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Note: While “incident management” can mean a few different things depending on who you ask, this guide focuses on automating ITSM (IT service management) incidents — internal employee and customer support issues —moreso than large-scale production outages.
When IT teams think about automating incident management, the first impulse is often to look for a new tool — another dashboard, a different ticketing system, an AI assistant.
But true, end-to-end automation isn’t achieved by layering more tools on top of an existing tech stack. This approach can actually have the opposite effect, creating delays and quality issues that affect both employees and customers.
To automate the incident management lifecycle from report to resolution, IT teams need integrated systems that are able to talk to each other and share data. If one platform can’t see what’s happening in another, nothing moves forward without manual intervention (no matter how sophisticated your ITSM tools are).
In this guide, we’ll explore how integration creates the foundation for automated incident management, and how AI can add real value when connected to the right workflows.
What is automated incident management?
Automated incident management is the use of technology to speed up incident identification, handling and resolution and reduce the need for human intervention throughout the process. Incident management automations can be reactive (triggered for a known issue) or proactive (triggered before an issue is reported).
Reactive
- Automated ticket routing and assignment
- Automatically escalating tickets that are high priority or overdue
- Automated status updates and logging
- Using AI chatbots to guide users through troubleshooting steps
Proactive
- Automated monitoring to detect potential problems before they impact users
- Triggering preventative workflows
- Using AI to identify patterns in past tickets so that IT teams can better address recurring issues
A hybrid approach that combines reactive and proactive incident management automation helps IT teams stay agile and avoid burnout.
Benefits of Automated Incident Management
Automating incident management workflows can help to:
- Reduce human error by eliminating manual processes
- Improve response times by routing incidents to the right teams
- Effectively prioritize incidents based on SLA (service-level agreement) rules
- Ensure consistency and improve governance by automatically logging incident actions and communications
- Improve customer satisfaction by keeping them in the loop through automated notifications
It’s important to note that automation in incident management doesn’t necessarily mean going 100% “hands-off” and eliminating the human element. Ideally, automation should support IT teams by cutting down on repetitive, time-consuming tasks so that they can focus on more complex issues that require critical thinking.
Incident Management Automation Strategies
From cutting-edge AI to tried-and-true chatbots, the following strategies represent some of the most effective ways IT teams are automating the incident management process.
1. Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
An integration platform can connect applications, data and systems across the entire organization to enable incident management automation. An integration platform as a service, or iPaaS, simplifies the integration process by providing pre-built connectors, visual tools for creating automation flows, and AI-assisted mapping.
For example, an IT team using Zendesk to manage tickets can use an integration platform to connect Zendesk with NetSuite. When a ticket is created in Zendesk, key customer and contact data is automatically updated in NetSuite, eliminating the need for manual entry and ensuring both support and business teams have access to the same information.
