Viewing incident record information using the Contextual side panel
Summarize
Summary of Viewing Incident Record Information Using the Contextual Side Panel
The Contextual side panel in ServiceNow allows users to efficiently view and manage incident records, including caller details and assets. This feature enhances incident management by providing critical information at a glance, thereby improving response and resolution times.
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Key Features
- Active Calls: Displays ongoing conference calls for major incidents, enabling quick access to join calls if the Major Incident Management plugin is active.
- SLAs and Timings: Provides real-time information on major incident duration, response SLA, and resolution SLA, helping users track compliance with service level agreements.
- Caller Information: Quick access to caller details, including assets, recent interactions, incidents, and requests, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the caller's history and needs.
- Origin Record Details: Shows the state, number, and type of the origin record from which the incident was created. Options to view chat transcripts and work notes are available for interactions.
- Assigned To Status: Displays current assignment status of the incident and allows users to assign incidents to themselves or view additional collaborators.
Key Outcomes
By leveraging the Contextual side panel, ServiceNow customers can expect enhanced efficiency in incident management through quick access to relevant information, improved collaboration during major incidents, and better tracking of SLAs. This leads to faster response and resolution times, ultimately improving service delivery and customer satisfaction.
View the incident record information, such as caller details and assets, from the Contextual side panel. Use this information to help manage an incident more efficiently.
Select the Record information (
) icon on the Contextual side panel to view the incident information. The record information side panel includes this following information.
Active calls
The Active calls card displays active conference calls that are currently in progress for major incidents. This card is displayed only for major incident records and if the Major Incident Management for Service Operations Workspace (sn_sow_mim) plugin is installed and active. For more information, see Setting up Major Incident Management in Service Operations Workspace.
A maximum of five collaboration records are displayed on this card. You can select the call record links displayed on this card to join the calls. You can use the Collaborate side panel tab to view and manage additional call record information.
For Twilio calls, plain text is displayed instead of a link. In such case, you can join the call using the Collaborate side panel tab.
The collaboration information is retrieved from the Collaboration services integration with Service Operations Workspace.
SLAs and timings
- Major incident duration – Time duration since the incident has been promoted, created, or accepted as a major incident. This field is visible only if Major Incident Management for Service Operations Workspace is installed and active.
- Response SLA – The Task service level agreement (SLA) stage according to the configured Incident Response SLA timer configuration. Displays the time left to respond to an incident before the task SLA is breached.
- Resolution SLA – The Task SLA stage according to the configured Incident Resolution SLA timer configuration. Displays the time left to resolve an incident before the task SLA is breached.
- View all SLAs – All SLAs associated with the incident record.Note:This option is visible only if there is at least one SLA associated with the current incident task.
Caller
The Caller card displays quick information about the caller, such as name, local time, department, and location. You can also select the Preview caller (
) icon to preview the caller record. Select Open record to open the caller record on a separate tab. You can also select Contact to view all details about the caller.
You can view the VIP field decorator if the caller is a VIP user. The VIP field decorator also appears for the Caller field in the Details tab.
- Caller assets – List of the caller's assets (CIs).
- Recent interaction – List of 10 most recent interactions with the caller that have been created. Select View
all to view the list of all interactions on a separate tab.Note:For interaction records, the Assigned to user is considered as the caller.
- Recent incidents - List of 10 most recent incidents associated with the caller. Select View all to view the list of all incidents on a separate tab.
- Recent request – List of the 10 most recent requests associated with the caller. Select View All to view the list of all the recent requests on a separate tab.
Origin
The origin card displays the information related to the origin record. An origin record is the record from which the incident record is created such as change request, interaction or problem.
- State - State of the origin record.
- Number - Number of the origin record.
- Opened by - User who created or opened the origin record
- Type - Channel type of origin record. For example, if the origin is an interaction record, the type can be Chat
- Short description - Short description of the origin record.
- The following options are available if the incident is created from an interaction record:
- View chat transcript - Select View chat transcript to view the chat history with the caller of the interaction record. You can perform additional activities such as maximize or minimize the chat window. This option is available only if the interaction record is of Chat type and in Closed complete or Closed Abandoned state.
- View work notes - Select View work notes to view the work notes activity history of the interaction record.
- When an incident record created from an interaction record is resolved, the interaction record is automatically set to Wrap up or Closed complete state. An admin role user must set
the Auto close the origin interaction (sn_sow_inc.autoclose_origin.interaction) system property to true to enable this feature. The Close interaction
from incident business rule checks the following conditions and updates the interaction record to Wrap up or Closed complete state:
- When the Auto close the origin interaction (sn_sow_inc.autoclose_origin.interaction) system property is set to true and the Fallback Timeout for interactions in Wrap Up scheduled script is active, the interaction record is moved to Wrap up state.
- When the Auto close the origin interaction (sn_sow_inc.autoclose_origin.interaction) system property is set to true and the Fallback Timeout for interactions in Wrap Up scheduled script is inactive, interaction record is moved to Closed complete state.
- You can add multiple related interaction records to an incident using the Add option on the Interaction related list in the Related records tab of an Incident record page.
Assigned to
- Historical Assigned to users for the incident or incident tasks except the current Assigned to user.
- Users who have added comments and work notes to the major incident record. This data source is applicable only for major incidents.
- Collaborators from the collaboration channels that are initiated from the Collaborate side panel. This information is retrieved using the collaboration APIs.