Guide to ServiceNow - The Mighty "Short Description"

[bobkrauss]

In ServiceNow, the "Short Description" in the incident form can be a powerful way to accelerate and raise the quality of incident resolution.   The trick is to provide an informative summary of the issue or question with a few key details.   The better the short description, the faster the incident can be understood, analyzed, and resolved.   By contrast, vague or inaccurate short descriptions may delay resolution while IT service staff work to figure out the substance of the issue.

A good short description (examples below) will help troubleshooters to quickly determine how to resolve, or where to assign, the incident for resolution.   Like an email subject line, in 80 characters or less, the description should briefly state the issue and identify the application, device, or other key information at the heart of the issue.   Avoid putting sensitive or personally identifiable information in the short description like names, login IDs, or account details.   Relegate longer details to the "Work Notes" or "Additional Comments" fields.   It's also a good idea to proactively change any short descriptions that are inaccurate or otherwise uninformative.

Again, to increase the speed and quality of incident resolution, apply these best practices to the mighty short description!

Examples of Poor Short Descriptions	How It Should Read — Provide Key Details! (80 or fewer characters)
"System down"	"No access to payroll app at Lancaster branch after power outage 5-17-17"
"Account locked"	"Windows account locked — request password reset"
"When I came to work this morning, I turned on my PC and noticed it had a problem"	"No network connection, PC with MAC address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx"

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