Recommendation rules for an incident in Service Operations Workspace

Release version: Australia

Updated March 12, 2026

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Summary of Recommendation Rules for an Incident in Service Operations Workspace

The recommendation rules for incidents in the Service Operations Workspace utilize a Recommendation Framework that is now deprecated. Instead, customers are encouraged to use the Recommended Actions for ITSM feature, which requires the installation of the Advanced Recommended Actions for ITSM plugin and an ITSM Pro package subscription. Best practice suggests installing the Task Intelligence for ITSM plugin alongside the ITSM Pro subscription.

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Key Features

To effectively utilize recommendation rules, ensure the relevant plugins are installed to enable the following functionalities:

Assignment Group Recommendation: Predicts assignment group values based on the incident's short description.
Configuration Item Recommendation: Suggests configuration item values derived from the incident's short description.
Knowledge Articles: Predicts and links knowledge articles relevant to the current incident, with options to attach or discard recommendations.
Major Incident Recommendation: Proposes the incident as a major incident, setting its state to Proposed.
Relevant Problems: Identifies and links relevant problems to the incident.
Similar Incidents: Suggests similar incidents, allowing for linking and management as parent or child incidents.

Key Outcomes

By implementing these recommendation rules, ServiceNow customers can enhance incident management efficiency through:

Improved accuracy in assigning incidents based on predictive insights.
Streamlined incident resolution by linking to relevant knowledge articles and problems.
Enhanced visibility of similar incidents for better decision-making during major incident proposals.

These features collectively contribute to a more efficient IT service management process, enabling quicker resolutions and improved service delivery.

Recommendations for an incident are based on rules defined in Recommendation Framework.

Recommendation Framework is now deprecated and no longer supported or available for new activation. Recommended Actions for ITSM feature provides the latest experience for this functionality. To get the advanced version, you must install the Advanced Recommended actions for ITSM (com.snc.uib.sow_itsm_ra_advanced) plugin and you must procure ITSM Pro package subscription.

Note:

The best practice to get the advanced version is to install the Task Intelligence for ITSM (com.snc.itsm_ml_task) plugin and procure the ITSM Pro package subscription. For more information, see Exploring Recommended Actions for ITSM in Service Operations Workspace.

For each recommendation rule to work, install the relevant plugin that installs the corresponding solution definition. Based on this solution definition, the recommendation rule predicts values or records for an incident.

For information about the plugins and the corresponding solution definitions, see .

Table 1. Recommendation rules for field-level recommendations on an incident form
Recommendation rule	Solution definition	Incident field where the recommendation is available
Assignment group recommendation	Incident Assignment Predicts values for the Assignment group field based on the short description of the incident.	Assignment group
Configuration item	Incident Configuration Item Predicts values for the Configuration Item field based on the short description of the incident.	Configuration item
Service recommendation rule	Incident Service Predicts values for the Incident Configuration Item field based on the short description of the incident.	Service

Table 2. Recommendation rules for card groups in the Recommendations panel
Recommendation rule	Solution definition	Associated card group in the Recommendations panel	Primary action for the card group	Other actions for the card group
Knowledge articles	Similar Knowledge Articles Predicts knowledge articles that the current incident can be linked to.	Knowledge articles	Attach: Attaches the recommended knowledge article to the current incident. On the incident record page, this article is displayed in the Attached Knowledge list of the Related records tab.	Discard: Discards the recommendation and moves it to the History tab in the Recommendations panel.
Propose major incident	Major Incident Recommendation Recommends the current incident to be proposed as a major incident.	Propose major incident	Propose major incident: Proposes the current incident as a major incident. The Major incident state field is set to Proposed for the incident.	View similar incidents: Displays a list of similar incidents related to the current incident. After viewing similar incidents, you can decide if the current incident can be proposed as a major incident.
Relevant problems	Similar Open Problems Predicts relevant problems that the incident can be linked to.	Relevant problems	Link problem: Links the recommended problem to the current incident. On the incident record page, this problem is displayed in the Related Records section of the Details tab.	Discard: Discards the recommendation and moves it to the History tab in the Recommendations panel.
Similar major incidents	Major Incident Recommendation Predicts similar active major incidents that the current incident can be linked to.	Similar major incidents	Add as a child incident: Adds the recommended incident as a parent to the current incident. On the current incident record page,the parent incident is then displayed in the Related Records section of the Details tab.	Discard: Discards the recommendation and moves it to the History tab in the Recommendations panel.
Similar open incidents	Similar Open Incidents Predicts similar open incidents that the current incident can be linked to.	Similar open incidents	Link as a parent incident: Adds the recommended incident as a parent to the current incident. On the current incident record page, the parent incident is then displayed in the Related Records section of the Details tab.	Discard: Discards the recommendation and moves it to the History tab in the Recommendations panel.
Similar resolved incidents	Similar Resolved Incidents Predicts similar resolved incidents to help with incident investigation and resolution processes.	Similar resolved incidents	Link incident: Links the recommended incident to the current incident. On the current incident record page, the linked incident is then displayed as the parent incident in the Related Records section of the Details tab.	Discard: Discards the recommendation and moves it to the History tab in the Recommendations panel.