Understanding Urgency, Impact, and Priority
From InSite
Defining the terms
Urgency is a measure of how long it will be until an Incident, Problem, or Change has a significant Impact on the Business. For example, an Incident may have low Urgency if the Impact will not affect the Business until the end of the financial year. In another example, Urgency might be high if the available time until the resolution of the Incident is estimated to be up to 30 minutes before the Impact on the business becomes high. It might be medium if the available time until the resolution of the Incident is estimated to be up to 2 hours before the Impact on the business becomes high. It might be low if the available time until the resolution of the Incident is estimated to be up to 6 hours before the impact on the business becomes high. These hours may vary according to your particular situation. They are presented only as examples.
Impact is the degree of seriousness of the effect of an Incident, Problem, or Change on Business Processes. Impact is often based on how Service Levels will be affected. For example, the level of impact caused to the business might be high if it causes an interruption to critical business processes. It might be medium if it causes an interruption to the work of individual employees and there is no known workaround. It might be low if it causes a slowdown in the work of individual employees but these employees can implement a workaround that enables them to keep working.
Priority is used to identify the relative importance of an Incident, Problem, or Change. Specifically, it is used to identify required times for actions to be taken. For example, Priority determines how long an object can be left in a pending state. It is a programmable field in InSite and is calculated based on the interaction of the levels of Urgency and Impact.
Urgency and Impact Determine Priority
You set the values of Urgency and Impact when you create a new object record on the New Incident screen, New Problem screen, or New Change screen. You can reset the values of Urgency and/or Impact when you edit an existing object record on the appropriate Edit screen. The values that you set for Urgency and Impact are used by InSite to calculate Priority.
InSite calculates the Priority value of supported objects, such as Incidents, Problems, and Changes, using a standard ITIL matrix. This matrix is shown in the table below:
The value of Priority on the object detail screen is calculated and displayed in a read-only field. When you edit the record and reset one or both of the values for Urgency and/or Impact, the value of Priority is recalculated and redisplayed on the object detail screen.
Important: The Priority field is a formula field on the detail screen and its value can only be edited by changing the value(s) in the Impact and Urgency fields. InSite does not support automated recalculations of Priority on the basis of attached Incident children, but you can manually adjust Impact and Urgency in light of having attached Incidents.
