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Improve Your Incident Management

Your 6-step guide to optimize Incident Management in Bmc Helix.

Challenges (11) Goals (11) 6 Steps Preview Outcomes Data FAQs (6)

Process: Incident Management

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System: Bmc Helix

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Optimize Incident Management in Bmc Helix for Faster Resolution

Our platform helps you uncover bottlenecks and deviations that delay resolution and impact service quality. Easily identify where processes are slowing down, leading to extended wait times and lower user satisfaction. Gain insights into rework loops and unnecessary steps that consume valuable resources, allowing you to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. Transform your approach to achieve faster, more consistent outcomes.

Download our pre-configured data template and address common challenges to reach your efficiency goals. Follow our six-step improvement plan and consult the Data Template Guide to transform your operations.

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Why Optimize Incident Management in Bmc Helix?

Incident Management is the backbone of stable IT operations, directly impacting user productivity and overall business continuity. In complex environments, particularly within robust systems like Bmc Helix, inefficiencies in this critical process can cascade into significant problems. Delayed incident resolution leads to increased downtime for end-users, affecting their ability to perform daily tasks and ultimately reducing customer satisfaction. Beyond the immediate impact, inefficient incident handling in Bmc Helix can incur substantial operational costs due to prolonged investigative efforts, unnecessary escalations, and repeated reworks. Without clear visibility into the actual flow, organizations struggle to meet stringent service level agreements, risking penalties or reputational damage. Optimizing Incident Management is not merely about fixing technical issues faster, it is about streamlining the entire support ecosystem, ensuring that every reported incident, identified by its unique Incident ID, moves swiftly and correctly towards resolution.

Unlocking Deeper Insights with Process Mining for Bmc Helix Incidents

Process mining offers a transformative approach to understanding and improving your Incident Management process within Bmc Helix. Unlike traditional reporting, which shows aggregated metrics, process mining reconstructs the actual end-to-end journey of every incident based on event logs. This granular visibility reveals the true process flow, exposing deviations from standard operating procedures, identifying where incidents get stuck, and highlighting instances of rework or unnecessary handoffs. By tracing each Incident ID from its initial report to final closure, you can precisely identify bottlenecks in the resolution cycle time. For example, you might discover that incidents frequently bounce between two specific support groups, or that a particular approval step consistently adds days to the resolution timeline. This data-driven perspective empowers you to move beyond assumptions, pinpointing the exact points of friction and inefficiency that are hindering your Incident Management performance in Bmc Helix.

Key Areas for Improvement in Incident Management

Applying process mining to your Bmc Helix Incident Management data uncovers specific opportunities for process optimization:

Bottleneck Identification: Pinpoint precisely where incidents spend the most time, whether it is during diagnosis, investigation, or waiting for user confirmation. Understanding these delays is crucial for reducing overall incident cycle time.
Rework and Handoff Analysis: Identify frequent reassignments or instances where incidents are passed back and forth between teams. These reworks often indicate a lack of clear ownership, insufficient initial diagnosis, or inadequate knowledge sharing.
SLA Adherence Gaps: Discover which specific process steps or team handoffs are most often associated with Service Level Agreement breaches. This allows you to target interventions where they will have the most impact on compliance.
Deviation from Standard Paths: Visualize how often incidents deviate from the intended, most efficient path. Understanding these common deviations helps in refining standard operating procedures and training.
Resource Allocation Insights: Gain clarity on which teams or agents are handling specific types of incidents and where resources might be over- or under-utilized, informing better resource planning.

Tangible Outcomes of Optimized Incident Management

By leveraging process mining to optimize your Incident Management process in Bmc Helix, you can expect to achieve several measurable benefits. The most immediate outcome is faster incident resolution, directly leading to reduced downtime for users and improved operational efficiency. This enhancement in cycle time translates into significant cost savings by minimizing the time and resources spent on each incident. Furthermore, streamlining the process helps in improving SLA compliance, ensuring that your organization meets its service commitments and avoids potential penalties. Ultimately, a more efficient and effective Incident Management process leads to a marked increase in user satisfaction, as issues are resolved more promptly and predictably. You will gain a clear understanding of

Incident Management Service Desk IT Operations SLA Compliance Incident Resolution Problem Solving ITSM

Common Problems & Challenges

Identify which challenges are impacting you

Many incidents consistently exceed their Service Level Agreement targets, particularly those with high severity. This leads to frustrated users, reputational damage, and potential financial penalties for non-compliance.ProcessMind analyzes event logs from Bmc Helix, pinpointing the exact stages and activities where incidents dwell too long, directly contributing to SLA failures. It helps identify specific bottlenecks, like prolonged investigation phases or delayed approvals, allowing for targeted process improvements.

