Major Incident workbench — the Post Incident Report tab

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Major Incident workbench — the Post Incident Report tab

    The Post Incident Report tab in the Major Incident workbench enables major incident managers and teams to document and analyze the cause and resolution of a major incident. It captures the incident summary, findings, resolution steps, and timeline of activities, helping teams assess their response and identify follow-up actions to improve future incident management.

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    Key Features

    • Editable Report in Resolved State: Major incident managers can edit the post incident report once the incident status is Resolved.
    • Report Sections:
      • Overview: A concise summary of the incident.
      • Findings: Details on the root cause and lessons learned.
      • Resolution: Documentation of the steps taken to resolve the incident.
      • Timeline: Comprehensive activity feed including incident updates, communication plans, and tasks. It can be refreshed with the Regenerate Timeline button.
    • Integration with Problem and Change Management: Managers can add or manage related Problem or Change records directly from the report.
    • Continual Improvement Management (CIM) Integration: When the CIM plugin is active, related improvement records from inbound CIM integrations appear in the report.
    • Report Export: The complete post incident report can be compiled and downloaded as a PDF for documentation and sharing.
    • Incident Form Links:
      • Regenerate PIR Timeline: Available to major incident managers when incidents are Resolved, to refresh timeline data.
      • Preview PIR: Available to itil role users when incidents are Resolved or Closed, to preview the report.
    • Incident Response Timeline Calculation: The “Time to Identify” metric in the report reflects the duration from the first related alert or incident creation until the incident is proposed or created as a major incident, depending on the workflow.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    Using the Post Incident Report tab helps your teams thoroughly document major incidents, ensuring transparency and accountability. The detailed sections and timeline support root cause analysis and continuous improvement in incident response processes. Integration with Problem, Change, and CIM modules enhances cross-functional collaboration and drives ongoing operational excellence. The ability to generate a consolidated, downloadable PDF report facilitates communication with stakeholders and compliance documentation.

    The Post Incident Report tab helps you to understand the cause of the major incident, and the actions taken by the teams to resolve the incident.

    The teams can assess the incident response and resolution process and determine follow-up action items. The post incident report is required to record the actions performed, the reasons for doing them, and findings.
    Note:
    The major incident manager can edit a report when the incident is in the Resolved state.
    Figure 1. View of the Post Incident Report tab
    Post incident report tab
    The post incident report includes the following sections where a major incident manager can provide required information:
    • Overview: Summary of the incident.
    • Findings: Information on what caused the major incident and any lessons learned in the process.
    • Resolution: Information on the resolution steps taken to resolve the issue. The major incident manager can also add or edit any related Problem or Change information by clicking Add or Manage respectively.
    • Timeline: Information of all the activity feeds, not only of the incident but also of the incident communication plan and incident communication tasks related to the incident. You can update the timeline with the latest activity by clicking Regenerate Timeline.
      Note:
      The information that you provide for Overview, Findings, and Timeline gets updated in the Post Incident Report section on the Incident form.

    If you activate the Continual Improvement Management (CIM) plugin (com.sn_cim), the Related Improvement Records section is displayed in the report. This section displays the Inbound CIM Integrations records.

    When you click View Complete Report, all the information entered by the major incident manager is compiled together and you can download the report in the .PDF format by clicking Download Report PDF.

    The following links appear in the Incident form under the Related Links section:
    • Regenerate PIR Timeline: This link appears when incident is in the Resolved state and the user has the major_incident_manager role.
    • Preview PIR: This link appears when incident is in the Resolved or Closed state and the user has the itil role.
    Note:
    On the downloaded report, under Incident Response Timeline, the time displayed in the timing type Time to Identify is calculated in the following ways:
    • If you propose the incident as a major incident: The time indicates the time from creation of the first related alert for this incident or creation of the incident (in case there is no alert or the Event Management plugin is inactive), whichever occurs first, until the time the incident is first proposed as a major incident.
    • If you create a major incident directly: The time indicates the time from creation of the first related alert for this incident or creation of the incident (in case there is no alert or the Event Management plugin is inactive), whichever occurs first, until the time the incident is promoted as a major incident.