Task: Escalate Incident To Next Level

Incident which can’t be resolved by the Incident Handler must be assigned to most appropriate Incident Resolver.This is referred as “functional escalation”. For all such incidents, the Incident Handler must ensure that all possible details regarding the symptoms of the incident, must be captured, before passing on the incident to the Incident Resolver. Generally the incident attributes like type of incident, priority, impacted service and classification, etc. help to identify the Incident Resolver.

Once an incident is assigned to the next level Incident Resolver, it could be accepted or rejected. The Incident Resolver may then re-assign the incident to appropriate Incident Resolver or if the group is uknown, incident is routed to Incident Handler. Incident Resolver must inform the Incident Handler of the reassigned record immediately after reassignment. Incident Handler must escalate to Incident Manager, whenever the correct Incident Resolver is not known. The Incident Manager should determine appropriate Incident Resolver and re-assign the incident. In cases where the Incident Manager and resolver team, cannot agree on who should resolve the incident or it is being ‘bounced’ between teams, the hierarchical escalation process must be invoked as defined in the Incident Management Procedures. By invoking the heirarchical escalation, Incident Manager ensures that the senior management is aware about the issue and required help can be provided by them to handle the incident at earliest.

If Incident Manager determines that the incident cannot be accepted due to incorrect categorization or missing details, then Incident Handler must be informed. The Incident Handler then updates the Incident Record as needed.

Certain incidents may need deeper technical knowledge and require assistance from specialist groups or technical teams for resolution. In such cases the incident is assigned from second level of support to third level. Third level of support may be internal groups or third party such as software suppliers or hardware manufacturers etc. The rules for escalation and handling of incidents must be agreed in Operational Level Agreements and Underpinning Contracts with internal and external support groups respectively and must be documented in the Incident Management Procedures.

There may be many incidents in a queue with the same priority level. In such cases, it is the responsibility of the Incident Handler or the Incident Manager to decide, in conjunction with managers on the various support groups, the order in which the incidents must be escalated and resolved.

Once the assignment of incident is complete, the user needs to be informed and the appropriate expectations for resolution should be set with user (based on SLA).