> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.serval.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Incident Management

> Track service disruptions with incident tickets, and coordinate widespread outages by linking related tickets to a major incident

Incident management is how you handle service disruptions in Serval. Use an **Incident** ticket to track and resolve a single issue, and a **Major Incident** ticket to coordinate a widespread disruption by keeping every affected ticket connected to it.

***

## When to Use an Incident Ticket

Use an **Incident** ticket when normal service is not working and your goal is restoration rather than fulfillment.

Common examples include VPN outages, SSO failures, email sync issues, and critical integrations timing out.

<Tip>
  Use a **Request** ticket for fulfillment work, such as access, equipment, or standard service asks.
</Tip>

***

## When to Use a Major Incident

Use a **Major Incident** when one issue is affecting many people at once and needs a coordinated response, so their individual tickets can be tracked and updated together.

Common examples include a company-wide VPN outage, an identity provider (SSO) going down, or a core application being unavailable for everyone on the team.

<Tip>
  Only team managers can create a major incident. For how each ticket type is defined, see [Ticket Types](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/ticket-types).
</Tip>

***

## How Incident Management Works in Serval

<Steps>
  <Step title="Incident is created and typed">
    A ticket comes in from Slack, Teams, email, web, or external sync. Serval can classify it as an **Incident**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Team triages and routes">
    Your team sets status, priority, assignee, labels, and due date to establish ownership and urgency.
  </Step>

  <Step title="A major incident is created for a widespread issue">
    When one issue is affecting many people, a team manager creates a **Major Incident** to coordinate the response. This is a manual step out of the box; you can also build a workflow to create one automatically when automation detects a widespread issue.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Serval links related tickets to the major incident">
    Once a major incident exists, Serval automatically links new related tickets on the same team to it and notifies those requesters that a major incident is underway.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Incident is resolved and updates propagate">
    Your team runs remediation actions (including workflows), resolves the incident, and syncs updates across connected systems when configured. Updates on a major incident flow out to every linked ticket.
  </Step>
</Steps>

Serval links related tickets automatically: its AI Help Desk Agent detects when a new ticket appears related to an active major incident, links it, and tells the requester in-thread that one already exists. Team members can also link a ticket manually from its **Linked Tickets** panel.

<Info>
  Related tickets link **to a major incident**, not to one another. The major incident is the one ticket that every related report connects to; those reports are not linked to each other.
</Info>

Because every link points at the major incident, updating or resolving that one ticket is how you reach everyone who reported the issue. As a major incident changes, Serval surfaces its updates in each linked ticket's conversation, so requesters see the update wherever their ticket originated, such as Slack or Teams. Team members can also click the **broadcast** button (the megaphone) on a major incident's message composer to push a single status update to every linked ticket at once.

For sync setup details, see [Syncing to Your Ticketing System](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/syncing).

***

## Related Pages

* [Ticket Types](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-configuration/ticket-types)
* [Ticket Flows](/sections/documentation/ticketing/ticket-flows)
* [Resolving Tickets](/sections/documentation/ticketing/resolving-tickets)
* [Updating Ticket Properties](/sections/documentation/ticketing/manage-collaborate/update-ticket-properties)