How alerts work with CIs in maintenance

Release version: Xanadu

Updated June 2, 2026

2 minutes to read

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Summary of How alerts work with CIs in maintenance

This content explains how ServiceNow Event Management handles alerts for Configuration Items (CIs) that are in maintenance mode. Maintenance status affects alert visibility, impact calculations, and service maps to help you accurately monitor and manage your IT environment during planned changes.

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How CIs Are Identified as In Maintenance

A CI is considered in maintenance if it has an active change request scheduled or if its Install Status field is set to In Maintenance.
Active change requests have states Scheduled or Implement, and the current time falls between the planned or actual start and end dates.

Alert Behavior for CIs in Maintenance

All alerts on CIs in maintenance are excluded from impact severity calculations.
The Alerts tab hides these corresponding alerts temporarily to reduce noise during maintenance windows.
The impact tree and service map visually indicate CIs in maintenance by showing them in green with a note "(In Maintenance)." Services containing these CIs also appear green, reflecting no current impact.
For hosts with active change requests, all child applications are treated as a single unit and similarly excluded from impact until the change completes.
The Maintenance checkbox on alerts is automatically selected when the CI’s Install Status is In Maintenance, signaling alerts to be hidden.

Post-Maintenance Alert Handling

Once the change request moves to Review or Closed state, alert impact calculation resumes for the affected CIs.
You can then address all alerts that occurred during the maintenance window.

When CIs Are Not In Maintenance

If there is no active change request or the Install Status is not In Maintenance, alert impact calculation and visibility behave normally.
Inactive change requests (states like New, Assess, Authorize, etc.) do not suppress alert impact.

Practical Use for ServiceNow Customers

Understanding how alerts are managed during CI maintenance helps you reduce false positives and focus on meaningful alerts. This ensures accurate service health visualization and streamlined incident response during planned changes. You can customize this behavior further by creating maintenance rules tailored to your operational requirements.

When a CI is in maintenance, the impact tree, the service map, and Alerts tab are updated based on various factors.

Watch this brief video to learn about how alerts work with CIs.

A CI is in maintenance when:

A change request is scheduled for the CI.
The Install Status field on the CI record is set to In Maintenance.

Note:

To customize how alerts work with CIs in maintenance, see Create maintenance rules.


How CIs in Maintenance appear in Event Management	Description and the optimal time to resolve the alert
Figure 1. CI with an active change request If an active change request is scheduled for the CI or if the Install Status of the CI is In Maintenance, all alerts on the affected CI are excluded from impact calculation. The Alerts tab also temporarily hides all corresponding alerts. The impact tree shows the CI in green with a note of (In Maintenance). The impact tree and the service map temporarily show CIs in green. For a service, all alerts on CIs in the service are also hidden from the Alerts tab. The entire service is shown in green on the impact tree. For a host with an active change request, the host applications are considered as one unit. All child applications are treated in the same manner as the host until the change request is no longer active.	An active change request has the following values: The State is Scheduled or Implement. The current time is between the Planned start date and Planned end date on the change request. OR The current time is between the Actual start date and Actual end date on the change request. You can monitor the progress of the change request. Wait until the change request moves to the Review or Closed state. Then you can address all alerts for the affected CI and any alerts that generated between start and end dates. Use the impact tree, topology, and Alerts tab to show the calculated impact severity. Note: The Maintenance check box for an alert is selected when the Install Status field on the CI record is In Maintenance. This Maintenance check box indicates that the alert must be hidden from the Alerts tab. When the maintenance job updates this field, the Updated field (sys_updated_on) changes for open alerts, but not for closed alerts.
Figure 2. CI with no active change request and not in maintenance When there is no active change request for a CI and when the CI is not in maintenance, impact calculation resumes. The impact tree, the service map, and Alerts tab show the calculated impact severity for alerts.	An inactive change request has the following values: The State is New, Assess, Authorize, Review, Close, or has no changes at all. The State is Scheduled or Implement. However, the current time is before or after the planned or actual date ranges on the change request. You can monitor the progress of the change request. When a CI has an inactive change request, you can address the corresponding alerts as appropriate.
Figure 3. CI with no active change request and in maintenance If no active change request is scheduled for the CI and if the Install Status of the CI is In Maintenance, all alerts on this CI are excluded from impact calculation. The impact tree shows the CI in green with a note of (In Maintenance). The impact tree and the service map temporarily show CIs in green.	All alerts on a CI with an inactive change request and In Maintenance has no impact calculation.