1.44 Outages Tab

Planned outages can be created for an Item under the Outages tab. This is a period of time an Item will not be available for a Customer's use.

If an Item has an SLA with a specified Blackout Period, Outages should be planned to fall within this time. The Blackout Period is an agreement between the Customer and the Service Desk regarding a period of time when the Customer has no service expectations. This can also be the preferred time for Item upgrades and maintenance without affecting service availability.

When an Outage is being created, the Blackout Periods times are displayed to ensure the User creates a new Outage that does not breach the Item's SLA.

NOTE:To display the Outages tile, Planned Outages Page and Outages Page should be set to Yes in Setup > Privileges > System | Outage Options.

The Outage will be displayed only when the Minimum Criticality for an Item Category is set to equal or higher criticality, and the Item must be deployed.

For Item, Criticality must be equal to or higher than the Item Category Minimum Criticality setting.

To view the Outages Offline, go to the “Item Category” and ensure that the Offline State and Customer Visible are set to Yes.

1.44.1 Outages List View

This page lists all the outages. Using the filter option, you can view planned, current, and concluded outages.

You can perform the following actions in this page:

  • Using the column headers, you can sort or search the outages at the header level.

  • To view an outage, click the required outage tab.

  • To edit an outage, click the required outage tab, and then click the icon.

  • To delete an outage, select the required outage, and then click the icon.

1.44.2 Creating an Outage

To create an Outage, perform the following steps:

  1. In ZENworks Service Desk portal, click Configuration > Outages.

  2. In the Outages page, Click the icon at the bottom of the page.

    The changes are applied only you save the Outage.

    Planned Outages

     

    Details

    Description

    Interval

    Select One Time if the Outage is a one off, or set regular outages based on a weekly or monthly basis.

    Start Date

    Select the Start Date within the calendar, and modify the Time accordingly inside the calendar pop-up.

    End Date

    Select the End Date within the calendar, and modify the Time accordingly inside the calendar pop-up.

    Notification

    Select Email or SMS Notification about the Outage is to be sent to the Primary Contact of the Org. Unit and All Owners associated with the Item, or All members of the Org Unit and All Owners associated with the Item.

    Reminder

    This option is displayed when a Notification is set for the Outage.

    If a Reminder notification is to be applied to the Outage, check the box and define the period of time prior to the Planned Outage period that the reminder is to be issued.

    Reason

    Enter a description that details why a Planned Outage is being scheduled.

  3. To associate an item to outage, perform the following:

    1. In the Items section, click Add.

    2. In the Advanced Item Search, specify the required keywords to search the required items.

    3. Select the required items, and then click Select Item.

    4. Define the Offline Status and Online Status for the Item

      These are the States the Item will be automatically assigned in the CMDB when the Planned Outage commences and ends.

    5. To view the blackout window, click the icon.

  4. Click Create.

    To view the details of the Outage, select the Outage No. link in the Outage List View.

See: Outages for more information on setting up and viewing Item Outages.