Get Started with Parent / Child Tickets

Overview

Creating relationships between parent-child tickets allows for establishing relationships between parent classifications and child classifications within an Enterprise Service Management (ESM) ticketing applications. With these relationships in place, updates, comments, and other features can be cascaded from the parent down through the children to communicate and manage tickets more effectively than by managing each ticket individually.

Use Cases

Some potential use cases for parent/child ticket assignments include, but are not limited to:

• A Major Incident (e.g., network outage) with additional, related tickets all assigned as child tickets with the classification of Incident.
• A Release that includes a number of Change requests to be fulfilled.
• A Change to be deployed that addresses a known issue within a Problem, which caused a Major Incident, that impacted a number of related Service Requests.

Classification Eligibility for Parent/Child Ticket Relationships

The following classifications can be child tickets:

• Incidents
• Service Requests
• Major Incidents
• Problems
• Changes

The following classifications can be parent tickets:

• Major Incidents
• Problems
• Changes
• Releases

Note that some tickets can be both parents and children. You can have multiple layers of parent/child ticket relationships, or you can skip over classifications when creating parent child ticket relationships.

In this article:

• Establishing a Relationship from the Child TIcket
  • Create Parent
  • Set Parent
• Establishing a Relationship from the Parent Ticket
  • Add Existing
  • Add New
• Cascading Updates
  • Cascading Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Resources

• Internet connectivity
• Web Browser
• TDWorkManagement license
• Access to one, or more ESM Ticketing application(s)

Establishing a Relationship from the Child Ticket

There are two ways to build a parent/child relationship from within the future child ticket. Remember that the ticket's classification must meet the criteria above to be eligible to be a child ticket.

Create Parent

1. Click Actions > Create Parent
2. Select a form for the parent ticket.
   Important

   Available options will only include forms whose classifications are eligible to be parents of the classification of the current ticket.
3. Make any additional changes to the form and then click Save.
   Tip

   When using this method, the form will pull in values from the originating ticket whenever possible.

The ticket created will automatically be assigned as the parent ticket, and the original ticket will become the child ticket to the parent.

Set Parent

1. Click Actions > Set Parent
2. Type in the Ticket ID# of the parent ticket, or search for it by clicking on the magnifying glass.
3. Click Save when finished.

The assigned ticket will then serve as the parent, and the originating ticket will be set as the child for that parent.

Establishing a Relationship from the Parent Ticket

There are two ways to build a parent/child relationship from within the parent ticket. Remember that the ticket's classification must meet the criteria above to be eligible to be a parent ticket.

Add Existing

Use this method to associate an existing ticket as a child to an existing parent ticket.

1. From within the Children tab of the parent ticket, click Add Existing.
   Important

   If the Children tab does not exist on the ticket, then this ticket is not eligible to become a parent ticket.
2. In the Add Children window, check the box(es) next to the ticket(s) you want to become child tickets.
   Important

   By default, only tickets that are not in a resolved or closed status will be displayed.
   Tip

   You can use the Filter option to refine which tickets are displayed to be linked to the parent ticket.
3. Click Add Selected to add the selected tickets as child tickets.

The newly added tickets will appear in the list beneath the Children tab of the parent ticket.

Add New

Use this method to create a new ticket as a child to an existing parent ticket.

1. From within the Children tab of the parent ticket, click Add New.
   Important

   If the Children tab does not exist on the ticket, then this ticket is not eligible to become a parent ticket.
2. Select the Classification of the child ticket you would like to create.
   Important

   Only eligible classifications will appear in this list. Review the Classification Eligibility section above for more information.
3. In the popup window, select the desired form and fill out the form fields. Click Save when finished.
   Tip

   When using this method, the form will pull in values from the originating ticket whenever possible.

The ticket created will automatically be assigned as a child ticket, and the original ticket will become the parent ticket. The newly created ticket will automatically appear in the list beneath the Children tab of the parent ticket.

Cascading Updates

When making an update to a parent ticket, you can choose to Cascade the update from the parent down through the children. This will recursively update the Status on all children of the parent ticket. Not only are children of this ticket updated, but also this ticket's children's children, and so on.

Cascaded updates include the following:

• The change in the ticket Status
• Any Notification selections
• The Comment entered when performing the Update

To Cascade an Update, the ticket being updated must be a parent ticket with child tickets assigned to it.

1. Click Actions > Update
2. In the popup window, click Cascade
3. A dropdown box called Cascade Notification will appear.
   • If desired, select the role(s) that you want to notify. These correspond to the roles that exist on the child tickets. Choices include:
     • Reviewers / Reviewing Groups
     • Creators
     • Requestors
     • Responsible Persons / Groups
     Important

     At this time it is not possible to notify contacts on child tickets through a cascade notification; however, ticket contacts will be able to review the update by viewing the ticket in the Client/Service Portal.
4. Add a Comment.
5. Update any other additional fields as necessary, then click Save.

Cascaded updates will read as (Update Cascaded) if the Cascade checkbox is checked.

If Cascade Notification is used, It will appear as Update Cascaded (Notified: Role(s)), e.g., Update Cascaded (Notified: Creators, Requestors)

Cascading Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

You can also assign an SLA to the parent ticket and cascade the SLA assignment down through the children. Simply check the Update SLA on all children checkbox when using either Actions > Assign SLA or Actions > Reassign SLA.

Need additional help or have issues

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For immediate assistance please review the Contact Us page for ways to contact the appropriate support group.