Events and Tickets

This section describes how to create tickets from events in SL1.

Use the following menu options to navigate the SL1 user interface:

To view a pop-out list of menu options, click the menu icon ().
To view a page containing all the menu options, click the Advanced menu icon ().

This section includes the following topics:

Creating a Ticket from the List of Events

A ticket is a request for work that can be tracked in SL1. This request can be in response to a problem that needs to be fixed, for routine maintenance, or for any type of work required by your enterprise. A ticket can be created manually or created based on an event. For example, if an event occurs that says that a device is using 99 percent of disk space, you might want to create a ticket that tasks a co-worker with adding additional disk space to the device.

If a ticket is created from the Events page (or the Event Console page in the classic SL1 user interface), based on a selected event, most of the ticket fields are populated automatically by SL1.

NOTE: To create a ticket from an event, accounts of type "user" must be granted one or more access keys that include the following access hooks: Events/Event:View, Ticketing/Ticket:View, and Ticket:Create. Accounts of type "user" will then be able to create and save tickets from the Events page (or the Event Console page in the classic SL1 user interface). For more information on Access Keys, see the section on Access Keys.

NOTE: Depending on the Event Console Ticket Life Ring Button Behavior setting in the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior), clicking the life ring icon () in the Event Console will either create a ScienceLogic ticket or an external ticket. When viewing an event in the Events page (or the Event Console page in the classic SL1 user interface), you can create a ticket based on the selected event. Some of the ticket fields will be populated automatically with values from the event. To create a ticket based on an event:

On the Events page or the Event Investigator page for a specific event, click the Actions button () for the event and select Create Ticket. (Or, if you are using the classic SL1 user interface, on the Event Console page, click on the life ring icon () of the event for which you want to create a ticket.) The Ticket Editor page appears:

Depending on the Event Console Ticket Life Ring Button Behavior setting in the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior), SL1 creates an SL1 ticket or an external ticket. See the Event Ticket Behavior Settings section for more information.
Most of the fields are already populated with values from the event. You can accept these values or edit them. The following fields display:

Description. A brief description of the problem or ticket. If you create a ticket from an event in the Events page (or the Event Console page in the classic SL1 user interface), this field is populated automatically by SL1.
Organization. Select the organization with which the ticket will be associated in the drop-down menu. If you create a ticket from an event in the Events page (or the Event Console page in the classic SL1 user interface), this field is populated automatically by SL1.
Element. By default, this field includes the element associated with this the event. Can be an organization, device, device group, asset record, IP network, interface, vendor, or user account. To change the element or find another element, select the binoculars icon (). The Finder page appears, where you can search for another element.
Aligned Event. If applicable, the event that is associated with the ticket. Clicking on the icon displays read-only details about the event.
Ticket Description. Description of the problem or ticket. By default, this field includes the Event Message from the event. You can edit this field to suit your business requirements.
Alternate Location. This field appears only if the selected organization has one or more alternate locations. If the selected organization has one or more alternate locations, you can select one of those locations in this field.
Ticket State. Custom parameter, defined in the Ticket States page (Registry > Ticketing > Custom States). Allows you to add additional workflow restrictions to a ticket. For more information, see the section on creating ticket states.
Status. Status of the ticket. The choices are:

Open. Ticket has been created.
Pending. Ticket has been acknowledged.
Working. Someone is working on the ticket.
Resolved. Issue has been resolved.

Severity. The severity of the problem. When a ticket is created from an event in the Events page (or the Event Console page in the classic SL1 user interface), this field is populated automatically by SL1 with the event's severity. The choices are:

Severity 5/Healthy
Severity 4/Notice
Severity 3/Minor
Severity 2/Major
Severity 1/Critical

Category. Descriptive category assigned to the ticket. You can use the Select Objects Editor page (System > Customize > Select Objects) to customize the list of possible categories.
Source. Original source for the ticket. You can use the Select Objects Editor page (System > Customize > Selected Objects) to customize the list of possible sources. The default choices are:

Automated. Ticket was created automatically when an event occurred. An administrator has configured SL1 to behave this way.
Email. An email about an issue prompted this ticket.
External. An external source created this ticket.
Internal. This ticket was created in SL1.
Phone. A phone call about an issue prompted this ticket.

Queue. Ticket Queue to which the ticket will be assigned. When you select a Ticket Queue, SL1 will populate the Assigned User field with a list of members from the specified queue.

Assigned User. User who is responsible for resolving the ticket. This drop-down list contains entries for each user assigned to the specified Ticket Queue and who has a Login State of Active. When a ticket is assigned to a user, SL1 automatically sends the user an email message as notification.
Custom Fields. If your SL1 system includes embedded custom fields for tickets, you can supply a value in those fields. For more information on custom fields, see the section on form fields.

To add a note to the ticket, click the [New Note] button. A new instance of the Notepad Editor will appear in the Notes & Attachments pane. In the Notepad Editor, you can format the text and include links and images in a note.
Click Save to save the ticket.

For more information on creating tickets, see the section on creating tickets.

Event Ticket Behavior Settings

The behavior of the Create Ticket option on the Events page (or the life-ring icon () in the Event Console in the classic SL1 user interface) is determined in the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior) in the classic user interface. To change this behavior:

Go to the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior).

Select from the following options in the Event Console Ticket Life Ring Button Behavior field:

Create/View EM7 Ticket. When you select the Create Ticket option or click the life-ring icon () for an event, SL1 displays the Ticket Editor page, where you can define an SL1 ticket and automatically associate it with the selected event. This is the default behavior.

