Incident and Service request: How are they different?
An incident as ‘an unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service.’ When everything works exactly the way it’s meant to, the service in question operates without a hitch. But when something doesn’t, it causes ‘unplanned interruptions’ to the service and creates an incident. These interruptions can be anything from your computer not booting up to the Wi-Fi not working.
Service Requests however are defined as ‘a formal request from a user for something to be provided – for example, a request for information or advice’. In other words, a service request is raised when you want to procure something that you don’t have in the first place. Be it access to the printer or upgrading to a higher version of a software.
A list of standard services that are offered by information services can be found in the Service Catalogue section of the portal.