Published 13 Jul 2023
What is an IT Incident Report Template?
An IT incident report template is a document used to declare and document issues and events where normal Information Technology (IT) processes are disrupted, stopped, or affected. This can be used for managing and addressing hardware issues, cybersecurity issues, and software issues.
In this article
- Importance and Benefits of Reporting IT Incidents
- What Should be in an IT Incident Report Template?
- FAQs about IT Incident Report Templates
- Manage IT Incidents and Issues with a Digital Reporting Solution
- Related IT Incident Report Templates
Importance and Benefits of Reporting IT Incidents
In many businesses today, major operations have become heavily on IT systems to support their operations. However, despite the best preventive measures, IT incidents can still occur. These incidents can significantly affect businesses, leading to financial losses, reputation damage, and customer dissatisfaction.
An IT incident such as system outages, network failures, security breaches, software glitches, and hardware malfunctions are often preventable or within human control, but others, however, are not. This is why effective incident reporting is a critical aspect of maintaining the stability and security of your organization’s IT systems. It allows you to promptly address and resolve issues that may arise, ensuring uninterrupted business operations. It also helps prevent future problems from coming up as with records of past incidents, you can improve existing systems to avoid the risks that caused them.
Additionally, by utilizing a well-designed IT incident report template, you can streamline the reporting process and reap numerous benefits. IT incident reports need to be in a standardized format for documentation processes to be smooth and for trends in breakages, damages, and interruptions to be better understood. Templates also help ensure that all important information regarding an incident is properly noted and that all necessary people are notified regarding it, all while being easily reproducible.
Other benefits of an IT incident report template include the following:
- Enhanced communication and collaboration among staff
- Improved incident response time and risk management process
- Streamline root cause analysis for incidents
- Data-driven decision-making for future maintenance and asset management
- Compliance with internal and legal requirements
What Should be in an IT Incident Report Template?
Each industry and business has its own IT system and format for reporting. Typically, a general IT incident report template will have fields for the following for:
- Incident number
- Name and details of the person or people involved
- Date and time of incident
- Name and details of person reporting the incident
- Status of the incident
- Location of incident
- Number of systems affected by the incident
- Number of hardware affected by the incident
- Impact of the incident to business partners, processes, and the overall workflows
- Observations and comments
Here is an example of an IT incident report template in use:
FAQs about IT Incident Report Templates
There is usually a dedicated IT manager who is in charge of managing and creating an IT incident report template. However, different organizations have different structures, and in some, anyone can use the template as needed, especially in times of reporting incidents.
A rule of a thumb for all incident reports is that they should be filled up immediately as an incident happen. The same should ideally apply to IT incidents as well.
An IT incident report template should be updated periodically depending on your needs and what your findings over previous incidents are. This can be annually, bi-annually, or quarterly. For this, it would be best to go digital and use an online platform to help you out. With a digital solution, you can easily manage and edit your templates as needed, ensuring relevance and effectiveness over time.
Manage IT Incidents and Issues with a Digital Reporting Solution
Easily study trends and assess IT risks through a digital reporting solution such as SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor), a mobile-ready auditing platform used by many companies around the world to track their issues and address them. With SafetyCulture, you can create and use an IT incident report template anytime and anywhere, empowering workers to document and solve data breaches, hardware breakages, and connectivity issues independently.
SafetyCulture has premade IT incident report templates in the Public Library free for use to get you started, all editable and downloadable for offline use as necessary. These templates can also be used in conjunction with other forms such as those dedicated for cybersecurity, risk management, server maintenance, and more. You can also create your own IT incident report template from scratch. All forms are then stored in the cloud for easy access, with each file having their own access controls for privacy and security.
You can also use SafetyCulture to do the following:
- Report issues identified in the IT incident being reported, include photos or videos for better context, and create corrective actions for them
- Communicate with your workers and let them know of IT incidents from anywhere with Heads Up
- Monitor lone workers in different parts of your company or IT hardware systems with SHEQSY
- Train employees on proper IT incident reporting and documentation procedures
- Manage and track IT assets to stay aware of possible risks at all times
- Generate analytical reports based on your IT incident reports to study trends
- Export your IT incident report templates in PDF, Word, Weblink, and Excel formats
Related IT Incident Report Templates
Cyber Security Audit Checklist
Use this checklist to inspect the overall IT security of your organization including hardware, software, programs, people, and data. This is used to assess the organization from potential vulnerabilities caused by unauthorized digital access.
IT Risk Assessment Template
Perform security risk and vulnerability assessments across internal IT technology and systems with this checklist. Identify risks, their risk levels, their likelihood of happening, and how to reduce them and their effects.
Security Audit Checklist
Use this checklist to verify the effectiveness of your organization’s security measures and controls. Through an in-depth security audit, you can better identify areas for improvement and address security issues.
General IT Incident Report Template
Report incidents concerning the server, the server room, and other IT-related incidents through this template. Use your mobile device to take photo evidence and record if there’s damage to property or injury to staff.
