Last Updated on October 29, 2023 by maximosecrets

As a Service Desk agent, you would be querying where the Owner is yourself. Here I am logged in as AJE – Andrew Jeffery and I have one issue to deal with. The Service Request 1273 was created as part of the Self Service Service Request article which you can find here: http://maximosecrets.com/2021/10/01/self-service-service-requests/. It was subsequently assigned to AJE in the article Take Ownership and Select Owner which can be found here  http://maximosecrets.com/2021/10/11/take-ownership-and-select-owner%ef%bf%bc/ .

As part of an implementation a public saved query would be created like “Owner is Me” with a where clause something like ”owner = (select personid from person where personid = (select personid from maxuser where userid = :USER )) and status !=’RESOLVED’”.

Service Request 1273 is at QUEUED status and was raised by Tony Redding, with a long description of “The conference room is too hot to be used, please can you review ASAP.” The locationA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More referenced is CONF400 on the 4^th floor of the OFFICE block. I’ll raise an Incident record for the facilities team to investigate.

Notice the Available Queries now includes the saved query “Owner is Me”.

I’ve set the Service Group to FACILITY and the Service to ENVIRON (Environmental Services – HVAC and Lighting) and saved the record. Notice I am in Edit Mode, the pencil icon in the toolbar is a green colour. I’ll now create an Incident for the facility team to investigate. Once we know the root cause, we may create a work order to rectify the issue.

Create Incident

When using the action Create Incident you just get a message along the top of the screen in green giving the Incident number created, don’t worry if you miss the message.

In the Related Records tab, there is now a new Related Tickets record of Class INCIDENT. It has a relationship type of FOLLOWUP. Incident 1250 is a follow up to the current record, Service Request 1273. We can navigate from the Related Record Key field, to Incident 1250.

The Related Record Key is the Incident Number – 1250 at NEW status. Many of the fields have been copied from the Service Request. This is using the Crossover Domain TCKT2TCKT (Create Ticket from Ticket), it references 23 attributes to copy across from one ticket record to the next. The Reported Date and Affected Date are not copied, they are set at the date/time the Incident record was created. Note. The Service Request attributes and values in its Specification are also copied to the follow up ticket.

Notice that the Incident application looks similar to the Service Request application, deliberately so. It does, however, have additional tabs for Activities, Solution Details and Failure Reporting.

On Incident 1250 and its Related Records tab there is a record in the Related Tickets table back to the Service Request 1273 (class of SR) and with a Relationship of ORIGINATOR, SR 1273 is the originator of Incident 1250.

At the top of the Related Records tab, you can see two fields Originating Record and Originating Record Class, set to 1273 and SR respectively.

Show Similar Tickets

Mike Wilson on the Service Desk has just taken another call and has raised Service Request 1291 and used the same Classification, 1 \ 103 \ 10301 \ 1030101 – End User Issues \ Facility \ Heating/Air \ Too Hot. He has then used the action “Show Similar Tickets’, and this shows two records for Incident 1250 and Service Request 1273, both for the CONF400 location, the same one just reported by Fran Garcia on behalf of Ed Adams.

You can navigate to the records in their applications from the detail menu in the Ticket column. If the similar tickets have the same location or asset, then it is worth checking the records to see if they should be related, especially if the reported date is recent. Normally, if an Incident has already been raised you would relate to the Incident rather than the Service Request raised by another person. I have checked the ticket record for Incident 1250 and have then used the Relate Records button.

In the Related Records tab, the Related Tickets table shows a reference to Incident 1250 with the Relationship type of RELATED.

If I navigate to Incident 1250, its Related Records tab now shows two records, including the related Service Request 1291 with the relationship type of RELATED.

The records shown in the Show Similar Tickets dialog is governed by the relationship called SIMILARTICKETS which will be found in Database Configuration application on the TICKET object. The Where clause is: 

historyflag=:no and classstructureid=:classstructureid and (ticketid != :ticketid or class!=:class) and not exists (select 1 from relatedrecord rec where rec.relatedreckey=ticket.ticketid and rec.relatedrecclass=ticket.class and recordkey=:ticketid)

This is interpreted as any other ticket with the same classification that is not already related and has not been archived, it remains open, i.e., it does not have a status which is a synonym of CLOSED.