The average time taken to fully resolve and close incidents is unnecessarily long, leading to extended service downtime and reduced user productivity across the organization. This directly impacts operational efficiency and user satisfaction.ProcessMind provides an end-to-end view of your Incident Management process in Bmc Helix, visualizing the complete flow from "Incident Reported" to "Incident Closed". It identifies hidden delays and inefficient pathways, revealing the true drivers behind extended resolution cycles.

Incidents are frequently transferred between different support groups or agents, often bouncing back and forth. This constant re-routing introduces significant delays and wastes valuable time as new teams get up to speed.ProcessMind maps every handover and reassignment within your Bmc Helix data, revealing the most common "ping-pong" scenarios. It helps identify which groups are mis-assigning, where knowledge gaps exist, or if initial categorization is flawed, leading to more efficient routing.

Incidents are often miscategorized or incorrectly prioritized at the initial stage, leading to them being routed to the wrong support groups or not receiving the urgency they require. This delays diagnosis and resolution.ProcessMind uncovers patterns where incidents are re-categorized multiple times during their lifecycle. By correlating initial "Incident Categorized and Prioritized" events with subsequent changes, it highlights areas where intake processes in Bmc Helix need improvement to ensure accurate routing from the start.

Many incidents do not follow the defined, optimal path for resolution, instead taking longer, more complex routes with additional, unauthorized steps. These deviations introduce inefficiencies, increase costs, and complicate auditing.ProcessMind automatically discovers all actual process variants within your Bmc Helix incident data. It visually highlights common deviations from the ideal path, such as skipped steps or loops, enabling you to identify why these occur and enforce standardized procedures.

Even after a resolution is identified and applied, incidents remain open for an extended period awaiting verification or final closure. This artificially inflates resolution times and impacts reporting accuracy, leading to a backlog of "resolved but open" incidents.ProcessMind analyzes the time spent in the final stages of the process, specifically between "Resolution Applied/Tested" and "Incident Closed" within Bmc Helix. It pinpoints where this final handoff or user confirmation process is lagging, streamlining the path to full closure.

Incidents marked with high "Severity" or "Priority" do not consistently receive accelerated attention or follow a fast-track resolution path. This puts critical business functions at risk and undermines the effectiveness of prioritization efforts.ProcessMind segment incidents by their priority attribute, then compare their actual process flows and cycle times. It visualizes whether high-priority incidents in Bmc Helix truly bypass non-critical steps or if they get stuck in the same queues as lower-priority issues.

After a problem is diagnosed, there are significant delays in implementing a temporary workaround to restore service, leaving users impacted for longer than necessary. This impacts immediate user productivity and satisfaction.ProcessMind precisely measures the time elapsed between "Diagnosis Initiated" and "Workaround Implemented" activities within Bmc Helix. It identifies bottlenecks in this crucial phase, helping to accelerate the delivery of temporary solutions and minimize service disruption.

Incidents are frequently re-opened shortly after being marked as resolved or closed, indicating that the initial resolution was incomplete, incorrect, or not adequately verified by the user. This creates rework and damages user trust.ProcessMind tracks the entire lifecycle of an incident, identifying patterns where incidents transition from "Resolved" or "Closed" back to an active state. It helps uncover root causes for re-opening, such as inadequate testing or poor user confirmation processes in Bmc Helix.

There are often delays or inconsistencies in notifying users about incident progress, resolution, or obtaining their confirmation of a fix. This leads to user frustration, redundant inquiries, and prolonged incident lifecycles.ProcessMind analyzes the timing and sequence of "User Notification Sent" and "User Confirmation Received" activities in Bmc Helix. It highlights where communication steps are missed or significantly delayed, allowing for improved stakeholder engagement throughout the resolution process.

Workload is not evenly distributed among support groups or individual agents, leading to some teams being overloaded and creating backlogs, while others have spare capacity. This reduces overall efficiency and affects morale.ProcessMind visualizes the flow of incidents through different "Assigned Group" and "Assigned Agent" attributes, showing the actual throughput and dwell times. It reveals where bottlenecks due to resource allocation exist in Bmc Helix, enabling better staffing and load balancing.

