of the priority value at issue creation time also helps ensure that the appropriate SLAs are applied right from the beginning of an issue.
You can set up the automation for this with workflow post functions and automation rules.
Example
By the end of this tutorial, you will automate the priority calculation after a change request is submitted according to the following matrix.
Table: Priority values
| Urgency | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Impact | Critical | High | Medium | Low |
| Extensive | Critical | Critical | High | Medium |
| Significant | Critical | High | Medium | Medium |
| Moderate | High | Medium | Medium | Low |
| Minor | Medium | Medium | Low | Low |
Before you begin
Make sure you have the following two custom fields of the type Select List (single choice), each containing the values listed the previous table:
- Urgency: Critical, High, Medium, Low
- Impact: Extensive, Significant, Moderate, Minor
Automating the calculation
After step 1, the workflow will transition a change to the Priority triage status as soon as an issue is created. You will also have 4 transitions to set the Priority to a value.
With step 2, you will set up au automation rule that checks to the value of Urgency and Impact fields and fires off the corresponding transition according to the matrix.
Step 1: Configuring the workflow
- Go to the workflow that is used by your Change issue type.
- Between the Create transition and your first status, add a new status and name it Priority Triage.
- Add the following four transitions from this status:
- Critical
- High
- Medium
- Low
In each of these transitions, add a post function.
Select the Update Issue Field post function.
In the post function, update the Priority field to match the transition, for example, the Critical transition will have a post function that changes the Priority field to Critical. Similarly, the High transition will have this post function to set the Priority field as High, and the Medium transition to set the value to Medium, and Low to Low.
Publish the workflow.
Step 2: Configuring the automation rule
After the post function is set, let's create an automation rule that triggers the appropriate transition depending on the urgency and impact selected during request creation.
The rules should follow the following pattern:
- When: Issue created
If, or Else if: Specify the urgency and impact value pair according to the matrix, e.g.,
status = "Priority triage" AND Impact = "Extensive / Widespread" AND Urgency = CriticalThen: Transition issue, and select the transition that matches the value pair according to the matrix.
Note: If your Urgency or Impact value is optional on the request type form or issue create screen, then there might be cases where these fields are empty. In this case, make sure that you add a Else if condition that caters for this scenario. For example,
Else if:
status = "Priority triage" AND Impact is empty OR Urgency is EMPTYThen: Transition issue, Low.
Learn more about IT service management (ITSM)
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