Create/View External Ticket. If an external ticket is aligned with an event, when you select the Create Ticket option or click the life-ring icon () for that event, SL1 spawns a new window and displays the external ticket (as specified in the force_ticket_uri field). If an external ticket is not yet aligned with an event, when you select the Create Ticket option or click the life-ring icon () for that event, SL1 sets a "request" flag for the ticket and displays an acknowledgment that a new ticket has been requested. You can then use the "request" in run book logic to create the ticket on the external system.

Click Save to save your changes.

NOTE: For more details on events and external tickets, see the section on integrating events and external tickets.

Integrating Events with External Tickets

The Ticket External Reference column on the Events page (or the External Ticket column on the Event Console page of the classic user interface) lets you integrate events with an external ticketing system.

If an external ticket is aligned with an event, then when you select the Create Ticket option (or click the life-ring icon ()) for that event, SL1 spawns a new window and displays the external ticket (as specified in the force_ticket_uri field).
If an external ticket is not yet aligned with an event, when you select the Create Ticket option (or click the life-ring icon ()) for that event, SL1 sets a "request" flag for the ticket and displays an acknowledgment that a new ticket has been requested. You can then use the "request" in run book logic to create the ticket on the external system.

External Tickets in the Events Page or Event Console

The following two fields in the master_events.events_active database table in SL1 populate the values for external tickets in the Events page (or the Event Console page in the classic SL1 user interface):

force_ticket_uri. This field contains the URI that leads to the external ticket. Selecting the Create Ticket option in the Events page or clicking on the life-ring icon () for an external ticket in the Event Console page opens a new window with this loaded.
ext_ticket_ref. Name or ID number associated with the external ticket. This value is displayed in the Ticket External Reference column on the Events page (or the External Ticket column on the Event Console page of the classic user interface).

The value stored in the ext_ticket_ref field for an event (i.e., the ticket number for that event on the external ticketing system) is displayed in the Ticket External Reference column on the Events page (or the External Ticket column on the Event Console page of the classic user interface) for that event.

For example, suppose the events in an off-site SL1 system are being integrated with the ScienceLogic Customer Care ticketing system, em7.sciencelogic.com. On the off-site system, for each event that has an open ticket, the force_ticket_uri and ext_ticket_ref values would be set to those of a ticket on the em7.sciencelogic.com system.

Suppose we want to test using a single ticket. Suppose this ticket has the TID 10000 on the system em7.sciencelogic.com.

In the off-site SL1 system, we would define the following:

force_ticket_uri. The URI that leads to the ticket in the off-site system. Selecting the Create Ticket option in the Events page (or clicking on the life-ring icon () for an external ticket in the Event Console page of the classic user interface) opens a new window with the URI loaded.

http://em7.sciencelogic.com/em7/index.em7?exec=ticket_management#tickets_search.tid=10000

ext_ticket_ref. Name or ID number that is displayed in the Ticket External Reference column on the Events page (or the External Ticket column on the Event Console page of the classic user interface) in the off-site system. We would enter:

10000

Using Run Book Automation to Populate the ScienceLogic Database with Values from External Tickets

To integrate events with an external ticketing system, you must create run book automation actions that perform requests to the external ticketing system and populate the force_ticket_uri and ext_ticket_ref fields in the master_events.events_active table.

The following run book automation policies and actions could be used to integrate events with an external ticketing system:

An automation policy that runs when events are created. Depending on your business needs, this automation policy might run when an event is acknowledged or when a user selects the Create Ticket option on the Events page (or the life-ring icon () in the Event Console in the classic SL1 user interface). This automation policy would execute the following actions:

One or more snippet actions that create a ticket in the external ticketing system. The ticket can be created using one or more of the available variables; for example, %M contains the message text for the event that triggered the automation policy. One of the snippet actions could pass the ticket ID for the ticket to SL1.
An SQL query action that updates the ext_ticket_ref and force_ticket_uri fields for the event. The value of ext_ticket_ref should be set to the value passed by the previous snippet action (accessed using the %_EM7_RESULT_% variable). The SQL query should use the %e variable (the event ID for the event that triggered the automation policy) to ensure that the query updates the correct event.

An automation policy that runs when events are cleared. This automation policy would execute a snippet action that:

Performs an SQL query to retrieve the ext_ticket_ref value for the event that triggered the automation policy.
Resolves the appropriate ticket in the external ticketing system.

For details on creating run book automation policies, see the section on run book automation.

Aligning an External Ticket with Multiple Events

Initially, to link an external ticket to a ScienceLogic event, you must create a custom run book automation policy and a custom run book action or use the ScienceLogic APIs. For a description of these tasks, see the section on Integrating Events with External Tickets. For help with these tasks, contact ScienceLogic Customer Care.

After linking an external ticket to a ScienceLogic event, you can copy that link to other related events. This section describes how to copy the link to an external ticket to multiple, related events.

To copy the link to an external ticket to multiple, related events:

Go to the Events page.
Select the checkboxes of the events to which you want to copy the link to an external ticket and then click Align:

The Align External Tickets modal appears. This page displays a list of external tickets that are currently aligned with active events. Select the external ticket that you want to align with the selected events. Click Align.
The selected events now display the external ticket ID in the Ticket External Reference column.

Aligning an External Ticket with Multiple Events in the Classic User Interface

To copy the link to an external ticket to multiple, related events in the classic SL1 user interface:

In the Event Console page, select the checkbox for each event that you want to align with a single external ticket.
In the Select Action drop-down list, select Set External Ticket and then click the Go button.

The Set External Ticket modal appears. This page displays a list of external tickets that are currently aligned with active events. Select the external ticket that you want to align with the selected events. Click Save.

The selected events now display the external ticket ID in the External Ticket column.