Typical Goals

Define what success looks like

This goal focuses on minimizing the number of critical incidents that fail to meet their service level agreement targets. Achieving this directly impacts user satisfaction and business continuity by ensuring that the most impactful issues are addressed promptly, preventing significant operational disruptions and reputational damage.ProcessMind uncovers the root causes of SLA breaches by visualizing process flows and identifying delays in specific steps or assignments within Incident Management. By analyzing incident paths and comparing actual times against SLA targets in Bmc Helix, organizations can pinpoint bottlenecks, optimize resource allocation, and implement targeted interventions to improve adherence.

This objective aims to significantly decrease the average time it takes to resolve all types of incidents, from initial report to final closure. Faster resolution improves system availability, enhances user productivity, and reduces the overall operational cost of incident handling within Bmc Helix.ProcessMind provides a clear end-to-end view of the incident lifecycle, highlighting activities or handoffs that contribute to excessive resolution times. By analyzing activity durations, reworks, and queues, the tool enables identification of process variations and optimization opportunities, leading to measurable improvements in efficiency.

This goal seeks to reduce the number of times an incident is transferred between support groups or agents before resolution. Frequent reassignments often indicate initial misrouting, skill gaps, or unclear ownership, leading to delays, increased costs, and frustrated users in Incident Management.ProcessMind maps the actual flow of incidents, clearly showing all reassignment loops and their impact on resolution time within Bmc Helix. By analyzing the pathways and identifying common reassignment patterns, organizations can improve initial assignment logic, enhance training, and refine support group responsibilities to streamline the process.

This objective aims to ensure incidents are correctly classified from their initial reporting. Accurate categorization is crucial for proper prioritization, efficient routing to the right support teams, and effective problem management within Bmc Helix's Incident Management process.ProcessMind helps identify instances where incidents are frequently re-categorized or misrouted, indicating issues with initial classification. By correlating categorization events with subsequent process paths and resolution outcomes, the tool can pinpoint areas where training or automated classification rules need improvement.

This goal focuses on ensuring that all incident handling activities adhere to defined standard operating procedures and regulatory requirements. Increased compliance reduces risks, improves consistency, and provides a predictable service quality in Incident Management.ProcessMind automatically discovers and visualizes the actual process flow in Bmc Helix, comparing it against the intended model. This reveals all deviations, reworks, and skipped steps, allowing teams to identify non-compliant behaviors and enforce standard paths to improve operational integrity.

This objective aims to reduce the time and effort spent on confirming that a resolved incident is truly fixed and can be closed. Efficient verification and closure prevent unnecessary delays in the incident lifecycle, ensuring resources are freed up faster for new tasks and reducing the backlog.ProcessMind analyzes the durations and activities within the verification and closure stages of Incident Management in Bmc Helix. It highlights bottlenecks, unnecessary steps, or repeated activities in these final stages, enabling process owners to simplify procedures and accelerate the transition to closure.

This goal seeks to establish and enforce a consistent, optimized approach for managing high-priority incidents. Standardized handling ensures critical issues receive the appropriate urgency and resources, minimizing their impact and improving recovery times across the organization.ProcessMind visualizes the actual paths taken by high-priority incidents in Bmc Helix, exposing variations and non-standard approaches. By comparing these against best practice models, organizations can identify inconsistent steps, enforce predefined workflows, and ensure critical incidents are always handled effectively.

This objective aims to significantly reduce the time it takes to identify and implement temporary solutions for ongoing incidents. Faster workaround implementation minimizes service disruption, improves user experience, and buys valuable time for root cause analysis and permanent fixes.ProcessMind analyzes the sequence and duration of activities leading up to "Workaround Implemented" in Bmc Helix Incident Management. It pinpoints delays, resource availability issues, or knowledge gaps that hinder quick workaround deployment, enabling targeted improvements to accelerate this crucial step.

This goal focuses on decreasing the number of incidents that are reopened after being marked as resolved. High re-opening rates often indicate inadequate initial resolution, insufficient testing, or poor communication, leading to wasted effort and user dissatisfaction.ProcessMind maps the lifecycle of reopened incidents in Bmc Helix, identifying common triggers and patterns associated with their re-entry into the active state. By analyzing the activities preceding re-opening, teams can identify root causes of ineffective resolutions and improve the quality of incident closure.

This objective aims to ensure timely, clear communication with users throughout the incident resolution process, including receiving their confirmation of resolution. Effective communication builds trust, manages expectations, and reduces unnecessary follow-ups, enhancing the overall user experience with Bmc Helix.ProcessMind can track the sequence and timing of communication activities like "User Notification Sent" and "User Confirmation Received." It helps identify where communication gaps occur or where confirmation processes are delayed, enabling improvements to notification triggers and user engagement strategies.