If you really want to verify the bit of the where clause starting at … and not exists …, then after relating a ticket try using the Show Similar Tickets action again, it no longer shows the ticket which has just been related.

The Show Similar Tickets action on Service Request 1273 would not show Incident 1250 because it is already related to that record, it was the FOLLOWUP to the Service Request. On Incident 1250 if you use the same action, you will just get the error message “BMXAA4327E – No similar tickets found.” as the two potential similar tickets are both related.

Global Tickets

You can mark all classes of tickets as Global Issues. I have made Incident 1250 a Global Issue.

Marking a ticket as a Global Issue and relating other records to the global issue is a good way of ensuring that only one Incident is spending time resolving the issue. You do not want to find two facilities technicians turning up to evaluate the reason why CONF400 – Conference Room #400 is too hot. By marking a ticket as a Global Issue, you are making that ticket responsible for the resolution. All other tickets related to it do not need to be pursued and they will inherit their status changes from the ticket marked as a global issue. This status inheritance will be the subject of another article.

Normally, you would only mark records as a Global Issue on an Incident or a Problem record. Some Maximo implementations only have access to the Service Request application. If a SR is representing an incident or defect, then multiple people could be reporting the same issue. You do need a way of joining similar SRs to one SR that will eventually be used to evaluate the issue and marking the original SR as a Global Issue may be an acceptable way to proceed. 

The attribute for Global Issue is ISGLOBAL. There is another field, Related to Global Issue (RELATEDTOGLOBAL) which is a hidden field. These two YORN fields are mutually exclusive, only one of them can be set to 1.

I’ve created a new Service Request 1292 against the same classification used earlier in this article, 1 \ 103 \ 10301 \ 1030101 – End User Issues \ Facility \ Heating/Air \ Too Hot.

When I use the Show Similar Tickets action and mark Incident 1250 as the record I wish to relate the record to, the only button I see is Relate Records. There is another button in this dialog “Relate Records to Global Issue”, which appears when you use this action from the Global Issue record, in our case if we were on Incident 1250 instead of Service Request 1292. This dialog would therefore benefit from showing the ISGLOBAL attribute because if you were about to mark another ticket with a relationship type of RELATED, and you were using status inheritance, then it would be better to navigate to the incident record and then create the relationship to a Global Issue, I’ll illustrate this later in this article.

Alternatively, you can achieve the same thing from the Service Request. In the Global Issues section, you can use the Select Value on the “Related to Global ID” field. This shows all the open records that are marked as a Global Issue, Incident 1250 is shown.

With Incident 1250 selected this is displayed in the two fields “Related to Global ID” (1250) and “Global Ticket Class” (INCIDENT).

On Service Request 1292 and the Related Records tab a new Relationship Type, ISGLOBAL, will be found for the related Incident 1250, the Global Issue.

If I navigate through to Incident 1250 you can see that it also has a new Related Tickets record with a Relationship Type of RELATEDTOGLOBAL. Service Request 1292 is related to the Global Issue Incident 1250.

I thought it would be useful to show the other technique where you navigate from the Show Similar Tickets dialog to the global incident 1250, so I have created a further Service Request for 1293 with the same classification and location.

On SR 1293 I have used the Show Similar Tickets action and will navigate to the Incidents application from the record for Incident 1250.

On Incident 1250 and its Show Similar Tickets dialog, there is just the one ticket that has the same classification that is not already related to incident 1250, the new Service Request 1293. Notice that when you are on a ticket that is marked as a Global Issue there are two buttons, Relate Records and Relate Records to Global Issue. We’ll use the Relate Records to Global Issue so that SR 1293 will inherit its updates through the status inheritance functions.

Afterwards, you will find that on SR 1293 that the field “Related to Global ID” will now be 1250, and the field “Global Ticket Class” is set to INCIDENT. You would need to refresh the Service Request to see this.

After relating SR 1293, if I use the Show Similar Tickets action again, I will receive error “BMXAA4327E – No similar tickets found.” 

You will find that once a ticket is marked as a Global Issue and other tickets are related to it then you cannot deselect the Global Issue checkbox without incurring the error message “BMXAA4272E – Referenced as global issue in other tickets.”. You would have to delete the Related Records with a Relationship Type of RELATEDTOGLOBAL first.

