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Release: Australia · Updated: 2026-03-12 · Official documentation · View source

Problem Management in Service Operations Workspace

When you have recurring incidents or a major incident, you can create a problem to identify the root cause of the incidents and help prevent them from happening again. Use Service Operations Workspace to manage problems through their life cycle, share workarounds or fixes with related incidents, and create known error articles to help deflect incidents.

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Problem record in Service Operations Workspace

Overview tab

This tab displays the following information about a problem:

Summary
Analysis information
Resolution information
Problem tasks and fix tasks
Impact
Work notes

You can configure the problem record overview tab and its UI elements in the Service Operations Workspace Admin Center. For more information, see Manage configurations in Service Operations Workspace for ITSM.

You can optionally enable the following shortcuts, accessible from both the header and Tasks (problem and fix) drop-down menus:

Create defect (for more information and requirements, see Agile Development 2.0)
Create enhancement (for more information and requirements, see Agile Development 2.0)
Create improvement initiative (for more information and requirements, see Continual Improvement Management)

For all other configuration options, see Configuring Problem Management in Service Operations Workspace.

Details tab

This section displays the detailed information of a problem. For information about fields in this section, see Create a problem in Service Operations Workspace.

From the Compose section, you can add work notes for the problem.

All fields that are available on the Problem form in ServiceNow AI Platform are available in Service Operations Workspace. However, on the problem form in Service Operations Workspace, the State field is read-only. For information about state transitions of a problem, see Life cycle of a problem.

For information on how you can configure fields in this tab, see Configuring Problem Management in Service Operations Workspace.

Problem Tasks tab

This section displays problems tasks associated with this problem. Problem tasks are created when you need help from other teams to identify a fix for the problem. For information about creating a problem task, see Create a problem task in Service Operations Workspace.

Fix Tasks tab

This section displays fix tasks associated with the problem. In Service Operations Workspace, only change requests are configured as fix tasks. For information about the List of related task records (comma-separated) to track as fixes for this Problem property where the fix tasks are configured, see Configure properties for Problem Management in Service Operations Workspace.

This section displays the following records related to the problem. You can add a record, create a record, or remove it from the problem.

Incidents
Affected CIs
Outages
Knowledge attached from Agent Assist

Contextual side panel

From this section, you can access Agent assist and search for relevant records and perform the required actions.

For more information about Problem Management, see Problem Management.

Create a problem in Service Operations Workspace
Investigate the root cause of recurring incidents or a major incident. Provide a permanent fix to help prevent them from happening again.
Work on a problem in Service Operations Workspace
Manage problems and problem tasks through their life cycle, share workarounds or fixes with related incidents, and create known error articles to help deflect incidents.
Problem Management models in Service Operations Workspace
You can use Problem Management models to tailor processes for specific use cases.
Create a problem task in Service Operations Workspace
When you need to engage another team or agent for help, create and assign a problem task.
Work on a problem task in Service Operations Workspace
Manage problems and problem tasks through their life cycle, share workarounds or fixes with related incidents, and create known error articles to help deflect incidents.
Problem Management in Service Operations Workspace reference
Reference topics provide additional information about Problem Management in Service Operations Workspace.