Major Incident workbench — the Collaborate tab

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Major Incident workbench — the Collaborate tab

    The Collaborate tab in the Major Incident workbench enables ServiceNow users to efficiently manage communication tasks that use conference calls as their communication channel during major incidents. It supports adding, initiating, and managing conference calls, helping incident responders coordinate effectively.

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    Key Features

    • Add Communication Plans and Tasks: Users can add new communication plans or create communication tasks within existing plans directly from the tab.
    • Manage Participants: After saving a plan, you can add or remove participants using the Manage Participants option.
    • Initiate and Control Conference Calls: Initiate calls with the Initiate button; calls can be one-time or recurring with status updates reflecting their state. ITIL users with access can join ongoing calls, add participants, or end calls if they are conference leaders.
    • Participant Management: The conference leader can mute, unmute, or remove participants individually, or mute/unmute all participants at once.
    • Group Calls and Escalation: Adding a user group to a call automatically follows the escalation hierarchy if the system property for on-call escalation is enabled.
    • Communication and Activity Tracking: Work Notes & Activity section allows sending connect messages and viewing the activity stream for the incident or communication plan.
    • Direct Calls to Group Members: Users can start calls directly to group members if the notifywebrtcnumber property is configured with a voice-capable number.
    • Integration with Collaboration Tools: Supports sending Microsoft Teams notifications and initiating Microsoft Teams group chats. It also integrates with Slack for communication workflows.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    This tab centralizes and streamlines communication during major incidents by consolidating conference call management, participant control, and activity tracking in one interface. It empowers incident managers and responders to maintain clear, coordinated communication, ensuring rapid response and escalation as needed. Proper configuration of system properties and notify numbers enables seamless integration with telephony and collaboration tools, enhancing communication efficiency.

    The Collaborate tab helps you to view and manage communication tasks that use conference as their communication channel.

    Figure 1. View of the Collaborate tab
    The Collaborate tab

    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, select Manage Participants.

    To initiate a conference call, select Initiate. If the communication task is a one-time task, then after the call is ended, the status of the task changes to Complete. If task is recurring, the status of the task changes to Open and it displays the number of times the conference call is initiated.
    Note:
    When you add a user group to the conference call, the group itself is added to the call, and the escalation hierarchy is automatically followed once you start the call. Set the com.snc.iam.conference_call_follow_on_call_escalation property to true. For more information about the property, see System properties for On-Call Scheduling.

    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 Mute or remove an active participant.

    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, select Start a call.

    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.

    To send a Microsoft Teams notification from major incident workbench, see Send a notification from Major incident management workbench. The procedure applies to both the Collaborate and Communicate tabs. To  Initiate Microsoft Teams group chat from MIM workbench, see Initiate Microsoft Teams group chat from MIM 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.