Understand the Incident Description
Introduction | NOTE | Video | IP Address Block
Tip 01 | Tip 02 | Tip 03 | Tip 04 | Tip 05 | Tip 06
Introduction
Incidents generated by Discovery Admin populate the out-of-the-box Incident Table and are intended to follow the existing Incident Management Process for resolution.
NOTE
If you are being notified about the Incident(s) generated by Discovery Admin via email, the formatting of the Incident Description in the email you receive may be different based on email templates configured for your ServiceNow Instance.
Additionally, if white spaces are missing, it will make the Incident Description hard to read.
In these cases, we recommend you navigate to the Incident in ServiceNow (typically via a link embedded in the generated email) to view the Incident Description.
Video: Incident Description (1 min :: 24 secs)
The video below demonstrates how Discovery Admin structures the Incident Description (and Short Description)
Time Stamps:
0:21 - Understanding of the Incident Description
The Incident Form may vary for different Customers, however, the Short Description and Description Fields are standard.
The text in the Description Field is divided into multiple segments.
The initial segment of the Description pertains to the specific Troubleshooting that triggered the corresponding Incident.
The subsequent sections outline the Root Cause and the Remediation.
The last section is a comprehensive list of all the IP Addresses that failed ServiceNow Discovery.
IP Address Block: Explanation of Keywords
IP Address:
The IP Address of the Target Device which failed ServiceNow Discovery. The IP Address is appended with the DNS Name in square brackets if it was returned during ServiceNow Discovery.
Credential Affinity:
Indicates if this IP Address was previously Discovered. ServiceNow Discovery creates an 'affinity', if there is a successful discovery for that IP Address so that it knows which credential to attempt first for the specific IP Address, during subsequent Discovery.
Credential Affinity Type: Indicates the type of Credential in ServiceNow associated with the Credential Affinity. Examples include WMI, SSH, SNMP, etc.
Discovery Schedule:
The name of the Schedule that ran the ServiceNow Discovery.
Discovery Status:
The corresponding record, created by ServiceNow, each time a Discovery Schedule runs.
Discovery Timestamp:
The time at which ServiceNow Discovery attempted to discover the IP Address (which generated this corresponding error)
MID Server Name:
The name of the MID Server (i.e. the Server from which ServiceNow Discovery was initiated)
MID Server IP Address:
The IP Address of the MID Server (i.e. the Server from which ServiceNow Discovery was initiated)
Pattern Name:
Pattern is a ServiceNow Term. A Pattern is a sequence of steps whose purpose is to discover a CI by following a series of instructions consisting of queries sent to the target device and parsing the payload that comes back as a result of the query.
Configuration Items Lookup:
A lookup of the CMDB based on the IP Address of the target device, to provide none, one or more CIs, with basic information of the CI, including a URL that directly links to the CI.
Log Analysis Record URL: [v9.3]
A direct link to the Log Analysis Record, used for generating the corresponding IP Address Block for direct navigation to the corresponding Log Analysis Record to get additional context about this error.
Tip 01: Direct Link to the Log Analysis List View from the Incident Description [v9.3]
If the number of IP Addresses in the Incident Description is truncated (configured via Discovery Admin Properties), a direct link to Log Analysis Record corresponding to these IP Addresses helps navigate to a list of all the errors corresponding to the IEC.Â
Tip 02: Intuitive IP Address Deduplication
If there are IP Addresses that are excluded from the current Incident because they are already present in another open Incident (with the same IEC), those Incident Numbers are referenced in the Description of this Generated Incident so the recipients of this Incident know that there is another complementary Incident which can be worked on in conjunction with this Incident.
Tip 03: Navigate from the Incident List to View to the Troubleshooting Record which generated the Incident(s) [v9.3]
A direct link to the Troubleshooting Record is available at the Top of Incident List View after clicking the { View Generated Incidents } UI Action.
This helps in direct navigation to the Troubleshooting Record corresponding to the Generated Incident(s).
This link is only visible on the Incident List View if navigated to via the { View Generated Incidents } UI Action and for Users with the role: discovery_admin
Tip 04: Navigate from the Incident Form to the Troubleshooting Record which generated the Incident [v9.3]
A direct link to the Troubleshooting Record is available at the Top of the Incident Form.
This helps in direct navigation to the Troubleshooting Record corresponding to the Generated Incident.
This link is only visible on the Incidents generated by Discovery Admin and for Users with the role: discovery_admin
Tip 05: Navigate from the Incident List View to the Troubleshooting List View [v9.3]
{ Discovery Admin } UI Action available at the bottom of the Incident List View navigates to the Troubleshooting List View.
This UI Action is visible only for Users with the role: discovery_admin
Tip 06: Navigate from one Incident to another Incident generated by Discovery Admin [v9.3]
Whenever an Incident is opened from the Incident List View (navigated to via the { View Generated Incidents } UI Action), the next Incident or previous Incident can be seen using the out-of-the-box Navigation Arrows at the top right-hand corner of the Incident Form.
Alternatively, open the Incident(s) in the List View in a new Tab.