A practical checklist for ensuring consistent, clear, and validated case handling — aligned to the CaseOps Support Case Framework.
This guide defines the deliverables for each case and links to the long-term Maturity Map for professional growth tracking.
Focus: Establish shared context and comprehension: confirming scope, urgency, and clarity before investigation begins.
- A screenshare was offered when appropriate (e.g., Sev1/2s, hot Sev2s, or cases that remain unclear after initial interactions).
- Scope has been clarified and documented.
- Urgency has been clarified and documented.
- Discovery questions were asked to gather complete context.
- Follow-up questions were used to clarify the problem and understand the issue.
- Details of call sessions are documented in a case comment.
- The correct Product & Topic is identified.
Focus: Confirm reproducibility and quality of evidence: ensuring findings are verifiable and complete before analysis.
- Steps to Reproduce (STR) are documented accurately.
- Steps to Reproduce has been validated internally**.
- Supporting documentation has been attached to the case.
- Gaps in understanding or reproducibility have been identified and addressed before proceeding.
- If possible, issue has been reproduced in isolated sandbox environments for testing and isolating potential root causes.
- Evidence from the customer has been reviewed for accuracy and completeness.
Focus: Investigate, correlate, and validate: identifying root causes through research, logs, and expert collaboration.
- Relevant logs (e.g., Splunk, debug logs, console, browser, system logs) have been analyzed for errors, trends, or performance indicators.
- Prior related or similar cases and investigaitons have been reviewed for possible patterns or precedents.
- Official documentation, internal articles, and trusted external sources have been searched and referenced.
- When leveraging AI, all troubleshooting steps are performed by the engineer.
- AI-generated solutions are validated with appropriate public-facing, official knowledge articles.
- Initiated a collaborative review with Subject Matter Experts** when next steps are unclear.
Focus: Maintain transparency and consistency: ensuring customers and internal stakeholders are informed and aligned.
- Next steps and timelines are clearly defined and documented within the last 2 working days (or agreed cadence).
- The top case comment is no older than 2 working days and includes either a public update or internal comment that identifies next steps.
- Collaborative review and Investigation progress is documented when necessary.
- Cases are placed in Needs More Information or Solution Provided prior to going out of office for longer than a day.
Focus: Drive resolution and accountability: documenting decisions, validations, and ensuring timely collaboration.
- Documentation of troubleshooting, escalation, and validation steps is complete and accurate.
- All key decisions, reproductions, and solution validations are recorded in the case notes.
- Escalation cadence and timelines are followed when a path to resolution is not clearly defined:
- Initiated a collaborative review with appropraite teams if next steps have not been identified within 2 working days.
- Structured Investigation if next steps have not been identified within 5 working days.
For long-term growth objectives, see
Maturity Map →