Major incident assignment

Release version: Washingtondc

Updated February 1, 2024

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Summary of Major Incident Assignment

A major incident is automatically assigned to a group upon its proposal and promotion based on the configured Major Incident Management Group property. The assigned group is responsible for resolving the incident, while individual assignments occur if the On-Call Scheduling plugin is active and a shift is defined.

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Key Features

Automatic Assignment: Major incidents are assigned to a group or individual based on specific conditions outlined in the assignment rules.
On-Call Support: If the On-Call Scheduling plugin is activated, incidents can be assigned to available on-call users.
Manual Promotion: When a major incident is manually promoted, the assignment adjusts based on the existing group settings and the user who promoted it.
Communication Plans: Assignment of communication plans and tasks is linked to the major incident's source, adjusting automatically if the assignment group is empty.

Key Outcomes

By understanding these assignment rules, ServiceNow customers can effectively manage major incidents, ensuring timely responses by the right teams and individuals. This leads to improved incident resolution and streamlined communication processes during major incidents.

A major incident is assigned to a group automatically at the time of proposal and promotion based on the value of the property Major Incident Management Group (sys_id) to whom the Major Incident should be re-assigned on promotion to 'Major Incident' (sn_major_inc_mgmt.major_incident_management_group). The assigned group works on the major incident and resolves it.

The incident is assigned to an individual if the On-Call Scheduling plugin (com.snc.on_call_rotation) is activated and a shift is defined for the group. The following table illustrates the different conditions under which a major incident is assigned to a group and a user.

Table 1. Assignment of major incident
Action	Condition	Assignment group	Assigned to
Incident is proposed as a candidate manually or based on major incident trigger rules	Assignment Group is empty	Group based on the property value	If on-call is activated, shift is defined and a user is available on-call then the incident is assigned to the on-call user If on-call is not activated, the Assigned to field remains empty
	Assignment Group is not empty	No change - incident retains the current value of the assignment group	No change - incident remains with the current value in the Assigned to field
Incident is manually promoted to a major incident	Assignment Group is empty	Group based on the property value	The value for the Assigned to field is the user who promoted the incident to a major incident
Incident is manually promoted to a major incident	Assignment Group is not empty	Incident reassigned to group based on the property value Send a notification to the original Assignment Group members about the latest incident reassignment.	Assigned to value is overwritten by the user who promoted the major incident candidate Send a notification to the user to whom the major incident was previously assigned
Major incident is created	Assignment Group is empty	Group based on the property value	The value of the Assigned to field is the user who has created the major incident
Major incident is created	Assignment Group is not empty	No change - incident retains the current value of the assignment group	No change - incident remains with the current value in the Assigned to field

Table 2. Assignment of incident communication plan and communication task
Action	Condition	Assignment group	Assigned to
Incident communication plan is created with source as major incident	Assignment Group is empty	The value for the Assignment group field is copied from the source incident	The value of the Assigned to field is copied from the source incident
	Assignment Group is not empty	No change - incident communication plan retains the current value of the assignment group	No change - incident communication plan retains the current value of the Assigned to field
Incident communication task is created from incident communication plan whose source is major incident	Assignment Group is empty	The value for the Assignment group field is copied from the incident communication plan	The value of the Assigned to field is copied from the incident communication plan
	Assignment Group is not empty	No change - incident communication plan retains the current value of the assignment group	No change - incident communication task retains the current value of the Assigned to field