> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.serval.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Problem Management > Investigate recurring issues or cause of incidents, and use AI to remediate and prevent future disruption Problem management in Serval is how you find and eliminate the underlying cause behind one or more incidents. Where an incident requires restoring service quickly, a **Problem** ticket tracks the investigation, root-cause analysis, and permanent fix so the same issue doesn't come back. Serval pairs the ITIL problem workflow with AI that suggests remediations, runs root-cause analysis, and proactively surfaces problems before they turn into incidents. *** ## What Is a Problem Ticket? A **Problem** ticket is a ticket type dedicated for investigating the cause behind recurring or high-impact incidents and driving it to a permanent resolution. Unlike requests (which fulfill an ask) or incidents (which restore service), problem tickets exist to answer *why* something keeps happening — capturing the investigation, the impacted services, a workaround, and the eventual fix in one tracked record. Incidents are about restoring service quickly; problems are about making sure the same issue doesn't come back. A single problem often sits behind several related incidents. *** ## When to Use a Problem Ticket Use a **Problem** ticket to capture the underlying issue itself — a statement of what's going wrong and its suspected cause — so it can be tracked to a resolution while service is being restored. Common examples include: * **Recurring issue** — "The VPN keeps dropping every afternoon around peak usage" * **Unexplained outage** — "Last week's AWS outage was caused by an unknown issue that appears related to the database" * **Known error** — "Large report exports time out; the workaround is to split them, but the underlying cause is still open" An owner is assigned the problem and decides what to do with it — whether to trigger a [Change](/sections/documentation/ticketing/change-management) to implement the permanent fix or raise a [Request](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/ticket-types#requests) for a related service need. *** ## Creating a Problem Ticket Problem tickets are created the same way as every other ticket type in Serval — there's nothing inherently different about a problem. What varies is *who* opens it: * **Manually** — A team member opens a problem directly, or spins one up from an incident or major incident that revealed a deeper issue. * **By a background agent** — A [background agent](/sections/documentation/catalyst/catalyst-workspace#agents) that has proactively identified a problem and been instructed to create one opens the ticket on its own. When a background agent creates a problem, the ticket links back to the [agent report](/sections/documentation/catalyst/catalyst-workspace#agents) that generated it, so you can review the full root-cause analysis behind the problem. Click **Create Ticket** from the ticket list, or open a problem from an existing ticket. In the dialog header, select **Problem** as the ticket type. From an incident or major incident, choose **Derive ticket…** to create a problem. Serval uses AI to draft the new problem's title, description, priority, labels, and custom fields from the source ticket, and links the two records automatically. See [Ticket Flows](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-flows) for the full behavior. Provide a title and description. You can also set priority, assignee, assignment group, category and subcategory, labels, due date, and any custom fields configured for problems. Attach the configuration items and services the problem affects so the team can track impact and route the work correctly. The ticket is created and the investigation begins. Related incidents can be linked so the problem tracks everything it sits behind. *** ## How Problem Management Works in Serval A team member opens a problem, derives it from a recurring incident or major incident, or an AI background agent surfaces it from issues discovered across your environment. When a problem is derived from another ticket, key fields carry over and the tickets are linked; when a background agent creates it, the problem links back to the agent report and its root-cause analysis. Your team sets priority, category, and ownership — assigning an assignment group and an assignee — and links any related incidents the problem represents. The owner investigates across systems, logging findings as internal notes. Problem tasks break the investigation into assignable pieces of work, and AI assistance helps troubleshoot and record what it finds. Serval suggests remediations — a knowledge article, a missing workflow or automation, or the skills the help agent needs. When a permanent fix requires a controlled modification, a [Change](/sections/documentation/ticketing/change-management) is triggered, subject to your approval policies. Once the root cause is eliminated, the problem is resolved. Notifications and updates flow to linked records and stakeholders so everyone affected by the original incidents is informed. *** ## AI-Powered Problem Management Serval's AI is embedded throughout the problem lifecycle. Build and run workflow automations inside problem tickets by describing what you want in plain language, with AI assistance throughout the building experience. AI proposes auto-remediations and fixes — a new or updated knowledge article, a missing workflow or automation, or the skills the help agent needs to resolve or prevent the issue. The Catalyst assistant interacts with the problem ticket, logs new information as it's discovered, troubleshoots across connected systems, and helps manage the state of the record. Background agents run root-cause analysis and proactively discover problems from incident patterns, generating automations to anticipate issues before they occur. Suggested remediations are surfaced for review on the record. You decide what to accept — turning a suggestion into a knowledge article, a workflow, or an added agent skill. *** ## Problem Tasks Problems are worked through **[problem tasks](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/tasks)** — assignable units of investigation or remediation. * **Workflow automation** — The help agent will call any available workflows to either investigate or remediate the issue. This includes an update in an external system or in Serval. * **AI assisted troubleshooting** — Catalyst assistant helps with problem discovery and resolution and auto-generates remediations. * **Manual creation** — Team members can create problem tasks by hand, each with its own assignment group allocation. Tasks can be routed to the group best suited to the work, and SLAs can be applied to individual tasks as well as to the parent problem. *** ## Assignment & Ownership Problems and problem tasks support both manual and automated allocation: * **Manual allocation** — Assign a problem to an assignment group and an individual assignee by hand. * **Automatic allocation** — Set the assignment group automatically, driven by an [assignment rules](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/assignment) table or a workflow. *** ## Categorization & Impact * **Category & subcategory** — Classify each problem record for routing, reporting, and analysis. * **Configuration item & service association** — Associate the problem with the CIs and services it relates to. * **Impacted service detection** — Serval automatically detects and lists the services a problem impacts. *** ## Linking & Related Records Problems rarely stand alone. Serval connects them to the rest of your ITSM records: * **Link to any record** — Link a problem to any existing ticket record, such as a change or an incident. * **Create from any record** — Create a problem from any ticket record (change, incident, and more), pre-populating key fields from the source. This keeps every incident a problem sits behind — and every change that resolves it — connected to a single investigation. *** ## Approvals, SLAs & Notifications * **Rules-based change approval** — Table-driven approval policies govern when a change stemming from a problem requires authorization. * **SLAs** — Apply SLA records to both problem and problem task records to track investigation and remediation time. * **Notifications** — Generate notifications on relevant problem record updates so owners and stakeholders stay informed. *** ## Audit & Traceability * **Internal notes** — Add and view previously entered notes that are hidden from end users, keeping the investigation trail private to your team. * **Audit traceability** — Every record change is traceable — who changed what and when. *** ## Related Pages * [Ticket Types](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/ticket-types) * [Ticket Flows](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-flows) * [Incident Management](/sections/documentation/ticketing/incident-management) * [Change Management](/sections/documentation/ticketing/change-management) * [Tasks](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/tasks) * [SLAs](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/slas) * [Workflows](/sections/documentation/workflows/overview)