Major Incident workbench — the Collaborate tab
Summarize
Summary of Major Incident workbench — the Collaborate tab
The Collaborate tab in the Major Incident workbench enables ServiceNow users to manage communication tasks that use conference calls as their communication channel. It provides functionality to view, initiate, and control conference calls, as well as manage participants and communication plans effectively during major incidents.
Show less
Key Features
- Add and Manage Communication Plans: Users can add new communication plans or create communication tasks within existing plans directly from the tab. After saving a plan, participants can be added or removed by clicking Manage Participants.
- Conference Call Controls: Initiate conference calls with the Initiate button. For one-time tasks, the status updates to Complete after the call ends; for recurring tasks, it remains Open and tracks the number of calls initiated.
- Participant Management: Active and inactive participants are displayed separately. Users with access can join ongoing calls, add additional participants, or leave the call. The conference leader has controls to end calls, mute/unmute, or remove participants.
- Group Calls and Escalation: Adding a user group to a conference call includes the group and automatically follows the escalation hierarchy if the system property com.snc.iam.conferencecallfollowoncallescalation is set to true.
- Communication and Activity Tracking: The tab includes a Work Notes & Activity section to send messages at both the incident and communication plan level, as well as view the activity stream.
- Direct Calling Features: Users can initiate calls directly to group members by clicking Start a call. This requires the snmajorincmgmt.notifywebrtcnumber property to be set with a valid voice-capable notify number. The option is disabled for users already in an active call.
- Global Mute Controls and Visual Indicators: Options to mute or unmute all participants at once are available. When the Notify - Twilio Direct Driver plugin is activated, active participants are visually highlighted in green.
Practical Application and Benefits
This tab streamlines communication management during major incidents by providing centralized control over conference calls and participant engagement. ServiceNow customers can efficiently coordinate response teams, ensure escalation workflows are followed automatically, and maintain clear communication logs. The integration with notification and collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack further enhances communication versatility.
Additional Resources
- Guidance on adding communication plans and tasks
- Instructions for sending Microsoft Teams notifications
- Process flow details for Slack communication
- Related Major Incident workbench tabs such as Summary and Post Incident Report for a comprehensive incident management experience
The Collaborate tab helps you to view information about communication tasks that have conference as their communication channel. It also allows you to manage the participants in a conference call.
Like the Summary tab, you can add a new communication plan by clicking Add. You can create communication task for an existing plan by clicking Add Call. For more information, see Add-communication-plan-from-mim-workbench. If you want to add or remove recipients from a particular plan after the plan is saved, click Manage Participants.
Under each task, the Active participant section displays the active participants and the Inactive participant section displays the inactive participants.
If the call is in progress, the itil user, who has access to the workbench, can join the
conference call by clicking Join Call. The participants can also add
another user to an ongoing conference call by clicking + Participants. The
conference leader can end the conference call by clicking End Call. The
conference leader can mute, unmute, or kick an active participant by hovering over the active
participant and clicking 
.
Under the Work Notes & Activity section, you can send connect message at incident or incident communication plan level. You can also view the activity stream.
To initiate a call directly to the group members, click Start a call.
To start a call, populate the sn_major_inc_mgmt.notify_webrtc_number property with a valid notify number that has voice capability. For user who is already in an active conference call, Start a call is disabled. You can mute or unmute all the participants using the Mute All and Unmute All options. If you activate the Notify - Twilio Direct Driver plugin (com.snc.notify.twilio_direct), the active participants are highlighted in green.
For information on how to send a Microsoft Teams notification from major incident workbench, see Send a notification from Major incident management workbench.
For information on process flow for slack communication, see Process flow for Slack communication.
For information on how to add a collaborative communication task, see Add a collaborative communication task.