Criteria for a Severity 1 ticket

Understand how Pega support engineers assess support tickets for Severity 1 treatment based on the environment for which the support ticket was created. 

Criteria for on-premises environments and client-managed cloud environments

For on-premises environments and client cloud environments, Severity 1 indicates that the production system is down or inaccessible. 

Criteria for Pega Cloud environments

For Pega Cloud environments, Severity 1 indicates that the Pega Cloud Service is down, inaccessible, or the service is unusable resulting in a total disruption to the client.

When these conditions exist, the case must be assessed and handled as a Severity 1 situation for all production environments for both cloud and product support tickets. 

For private cloud environments, you, the Pega client, own your environment; Pega cannot control it. Therefore, Severity 1 for private cloud environments applies only when the production system is down or inaccessible.

Raising a Severity 1 Incident

A severity 1 incident maybe raised by Pega Staff or Client:

Client Raised

• Incident is triaged and assigned within 15 minutes
• For Pega Cloud clients  Proactive Incident Contacts may be added to the case and notified.

Pega Raised

• Incident is assigned within 15 minutes
• For Pega Cloud clients Proactive Incident Contacts will be added to the case and notified

Process for a Severity 1 Incident

Off-hours support is limited to Severity 1 tickets.

Here are the steps of the Severity 1 ticket process flow:

1. You call Support or create a support ticket describing the Business Impact and other factors as severe. 
   Depending on the details that you provide for Business Impact and other information, the Pega support team assesses your situation and assigns the ticket a Severity Level of 1.  

2. The support engineer starts case triage.

3. Typically, a bridge is opened to facilitate collaboration between the support team and you, the client. 

4. The support team investigates the Severity 1 situation.
   This investigation takes priority over all other tickets and can involve multiple support and product engineers.  

5. The support engineer resolves the Severity 1 ticket when the primary objective is met:
   The primary objective of a Severity 1 investigation is to return the system to its normal operational state so that the business can continue.  If further actions are required, once the primary objective is achieved, the severity of the case can be reduced to a severity 2 until the case is finally resolved.

6. The support engineer evaluates whether a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) case is required following the closure of the Severity 1 ticket or its reduction to severity 2. This is a separate ticket that is created by the Pega support team, typically Severity 2, to enable Pega engineers to identify the root cause and learn from the issue. 

Participation on a Bridge

Pega's participation on a joint Pega / Client bridge will vary depending on the type of incident and persona

Ongoing Communications

For all Severity 1 cases our target is to have the initial communications entered into the ticket within one hour. This will provide all contacts, associated with the ticket, with a email notification (depending on their notification preference settings)

All subsequent communications will  be as agreed and communicated in the previous communication.

Severity 1 - Client Escalation

Severity 1 cases should not require escalating as they have our highest attention until the problem is resolved. However if you do require additional assistance please contact the Support helpdesk and ask for the incident to be escalated. Request a regional manager to contact you.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

After a Severity 1 ticket is resolved, the Pega support engineer might perform a Root Cause Analysis (RCA). RCA tickets can also be created for lower severity tickets as deemed necessary. A separate RCA ticket is created to track this activity. A Pega support engineer might reach out to you for information to help complete the analysis. Your response time can affect the timeframe in which the RCA report is shared.

1. The support engineer uses following criteria, any one criterion or all criteria, to evaluate whether an RCA ticket is required:

   • There is not an existing open RCA ticket for your account for the same issue.
     If an RCA ticket already exists, your Severity 1 ticket will be associated with the existing RCA ticket. 

   • The root cause is not yet determined.

   • Follow-up actions are required from either Pega engineers or your team to prevent further impact.

   • Concern exists that the problem might recur despite removing the current impediment.

2. The new RCA ticket, usually created by the primary support engineer who handled the Severity 1 ticket, is reviewed by both technical and management personnel on the support team. During the course of the RCA investigation, the Pega support engineer might request that you provide additional information or supporting documentation.

   • Help the support engineer with any information that can inform the RCA ticket.

   • Share information such as previous problems reported or not reported that could be related. This information helps the engineer to identify a pattern.

   • Own and drive any client-specific actions or recommendations provided by the support engineer and update the RCA ticket with your actions.

3. The support team aims to deliver the RCA report within five (5) business days of the Severity 1 ticket closure (Step 5 above), and this will be attached to the RCA ticket.

   • The RCA report helps you understand the reason for a service failure or degradation. It includes remediation items and recommendations to help prevent a similar situation from recurring.

   • The RCA report provides you with the confidence that Pega engineers have performed an initial analysis of the high-impact problem reported and that they have a plan of action to prevent it or minimize future impacts.

   • Note that Pega engineers might not always deliver the RCA report within the five-day timeframe. However, it is imperative that Pega engineers communicate what they have found as soon as possible.

   • One or more actions might remain outstanding after Pega engineers deliver the RCA report. The RCA ticket remains open until all unresolved actions are remediated. Some actions might be owned by Pega; others might be owned by you or a member of your team.

The Problem Management methodology at Pega is designed to continuously improve the reliability of Pega environments. Understanding the root cause of major situations reported in support tickets helps you better understand your environment so that can you design your application for optimal availability. 

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