Incidentally, on Incident 1250 where the “Is Global Issue” field is marked, the two fields “Related to Global ID” and “Global Ticket Class” are read-only. On Service Request 1292 (or 1293) where Incident 1250 is referenced in these two fields the “Is Global Issue” field is not read-only. If you made the Service Request, a Global Issue, the two fields are blanked, and the Related Ticket record would be deleted if you saved the record.

Notice, that on Incident 1250 the Related Ticket record for Service Request 1291 did not change the Relationship Type when the incident was marked as a Global Issue, it is still marked as RELATED, and it will not be subject to status inheritance unlike Service Request 1292 and 1293 which has a Relationship Type of RELATEDTOGLOBAL. So, you might find that when you make a ticket a Global Issue that there are some existing relationships that you want to delete and reinstate as being RELATEDTOGLOBAL.

Using Service Groups and Services to Create Relationships

On Service Request 1293 I had entered a Service Group of FACILITY and a Service of ENVIRON. On the Service Group detail menu there is the option for “View Related Records for Service Group”.

The View Relate Records for Service Group shows a tab for the types of records where Service Groups are used, Tickets, Work Orders, Assets and Locations, Asset Types, Service Level Agreements, Contracts and Configuration Items. There is a radio button at the top, with a Refresh button:

• View Related Records for the Service Group will show all records with a match by the Service Group, FACILITY in this case, and where the Service field is null. Notice the table window filter in the Service attribute uses the tilde (~NULL~) which means Is Null.
• View Related Records for the Service Group and Services would show the same records plus any where there is a value for the Service field.

If I scroll down in the same dialog the Relate Records button is displayed. You can relate records either via the Show Similar Tickets action or from the Service Group and Service fields.

From the Service field detail menu there is an action View Related Records for Service which has a similar dialog without the top radio button as it is always showing matching records by Service Group and Service. There is a Relate Records button in this dialog. In both dialogs you would need to select the records before relating them. Also, in both dialogs all records are displayed including those that have already been related. If you select one of these, you would receive the error “BMXAA5481E – INCIDENT 1250 is already related to the current record.”.

On Incident 1250 the View Related Records for Service dialog shows the button “Relate Records To Global Issue”. The same button would be shown on the other dialog from the Service Group field View Related Records for Service Group.

Summary

There are five relationship types associated with tickets, and they are held in synonym domain RELATETYPE:

• ORIGINATOR – Originating record – the record displayed was the originator of the current ticket
• FOLLOWUP – Follow-up record – the ticket displayed is the follow up to the current record
• ISGLOBAL – Global Issue – the ticket displayed has been marked as a Global Issue
• RELATEDTOGLOBAL – Related to a Global Issue – the ticket displayed is related to the current record with a global issue relationship and it will inherit its status changes from this record. 
• RELATED – Related to record – the ticket displayed is related to the current record, there will be no status inheritance from this record, even if the current record has been marked as a Global Issue.

Various ticket records can be related to each other. This occurs:

• When you create one ticket from another (FOLLOWUP, ORIGINATOR)
• When you use the action Show Similar Tickets (RELATED) or use the New Row button on the Related Tickets table.
• When you have declared a Global Issue and you use the two fields in the Global Issue section to relate to the Global Issue (ISGLOBAL, RELATEDTOGLOBAL)
• When you use the Show Similar Tickets action on a Global Issue to relate other records to it (RELATEDTOGLOBAL, ISGLOBAL)
• When you use the actions from the Service Group and Service field (RELATED, ISGLOBAL, RELATEDTOGLOBAL)

Related Ticket records that are marked with a relationship type of FOLLOWUP, ORIGINATOR or ISGLOBAL cannot be deleted.

The Related Records are held in the object RELATEDRECORD, this is a shared table with work order and tickets, and so the same table could contain a follow-up work order to Incident 1250. There is only one Relationship Type (RELATETYPE) attribute. If it hadn’t occurred to you yet, when you create a follow up record or relate one ticket with another, two records in RELATEDRECORD are written.

The set of relationship types for work orders do not have the ISGLOBAL and RELATEDTOGLOBAL relationship types. Probably why the RELATETYPE domain is not attached to the RELATEDRECORD.RELATETYPE attribute.