Propose an Answer from an Incident

You can propose an incident to become a potential answer for your knowledge base.

Sometimes a customer’s question is common enough that you believe other customers should also have access to the answer. If you believe that this information belongs in the knowledge base, you can propose the incident as a potential answer that customers can view without needing to submit a service request. This helps the knowledge base stay current with the information customers need.

When you propose an incident as an answer, a knowledge engineer receives a copy of the incident and determines if it should become an answer. If it should, the knowledge engineer first defines an answer access level, answer status, language, and visibility, and then publishes the answer.

Note: Incident custom fields may or may not be included when you propose an incident as an answer. If you propose an incident from an incidents report, by either right-clicking the incident and selecting Propose or by clicking Propose on the report ribbon, the incident custom fields are not added to the Notes tab on the Propose Incident for Answer window. If, however, you click Propose from an open incident, the custom fields do appear on the Propose Incident for Answer window.

1. Do one of the following:
   • From an incidents report, right-click the incident and select Propose Incident.
   • With the incident open, click Propose.
2. Review the proposed answer and make any necessary edits.
3. To add a note to the proposed answer, click the Notes field and enter your comments.
4. To add or remove any products or categories associated with the proposed answer, click the Products and/or Categories tab. Select those you want to associate with the proposed answer, and clear those you do not want to associate with the answer.
   The products and categories associated with the incident are selected by default.
5. To remove any files that are permanently attached to the incident from the proposed answer, click the Files tab. Clear the check box next to any file you do not want to propose with the incident.
   All files permanently attached to the incident are selected to be proposed with the incident by default.
6. Click OK.
   A confirmation message lets you know that an answer was proposed from the incident.