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Difference between Runbooks and Solutions?

Hi All,

I've recently seen that SWs have added Runbooks (to the following area 'Setup > Service Desk').

I just want to get an understanding of what others feel the difference is between solutions and runbooks? I know for solutions internally we have sort of processes we follow, but not sure if these then would cross over the runbooks?

If I can get some examples of how others use solutions and runbooks that would be extremely helpful.

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Comments

PGollmer

Solutions are more like written documentation, while Runbooks are process-driven and can be tied directly into a ticket or incident.

In our org, we use Solutions a few different ways. We’ve used them as canned responses (before response templates existed), as internal step-by-step guides for technicians, and as a public knowledge base for end users.

Runbooks are more focused on handling the process side of things. We’re planning to use them for more complex troubleshooting that techs might not remember offhand, and also to help handle cases where service catalog items aren’t submitted correctly. Instead of converting those into proper service requests, Runbooks let us work through them in a more structured way within the existing ticket.

deric.hensel

From my understanding,

Runbooks attach a process to an Incident (not available for Requests at this time)
you can then have tasks or approvals added to an Incident if the scope of the problem changes and needs approvals.

Solutions are extra notes you can add to provide a description and steps of what you did to resolve a ticket. This then gets added to the "Knowledge Base" section. This is helpful if you want to document a common problem and a fix for it, so that the AI from Samange can then reference it and suggest it to you when you have another ticket come in for the same problem.

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