This goal seeks to balance the assignment of incidents across support teams and individual agents to prevent bottlenecks and maximize efficiency. Fair and optimized workload distribution ensures resources are utilized effectively, reduces burnout, and contributes to faster resolution times.ProcessMind provides insights into resource utilization by analyzing "Assigned Group" and "Assigned Agent" activities in Bmc Helix, revealing where incidents accumulate or where certain resources are consistently overloaded or underutilized. This data supports rebalancing efforts and improved resource planning.

The 6-Step Improvement Path for Incident Management

Download the Template

Export Your Data

Upload Your Dataset

Analyze Your Process

Implement Improvements

Monitor Your Process

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What to do

Download the pre-configured Excel template specifically designed for Incident Management. This template guides you in structuring your data correctly for optimal analysis.

View Data Template Guide Download Template

Why it matters

A structured template ensures your data aligns with process mining requirements, saving time and preventing errors in later analytical stages.

Expected outcome

A ready-to-use template that ensures your BMC Helix Incident Management data is prepared correctly.

YOUR DISCOVERIES

Uncover Incident Management Bottlenecks Visually

ProcessMind visualizes your entire Incident Management flow, revealing actual paths and pinpointing exact delays. Gain a clear view of where your process can be optimized for faster resolution.

Visualize actual incident paths in BMC Helix
Pinpoint exact resolution delays and bottlenecks
Identify non-compliant incident handling
Track resolution time improvements over time

Discover your actual process flow

Identify bottlenecks and delays

Analyze process variants

Design your optimized process

TYPICAL OUTCOMES

Achieving Excellence in Incident Resolution

These outcomes highlight the significant improvements organizations achieve by leveraging process mining to analyze and optimize their Incident Management workflows. By uncovering hidden inefficiencies, organizations can streamline resolution processes and enhance service delivery.

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Faster Incident Resolution

Average reduction in resolution time

By identifying and eliminating bottlenecks, organizations significantly cut down the time it takes to resolve incidents, leading to quicker service restoration and improved user satisfaction.

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Reduced Critical SLA Breaches

Decrease in critical incident non-compliance

Pinpointing the root causes of SLA breaches, especially for critical incidents, allows for targeted interventions that ensure adherence to service agreements and minimize business impact.

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Minimized Rework & Reassignments

Savings from reduced inefficient handoffs

Process mining reveals unnecessary reassignments and rework loops, such as incident re-openings, enabling organizations to streamline workflows and reduce operational costs associated with inefficient incident handling.

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Enhanced Process Compliance

Better adherence to standard procedures

By visualizing actual process flows against predefined models, organizations can identify and rectify deviations, ensuring all incidents, especially high-priority ones, are handled according to established guidelines and regulations.

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Higher User Satisfaction

Increased positive feedback and trust

Understanding the user's journey, from initial report to final confirmation, allows for improvements in communication and resolution quality, leading to a significant boost in user confidence and satisfaction.

Results vary based on organizational context, process complexity, and data quality. These figures reflect typical improvements observed across diverse process mining implementations in Incident Management.

Recommended Data

Begin by uploading key attributes and activities, then expand your dataset to deepen your analysis.

New to event logs? Learn how to create a process mining event log.

Attributes

Key data points to capture for analysis

The unique identifier for each reported incident, serving as the primary key for tracking the incident's lifecycle.

Why it matters

This attribute is the fundamental case identifier, making it possible to trace the entire lifecycle of an incident and analyze its flow through the management process.

The name of the specific action or event that occurred at a point in the incident's lifecycle.

Why it matters

This attribute defines the steps in the process, enabling the visualization of the process map and the analysis of flows, bottlenecks, and deviations.

The precise date and time when a specific activity or event occurred for an incident.

Why it matters

Timestamps provide the chronological order of events and are essential for all time-based analysis, including performance measurement, bottleneck identification, and SLA compliance.

The current or historical state of the incident within its lifecycle, such as 'New', 'In Progress', or 'Closed'.

Why it matters

It provides a snapshot of an incident's progress and is crucial for identifying stalled incidents and analyzing time spent in various stages.

The priority level of the incident, which determines the required speed of resolution.

Why it matters

This attribute is critical for segmenting analysis to ensure that high-urgency incidents are handled according to defined procedures and SLAs.

The measure of the incident's business impact.

Why it matters

Severity helps quantify the business impact of incidents, allowing for analysis focused on mitigating the most significant operational risks.

The support team or group responsible for working on the incident.

Why it matters

This attribute is key to analyzing team performance, workload distribution, and the efficiency of incident routing and handoffs.

The individual support agent assigned to handle the incident.

