Proactive Service Experience Workflows and Incident Management within the Service Operations Workspace

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Proactive Service Experience Workflows and Incident Management within the Service Operations Workspace

    The Service Operations Workspace application enables network agents and technical support teams to efficiently manage and resolve incidents triggered by alerts, including those from external fault management systems via TMF 621 integration. It provides a centralized interface to prioritize tasks, analyze incidents, and coordinate resolution efforts in a structured workflow.

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    Key Features

    • Service Operations Workspace Access: Agents can access the workspace from the Workspaces menu and use the Home and Lists tabs to view incidents, tasks, and case details.
    • Incident and Task Management: Agents can open individual task records for detailed views and take appropriate actions directly from the workspace.
    • Automated Incident Creation: Incidents can be automatically created by alert flows or manually by technical support, and can also originate from external systems using TMF 621 integration.
    • Proactive Service Experience Workflows: Incident creation triggers workflows that help technical support triage, analyze, and resolve issues, including generating proactive cases and notifying affected customers.
    • Major Case and Communication Management: The creation of major cases enables coordinated communication managed by a Major Issue Manager who liaises with technical teams and customers.
    • Escalation and Resolution Process: Incidents can be escalated to higher support levels with status updates, troubleshooting, and resolution tracking. Communication with affected contacts is facilitated through notifications and comments.

    Practical Workflow Example

    An alert from an external fault management system triggers an incident related to a SD-WAN controller failure. The technical support engineer reviews impacted services, restarts the device, and generates proactive cases notifying customers. If the device cannot be rebooted, the incident is escalated to L2 Support. L2 Support troubleshoots and partially resolves the issue, communicates with the affected customer via additional comments, and updates the status once the service is restored. The resolution is propagated across related case records and the major case is closed by the Major Issue Manager.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Streamlined incident prioritization and task management within a unified workspace.
    • Automated workflows that reduce manual effort and accelerate incident resolution.
    • Improved customer communication and notification through proactive case generation.
    • Clear escalation paths and coordinated management of major incidents.
    • Visibility into impacted services and customer accounts to facilitate targeted support.

    You can use the Service Operations Workspace application to get an overview of how a network agent can prioritize tasks and resolve incidents.

    Viewing the Service Operations Workspace

    From the Workspaces menu, select Service Operations Workspace and select the Home icon. From the landing page, a network agent can analyze incidents and view cases and upcoming tasks. To view:
    • Lists: Select the Lists tab in the Service Operations Workspace. From the Lists tab, a network agent can analyze the individual lists of incidents and tasks and then take the appropriate action.
      The following example shows the List tab.
      Figure 1. List tab
      List view of all incidents, and tasks, and planned incidents.
    • Records: Open any task record to navigate to its record view as shown in the following example.
      Figure 2. Record view
      Record view page of Service Operations Workspace.

    Example

    The Proactive Service Experience Workflows application is automatically triggered when an incident is created within the system by an alert flow. A technical support can manually create this alert in the Service Operations Workspace. It can also be generated from an external fault management system using the TMF 621 integration.

    The following example demonstrates how Proactive Service Experience Workflows is used to resolve an external network-initiated incident. In this example,

    1. An external fault management system using TMF 621 integration sends an alert that triggers the creation of an incident record with the following values:
      • Short Description and Description: Vmanage_10001 failed to restart after a change was implemented.
      • Configuration Item: Vmanage_10001 (SD-WAN CI Class)
      • Category: SD-WAN
      • Sub Category: Protocol Failure
      • Affected Customers: 5
    2. A technical support engineer opens the incident record inside the Service Operations Workspace and sees the list of impacted services and accounts in the Overview section.
    3. The technical support engineer triages the issues by reviewing the latest changes in the Agent Assist that triggered the outage.
    4. The technical support engineer then restarts the SD-WAN controller and selects Generate Proactive Cases in the Cases section. One major case and five child cases are generated and notifications are sent to the primary contacts for the affected accounts.
    5. As a major case was created, the technical support engineer notifies the major issue manager of a potentially serious outage. The Major Issue Manager manages the major case record and communication with both technical teams and affected customers.
    6. The Technical Support Engineer (TSE) realizes the device can't be rebooted and might have failed altogether. The TSE changes the Sub Category field to device failure and selects the Escalate UI action and enters a work note
    7. The next level L2 Support team receives the incident and updates the record status.
    8. The L2 Technical Support Engineer tries to troubleshoot the issues on the SD-WAN controller and successfully restarts the configuration item. Four out of the five the affected accounts report the issue is resolved, but the fifth account is still experiencing some problems.
    9. To diagnose further issues with the fifth account, the L2 Technical Support Engineer performs the following steps:
      • Selects the check box next to the case record on the Overview page.
      • Selects the Notify UI action to send a message via additional comments to the contact person on the case record.
    10. The contact person receives the additional comment and performs some extra steps. When the service is restored, the contact updates the status in the CSM portal.
    11. Seeing the additional comments in the incident record, the L2 Technical Support Engineer changes the State field to Resolved.

      The resolution information is copied down to each case record, while the Major Issue Manager resolves the major case record and any associated cases.