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sourceDocument: Australia IT Service Management
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/it-service-management

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ft:locale :

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ft:publication_title :

    - Australia IT Service Management

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---

# The Communicate tab in the Major Incident workbench

# The Communicate tab in the Major Incident workbench {#ariaid-title1}

* Release version: Australia
* 
* Updated March 12, 2026
* 
* ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 2 minutes to read

Summarize  
![AI sparkle icon](https://servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ai-sparkle-icon) Summarized using AI  
This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.  

## Summary of The Communicate tab in the Major Incident workbench

The Communicate tab in the Major Incident workbench enables ServiceNow customers to monitor and manage communication plans and their associated tasks during a major incident.
It provides visibility into task progress, allows task creation and management, and supports effective communication with stakeholders, improving incident response coordination.
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## Key Features

* **Communication Task Management:** View all communication tasks linked to a communication plan. Tasks can be filtered by all, active, or completed status.
* **Add Plans and Tasks:** Easily add new communication plans or create tasks under existing plans directly from the Communicate tab.
* **Recipient Management:** Modify recipients after a communication plan is saved by adding or removing users, groups, or email addresses. When sending emails, you can select recipient lists to optimize system performance, enabled via a Major Incident Management property.
* **Task Actions:** Perform key actions on communication tasks including:
  * Close Task -- marks the task complete or skipped based on execution.
  * Snooze -- for recurring tasks, allows skipping once and refreshes due timer.
  * View Form -- navigate to the task form for details.
  * View Activity -- review task history and add work notes or comments.
* **Task Status and Notifications:** Track due and overdue times. Use the Compose button to send notifications. Task statuses update automatically after sending notifications, showing counts for recurring tasks (e.g., Sent(2x)).
* **Status Indicators:** Icons indicate task states such as completed, skipped, or active for quick recognition.
* **Collaborative Communication:** Initiate chats and view activity streams at the incident or communication plan level within the Work Notes \& Activity section.
* **Slack Integration:** By installing Collaboration Services, you can add Slack as a communication channel. Compose messages to pre-defined contacts who receive direct messages via Slack bot. Task actions remain available for Slack-based communication tasks.

## Practical Benefits

Using the Communicate tab helps ServiceNow customers streamline major incident communications by centralizing task tracking, automating recipient management, and supporting multiple communication channels including email and Slack. This results in improved stakeholder engagement, faster information dissemination, and better incident resolution coordination.  
The Communicate tab helps you understand the progress of a
communication plan and its related tasks.

If there are multiple communication tasks associated with a communication plan, all the tasks
appear under the respective communication plan.  
Figure 1. Communication task filter

You can filter the communication task to view all tasks, active tasks, or completed tasks. You
can also add a new communication plan by clicking Add. You can create a
communication task for an existing plan by clicking Add Task. For more
information, see [Add communication plan in the workbench](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/g_vqwiuAgbfcygzWHnx_yg "You can create a new communication plan or add a new communication task to an existing communication plan from the workbench. This UI action is helpful when you do not have an existing well-defined communication plan in the system."). If you want to add
or remove recipients from a particular plan after the plan is saved, click Manage Recipients.  
Note:  
When you create a communication task for sending an email on the Major Incident Management Workbench and select a recipient list, the recipient list is added instead of individual users. The list of users in the recipient list is calculated by the system while processing the email request, thus improving the system performance. Also, you can add users, groups, and email addresses as required in the Recipients section. Activate this feature by selecting the Property to toggle support for Recipient List on Email Client, on Communication Tasks (sn_comm_management.email_client_recipient_items_enabled) option in the Major Incident Management Properties. You can create a recipient list using a script to retrieve a custom list of users or include a pre-defined list of users.  
Figure 2. Manage recipients  
The following actions can be performed on a given communication task:

* Close Task: If the task is performed at least once, closes the communication task and changes the state to Complete. Otherwise, the state changes the state to Skipped.
* Snooze: Available only for recurring communication task. Enables the user to skip the communication task once and the due-in timer is refreshed.
* View Form: For each task in the plan, you can navigate back to the form.
* View Activity: Enables you to view activity history and post your work notes or additional comments for a communication task.

{#mi-workbench-communicate-tab__ul_rlk_c1d_5db} Figure 3. Communication task actions

You can also view the due time of upcoming tasks and the overdue time in case the task isn't
completed within the expected time.

To send a notification, click Compose. If the notification has to be
send only once, then after sending the notification, the status of the task changes to Complete.
If the task is recurring, the status of the task changes to Open. After a recurring communication
task is performed, the status of the communication task changes to Sent
followed by the number of times the recurring communication task is performed until that time.
For example, Sent(2x) means that the communication task is performed twice.  
Figure 4. Communication task state

Icons to the left of the Communication Task name represent the state of the communication task
such as completed, skipped, or active.

Under the Work Notes \& Activity section, you can initiate a chat at the incident or
incident communication plan level. You can also view the activity stream for that record.

## Messaging users through Slack {#mi-workbench-communicate-tab__section_g2y_lhs_mhb}

For Slack functionality, install [Collaboration services](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/zvk3HfQvYqMs6um0AMDBZg "Collaboration services provides a way to communicate and collaborate in real-time. You can directly use a collaboration tool from task records and as a channel within communication plans.") from the [ServiceNow Store](https://store.servicenow.com/sn_appstore_store.do#!/store/home).

When you add Slack as a communication channel, you can select Compose to convey the Slack message to the contacts that you've already mentioned in the communication contact while defining the communication plan. The selected contacts will receive a direct message from the Slack bot. You can perform the communication task actions such as Closed Task, Snooze, View Form, and View Activity.
**Related concepts**   

* [Major Incident workbench --- Summary tab](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/uhqxMgOPfcGdnhH~5SXPoA "The Summary tab provides a unified view of information in the form of a card layout. The information on impacted services, affected CIs, active outages, locations that are impacted, and child incidents helps to keep you informed about related records associated with an incident.")
* [Post Incident Report tab](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/qzZx5y6o3HdwhXlqoMSOMQ "The Post Incident Report tab helps you to understand the cause of the major incident, and the actions taken by the teams to resolve the incident.")
* [Major Incident workbench --- the Collaborate tab](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/Uk2i5sUTRI~UDFgxytvdug "The Collaborate tab helps you to view and manage communication tasks that use conference as their communication channel.")