What is the use of 'refresh impacted services' ui action in the context menu in Incident application

[Suggy]

What is the use of 'refresh impacted services' ui action in the context menu in Incident application?

Once the CI is selected in the Configuration item field, upon saving the inc form, will the impacted services related list automatically populate or should we manually click on  'refresh impacted services' UI action?

If it gets populated automatically automatically upon saving the form, then why that UI action is given?

[Runjay Patel]

Hi @Suggy ,

The 'Refresh Impacted Services' UI action in the Incident application is typically used to update the 'Impacted Services' field in an Incident record.

When an incident is logged, the 'Impacted Services' field is often populated automatically based on related Configuration Items (CIs) or service relationships defined in the CMDB'. However, changes in relationships, updates to the CMDB, or manually updated incident data might make the existing list of impacted services outdated or incomplete.

Key Points:

1. If the related CIs in the incident have been modified or new dependencies were added, it ensures the latest service impact is reflected.
2. When the CMDB has been updated with new or corrected relationships, using this action ensures the incident is synchronized with the latest data.

When you click 'Refresh Impacted Services', the system executes a script or business logic to:

1. Identify related CIs associated with the incident.
2. Traverse the service dependency hierarchy to identify upstream or downstream services impacted.
3. Update the 'Impacted Services' field in the incident.

Use Case Example:
An incident is logged for a database outage. Initially, the impacted service is identified as "Database Service."
Later, it is updated that this database supports "Online Banking Service."

Solution: Clicking "Refresh Impacted Services" updates the incident to include "Online Banking Service" in the 'Impacted Services' field.

This UI action is especially beneficial in environments with complex service hierarchies or dependencies, ensuring incidents reflect accurate service impact for better prioritization and resolution.

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Regards
Runjay Patel - ServiceNow Solution Architect
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[Suggy]

@Runjay Patel Thanks for replying, I am aware of the process but I am looking for technical details of it. like which tables it refers etc .... also I added a CI on a new INC form, but upon submitting/saving the form, the Impacted services are not added automatically. I had to click on 'Refresh Impacted Services' UI action  to populate the same even though its a new INC.

[Arun Kumar D]

Hi @Suggy 

Did you ever found a reason for this? Upon submitting/saving the form, the Impacted services are not added automatically.

[Arun Kumar D]

Hello @Runjay Patel ,

How the Impacted Services are populating for the first time on the incident record? When the user submit the incident, it automatically populate once. How this is happening and what is triggering this?

At the same time when an incident is triggered by some alert rule then it is not setting the Impacted services. Where is it classifying if an incident was created by a user or alert?