Why it matters

Enables granular analysis of individual workload and performance, helping to optimize resource allocation and identify top performers or those needing support.

The classification of the incident, typically organized in a hierarchical structure.

Why it matters

Proper categorization is vital for efficient routing, trend analysis, and assessing the accuracy of the initial diagnosis.

Indicates whether the incident is within its service level agreement (SLA) targets or has breached them.

Why it matters

Directly measures performance against commitments and is fundamental for compliance monitoring and identifying processes that cause SLA breaches.

Activities

Process steps to track and optimize

Marks the creation of a new incident record in the system. This is the starting point of the incident lifecycle, typically triggered by a user submission via a portal, email, or a service desk agent manually creating the ticket.

Why it matters

This activity is the primary start event for the process. Analyzing the time from this event to resolution is fundamental for measuring overall incident lifecycle duration and identifying upstream delays.

This activity signifies the initial assignment of the incident to a specific support group for investigation and resolution. It represents the first handoff from the service desk to a technical team.

Why it matters

This is a critical milestone for tracking first-touch resolution rates and initial response times. It helps identify delays in getting the incident to the right team.

Signifies that a temporary solution has been provided to the user, restoring service functionality while a permanent fix is being developed. This is often recorded by setting a specific flag or status.

Why it matters

Tracking this helps measure the speed of service restoration, which is critical for user satisfaction. It separates temporary fixes from permanent resolutions in process analysis.

Represents the moment a support agent has found a solution and documented it in the incident record. The incident is now ready to be moved to a 'Resolved' state.

Why it matters

This milestone marks the end of the technical investigation phase. The duration from this point to closure can reveal bottlenecks in communication, verification, and administrative processes.

Indicates that a resolution has been implemented and the service has been restored for the user. This is a key milestone, typically captured by a status change to 'Resolved'.

Why it matters

This is a primary milestone for measuring the core resolution time. It signifies the end of the active work phase and often starts the clock for user confirmation or auto-closure procedures.

The final activity in the lifecycle, where the incident record is formally closed and becomes a read-only historical record. This often occurs automatically after a set period in the 'Resolved' state.

Why it matters

This activity marks the definitive end of the process. The time between 'Resolved' and 'Closed' can highlight delays in administrative processes or user confirmation windows.

FAQs

Frequently asked questions

What specific problems can process mining solve in my BMC Helix Incident Management?

Process mining visualizes the actual flow of your incident management, revealing bottlenecks like frequent SLA breaches on critical incidents or prolonged resolution times. It identifies deviations from standard processes, excessive reassignments, and inaccurate categorizations that hinder efficiency.

What data do I need from BMC Helix for process mining?

You will primarily need incident activity logs, including the Incident ID as the case identifier, activity type, timestamp of each event, and the user or system responsible. Additional attributes like incident priority, category, and assignment group are valuable for richer analysis.

How quickly can I expect to see results from process mining for Incident Management?

Initial discovery and high-level insights can often be generated within a few weeks after data extraction and preparation are complete. Comprehensive analyses, leading to specific optimization opportunities and actionable recommendations, typically emerge within 1 to 3 months, depending on the complexity of your data and project scope.

What are the technical requirements for implementing process mining with BMC Helix data?

Beyond the ability to extract historical incident data from BMC Helix, you will need access to a process mining software platform. Expertise in data engineering for extraction and transformation, along with process analysis skills, are essential to effectively interpret the findings and drive improvements.

How does process mining differ from traditional reporting in BMC Helix?

Traditional reporting provides static, aggregated views of metrics, often based on predefined assumptions about the process. Process mining, conversely, visually reconstructs the complete, actual process flow directly from event logs, uncovering hidden variations, unexpected paths, and true bottlenecks that reports cannot reveal.

What kind of improvements can I expect in Incident Management after applying process mining insights?

You can expect significant improvements such as reduced critical incident SLA breaches, accelerated overall incident resolution times, and a decrease in incident reassignments and re-openings. These lead to enhanced service quality, improved operational efficiency, and better resource utilization.

Is process mining intrusive or does it require changes to my BMC Helix system?

No, process mining is a non-intrusive analytical approach. It operates by analyzing historical data exports from your BMC Helix system, meaning it does not require any modifications to your live production system, configurations, or ongoing incident management processes.

Can process mining help reduce re-opened incidents in BMC Helix?

Yes, process mining is highly effective in identifying the root causes of re-opened incidents by tracing their full lifecycle. It reveals common patterns, specific steps, or teams associated with re-opening, enabling targeted interventions to improve first-time resolution and verification processes.

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