Support ITIL Service Operation using the Microsoft Teams Ticketing System by TeamsWork
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An ITIL ticketing system in Microsoft Teams lets your service desk handle incidents and problems in the same place your team already chats. Setting one up takes three configuration steps in the app.
Below, you set up tags, a ticket form, and ITIL statuses in a ticketing app built for Microsoft Teams, one step at a time.
What is an ITIL ticketing system?
An ITIL ticketing system is software that logs each IT request as a ticket and moves it through the ITIL processes for incidents, service requests, problems, and changes, so every ticket has an owner and a status from logging to closure. In Teams, those tickets sit next to the chats and channels your team uses every day.
ITIL itself defines the processes behind those tickets, and the next section summarizes it.
What is ITIL?
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an IT service management framework that outlines best practices for delivering IT services. The objective of ITIL Service Operation is to ensure IT services are delivered effectively and efficiently. This lifecycle stage includes fulfilling user requests, resolving service failures, fixing problems, and carrying out routine operational tasks.
Service Operation covers several processes, and the next section names the two this guide configures.
Main Processes in ITIL Service Operation
The ITIL service lifecycle stage of Service Operation includes the following main processes:
Incident Management: Manage the lifecycle of all incidents with the primary objective of restoring IT services to users as quickly as possible.
Problem Management: Prevent incidents from happening and minimize the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented. Proactive Problem Management analyzes incident records and uses data from other IT Service Management processes to identify trends or significant problems.
ITIL Service Operation includes more processes than these, and this guide uses the two above as its example.
ITIL ticket types and how to set them up in Teams
ITIL groups tickets into four types, and each one maps to a tag in the ticketing app.
Ticket type | What it covers | Example | Set up in Teams with |
|---|---|---|---|
Incident | An unplanned interruption or drop in the quality of a service | Email stops syncing for a team | Tag "Incident" |
Service request | A routine request for something | A new laptop or access to a shared folder | Tag "Service request" |
Problem | The root cause behind one or more incidents | Repeated VPN drops traced to one gateway | Tag "Problem" |
Change | A planned modification to a service | Updating firmware on the VPN gateway | Tag "Change request" |
The steps below configure incident and problem tags in detail, and service request and change tags follow the same pattern.
Configuring Microsoft Teams Ticketing System to Support ITIL Service Operation
Install the app from the ticketing trial page by clicking "Add to Teams", then work through the three steps below in order; the step-by-step video shows the installation. Steps 2 and 3, and the assignment and SLA settings further down, need the Professional plan or higher.
1) Create Different Tags to Categorize Tickets as Incidents or Problems
Open the Tags tab in the app settings and create one tag category for incidents and one for problems. These tags help you tell the nature of each ticket at a glance, so every issue is handled according to ITIL guidelines. Once the tags exist, filtering and automation by tag lets you route each type without manual sorting.
2) Customize the Ticket Forms to Align with ITIL Incident and Problem Management Requirements
Deactivate the standard fields you do not need and activate Priority if you rank tickets by urgency. Then add custom fields for what your ITIL incident and problem records need, such as incident start and end times and the stakeholders involved.
3) Configure the Ticketing Workflow to Align with ITIL Statuses
Set the ticketing workflow so each ticket moves through ITIL-aligned statuses. In ITIL, incident and request fulfillment can be managed through a ticketing system whose statuses reflect the following:
New: The initial state when a ticket is logged.
Assigned: The ticket has been assigned to the appropriate team or individual.
In Progress: Work has started on the ticket; it's actively being investigated or worked on.
Pending: Awaiting further information, vendor support, or a scheduled change.
Resolved: The issue has been addressed, but it needs to be confirmed by the requester.
Closed: The ticket is completed and confirmed by the requester or automatically after a set period post-resolution.
Cancelled: The issue is no longer relevant or the requester withdraws the ticket.
On Hold: The ticket is temporarily on hold due to various reasons (e.g., awaiting a release window, dependent on another issue).
Escalated: The ticket needs to be handled at a higher urgency level or by higher-level support.
Reopened: The ticket has been reopened due to the issue reoccurring or not being adequately resolved.
With these three steps complete, your ticketing instance supports ITIL Service Operation in Microsoft Teams.
Prioritize, assign, escalate, and close tickets in Teams
To run a ticket through the four ITIL stages in Teams, use these settings:
Prioritize: Set the Priority field you activated in step 2 when you triage, so urgent incidents are worked first.
Assign: Route the ticket to the right person or team, or let the auto-assignee feature do it by tag.
Escalate: Use SLA notification and escalation to flag tickets that are close to their deadline.
Close and document: Move the ticket from Resolved to Closed and record the resolution in the ticket, so repeated incidents can be reviewed later as a problem.
Managing Incidents using Microsoft Teams Ticketing
With your configuration in place, you can start capturing and managing incidents from the first report to resolution. Each ticket records the incident, and its status shows which stage it has reached.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, use our contact form.
Start a free trial of the Ticketing app to set up these three steps in your own Microsoft Teams environment.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an ITIL ticketing system and a service desk?
Think of the service desk as the people and the ITIL ticketing system as their tool: users contact the desk, and the system keeps the status and history of each request.
What is the difference between a help desk and a service desk?
The difference is scope: a help desk fixes immediate technical problems, and a service desk also handles service requests and processes such as SLA management and user communication. Many teams use the two terms interchangeably, so choose by the processes you need to run.
What is the difference between an incident and a problem in ITIL?
Email going down for a morning is an incident, and the recurring mail routing fault behind it is the problem. You close the incident once service is restored and keep the problem open until the cause is fixed.
Can I use Microsoft Teams as an ITIL ticketing system?
Not on its own: Teams has no ticket lifecycle, so you add a ticketing app that runs inside Teams. With Ticketing as a Service, you tag tickets as incidents or problems and set ITIL-aligned statuses without leaving Teams.
How do SLAs work in an ITIL ticketing system?
An SLA sets a response and resolution target for each kind of ticket, and the system tracks the clock and flags tickets at risk of missing it. In Ticketing as a Service, SLA notification and escalation send the alerts.
Can a small team use an ITIL ticketing system?
Yes: start with incidents and problems and a short list of statuses, and add other processes only when you need them. The free plan covers 30 tickets a month, and custom fields and custom workflows need the Professional plan.