Interaction categories

The category hierarchy was designed to support the ITIL 2011 model of service-centric support. It is a natural-language-based hierarchy meant to enable the Service Desk Agent to easily classify the Interaction. The three-level hierarchy (category, subcategory, and area) creates a “sentence” that clearly and uniquely defines the issue without ambiguity.

The category determines which process the record belongs to. Combined with the subcategory and area, it also is used for to report results and to determine the knowledgebase assignment for the event.

Note Since the category values represent best practices, customizing this data is not expected. The subcategory and area fields can be customized; however, they should cover the scope of the IT Service provisioning in natural language definition and should remain unmodified. If you choose to customize the subcategories and areas, we recommend that you set them up in a natural easy-to-follow hierarchy.

The categories, subcategories, and areas that come with Service Desk out-of-box are captured in this table.

Categories, subcategories, and areas

Category

Subcategory

Area

complaint

service delivery

availability

complaint

service delivery

functionality

complaint

service delivery

performance

complaint

support

incident resolution quality

complaint

support

incident resolution time

complaint

support

person

compliment

service delivery

availability

compliment

service delivery

functionality

compliment

service delivery

performance

compliment

support

incident resolution quality

compliment

support

incident resolution time

compliment

support

person

incident

access

authorization error

incident

access

login failure

incident

data

data or file corrupted

incident

data

data or file incorrect

incident

data

data or file missing

incident

data

storage limit exceeded

incident facilities hardware failure
incident facilities miscellaneous
incident facilities supplies

incident

failure

error message

incident

failure

function or feature not working

incident

failure

job failed

incident

failure

system down

incident

hardware

hardware failure

incident

hardware

missing or stolen

incident

performance

performance degradation

incident

performance

system or application hangs

incident

security

security breach

incident

security

security event/message

incident

security

virus alert

problem

access

authorization error

problem

access

login failure

problem

data

data or file corrupted

problem

data

data or file incorrect

problem

data

data or file missing

problem

data

storage limit exceeded

problem facilities hardware failure
problem facilities miscellaneous
problem facilities supplies
problem

failure

error message

problem

failure

function or feature not working

problem

failure

job failed

problem

failure

system down

problem

hardware

hardware failure

problem

hardware

missing or stolen

problem

performance

performance degradation

problem

performance

system or application hangs

problem

security

security breach

problem

security

security event/message

problem

security

virus alert

request for administration grant access grant access
request for administration other other
request for administration password reset password reset

request for change

service portfolio

new service

request for change

service portfolio

upgrade / new release

request for information

general information

general information

request for information

how to

how to

request for information

status

status

service catalog

service catalog

service catalog

service request Employee Off-boarding  
service request Employee On-boarding  
service request Hardware  
service request Request for Administration  
service request Request for Information  
service request Software  
support catalog support catalog support catalog