Which of the following statements BEST describes how the existence of a documented workaround should influence the severity level that is assigned to a support ticket?
Severity is determined solely by how recently the issue occurred, so workarounds are irrelevant to severity classification.
A workaround may reduce urgency, but severity should still be based on business impact; an issue can remain high-severity even when a workaround exists.
Tickets without a workaround cannot be assigned high severity because severity only measures workaround availability.
A documented workaround by itself warrants assigning the lowest possible severity, regardless of business impact.
A workaround can lower the urgency of an incident because users have a temporary way to keep working, but it does not automatically make the issue low-severity. Severity should still reflect the overall business impact (for example, risk of data loss, number of users affected, or critical service disruption). Many frameworks even define a "Critical with Workaround" category that is still treated as high severity. Therefore, the presence of a workaround is only one of several factors considered when setting severity; on its own it does not guarantee a low value.
Ask Bash
Bash is our AI bot, trained to help you pass your exam. AI Generated Content may display inaccurate information, always double-check anything important.
What factors influence the severity level of an IT issue?
Open an interactive chat with Bash
What is meant by a workaround in the context of IT issues?
Open an interactive chat with Bash
What are common severity levels used in IT ticketing systems?