Major, candidate, and child cases

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated June 22, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Major, candidate, and child cases

    This feature in ServiceNow’s Major Issue Management helps you identify, approve, and manage issues impacting multiple customers by organizing related cases into major cases, candidate cases, and child cases. Major cases represent the overarching issue, candidate cases flag potential major issues for approval, and child cases track the specific impact on individual customers.

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    Major Cases

    • Contain information about issues affecting multiple customers without linking directly to specific accounts; customer details reside in child cases.
    • Use the Affected Customers field to select recipient lists and automatically generate child cases for impacted customers.
    • Support synchronization of key fields (e.g., Priority, State, Comments) from the major case to child cases, ensuring consistent updates.
    • Closing a major case automatically closes child cases that are New, Open, or Awaiting Customer Info.
    • Major cases are identified by the Major case state field (Proposed or Accepted), while regular cases show no value here.
    • Enabling the enablecasetypeformajorcase property allows case types to be inherited from candidate cases.

    Major Case Candidates

    • Created by customer service agents either by promoting an existing case or creating a new candidate case.
    • Require approval by a manager before being promoted to a major case.
    • If promoted, the system creates a major case; the candidate case may become a child case if promoted from an existing case.
    • If rejected, the candidate case reverts to a regular case.

    Child Cases

    • Automatically created for each affected account or consumer from the recipients list on the major case, or added manually by managers.
    • Prevent duplicates by checking existing child cases for the same customer.
    • Copy the major case’s short description and can include custom work notes entered during creation.
    • Automatically add the primary contact of the account to the child case’s contact list and watchlist.

    Suggested Child Cases

    • For major cases in the Proposed state, AI detection suggests potential child cases for review.
    • Managers can add suggested cases to the major case when it is in the Accepted state.
    • Upon acceptance, all suggested child cases become official child cases linked to the major case.

    Synchronization Between Major Cases and Child Cases

    • Synchronization settings are controlled by system properties, allowing enablement and field selection for syncing.
    • Synchronization is one-way: from the major case to child cases, excluding child cases in Resolved, Closed, or Canceled states.
    • Default synchronized fields include Priority, State, Comments, Work notes, Close notes, and Resolution code.
    • Synchronization prompts a confirmation pop-up when saving changes to a major case.
    • This synchronization feature is available by default for the Case table and requires configuration for extended tables.

    Major issue management uses major case candidates to identify potential issues that impact multiple customers. Managers approve candidate cases for promotion to major cases, which you use to manage issue resolution. The system creates child cases for impacted customers and links them to the corresponding major case.

    Major cases

    A major case contains information about a specific issue that affects multiple customers. The major case itself is not linked to specific accounts, contacts, or consumers. Instead, customer-specific information is stored in the child cases that are linked to the major case.

    The recipients list associated with the major case identifies customers impacted by the issue. Select a list in the Affected Customers field in the Major Case Information form section of the Major Case form. After adding the list, you can automatically create child cases for all customers on the list. These cases are added to the Child Cases related list on the Major Case form.

    With synchronization enabled, updates to the parent major case are automatically synchronized to the associated child cases. When the major case is closed, the system also closes associated child cases in the following states: New, Open, Awaiting Customer Info.

    When the enable_case_type_for_major_case property is set to true, the system uses the sys_class_name of the candidate case to determine the case type of the resulting major case and its child cases, rather than defaulting to the base Case table.

    To identify major cases in the list view, check the value in the Major case state field.

    • Major cases have a state of Proposed or Accepted.
    • Regular cases have a blank value.

    In the form view, major cases and major case candidates display the Major Case Information form section.

    Note:
    Related links on a major case form don't synchronize to associated child cases.

    Major case candidates

    A customer service agent uses a major case candidate (also called a candidate case) to flag an issue that might affect multiple customers. An agent can create a major case candidate in two ways:

    • By promoting an existing customer service case to a major case candidate.
    • By creating a new major case candidate directly.

    A customer service manager or major case manager must approve a major case candidate before it can be promoted to a major case.

    • If a candidate case was promoted from an existing case, the system creates a new major case and the candidate case becomes a child case of that major case.
    • If a new candidate case is created directly, that case becomes the major case.

    If a major case candidate is rejected, the system reverts it to a regular case.

    Child cases

    Child cases are linked to a major case. The system creates one child case for each account (B2B) or consumer (B2C) that is affected by the major case issue. Child cases are created from the recipients list on the major case, and a major issue manager can also add them manually.

    When the system creates child cases, it copies the short description from the major case to each child case. The system does not create duplicate child cases. If a child case already exists for an account or consumer, the system does not create another one.

    When you create child cases, you can enter text in a pop-up window. This text is added to the Work notes field on the child case form. These comments are added only to the newly created child cases. The major case and any existing child cases are not updated.

    The primary contact for an account is automatically added to the child case as a contact and is included on the child case watchlist.

    Suggested child cases

    When a major case is in the Proposed state, the AI detection workflow populates the Suggested child cases related list with cases that have been identified as potential members of the major case group.

    A major issue manager can review the suggested child cases and use the Add to major case action on the Suggested child cases related list to add the cases as child cases of that major case. This action is available only when the major case state is Accepted and the case is in a non-terminal state.

    When a suggested child case is added to the major case, it is removed from the Suggested child cases list and added to the Child Cases related list.

    When a major case moves to the Accepted state, all of the suggested child cases become child cases and are moved to the Child Cases related list.

    Synchronization between major cases and associated child cases

    The system administrator can set system properties to enable or disable synchronization between the major case and child cases, and to specify which fields to synchronize. Synchronization is one-directional: it occurs from the major case to the child cases. If a child case is in Resolved, Closed, or Canceled state, synchronization does not occur.

    A major case and its child cases maintain synchronization on fields that are identified by the sn_customerservice.case_fields_to_sync property. This property specifies which fields are synchronized from the major case to the child cases. By default, these fields include:
    • Priority
    • State
    • Comments
    • Work notes
    • Close notes
    • Resolution code
    If the State field is synchronized from the major case to the child cases, the Close notes and Resolution code fields must also be synchronized.
    Note:
    Child cases added to a major case manually can be added at any time. Newly added child cases do not receive synchronization retroactively.
    When synchronization is enabled, the system displays a pop-up window when you save changes to a major case. Verify the update by clicking OK.
    Note:
    In the base system, parent-child case synchronization is available only for the Case table (sn_customerservice_case). You must configure this feature for tables that extend the Case table.