Setting Up Priority Codes that Establish Response Times for Incidents

Priority Code

Specify a code that defines the urgency of the incident. The default priority code value that will be used in incidents is set in the Service Parameters form. See also the section on "How Default Priority Codes are Determined" in About Incident Escalation.

Description

Specify a description that explains the priority code.

Days Until

Use these fields to establish default response times for an incident of a certain priority. For example, a Medium priority can be configured to warn after seven days, be late after 15 days, and prompt for follow up after 30 days, and a High priority can follow up within eight hours, warn after two days, and be late after three days. Provide values in the Hours fields if the elapsed time must be less than a day. The values you set on this form are used, along with the date of the incident, to calculate default followup, late, and warning dates in the Incidents form when you specify a priority for an incident. You can manually override them, but if you later change the incident's priority, the default values for the new priority code override your manually entered values.

• Days/Hours Until Followup: Specify the number of days, or number of hours, in which you must follow up when an incident is flagged at this priority level.
• Days/Hours Until Late: Specify the number of days, or number of hours, until an incident is flagged late at this priority level. Late incidents are shown in the Alert column on the Incident Queue Console.
• Days/Hours Until Warning: Specify the number of days, or number of hours, from the time the incident entry until a warning is issued for the incident. This warning indicates that the incident is nearing a late status. Warnings are shown in the Alert column on the Incident Queue Console.

Coverage Basis

Specify the hours to consider as part of the "Days/hours until..." value when the system sets warning, due, and follow-up dates for incidents:

• All Hours: All 24 hours of all days are included as coverage time.
• Business Hours: Only the time ranges for each day of the week as defined on the Service Parameters form are included as coverage time.
• Contract Coverage Hours: Only the time ranges specified on a valid customer contract are included as coverage time. If this option is selected but no contract is found for the customer or unit, then Business Hours is used.

After you set up the tasks there, they are displayed in the grid on the Service Priority Codes form.