Understanding Ticket Types
Request
A request for something new—access, equipment, information, or a service
Incident
Something is broken or not working as expected and needs to be fixed
Requests
Requests represent asks for something the employee doesn’t currently have:- Access requests - “I need access to Salesforce”
- Equipment requests - “Can I get a second monitor?”
- Service requests - “Please set up a new Slack channel for our team”
- Information requests - “What’s the policy on remote work?”
Incidents
Incidents represent problems that need to be fixed:- System issues - “Email is not syncing on my phone”
- Bugs - “The dashboard is showing incorrect data”
- Outages - “I can’t access the VPN”
- Errors - “I’m getting an error message when I try to submit”
Incident Management in Serval
In Serval, incident handling typically follows this flow:Incident is created and classified
A ticket comes in from Slack, Teams, email, web, or external sync. Serval can classify it as an Incident, and your team can adjust the type manually when needed.
Team triages and routes
Your team sets status, priority, assignee, labels, and due date to establish ownership and urgency.
Related tickets are connected
If new incoming tickets appear related, Serval can link them to the incident and notify requesters that a related incident exists.
- Related incident linking — Serval can identify related incidents and keep ticket relationships connected
- Incident context in conversation — Serval can surface incident context and updates in related ticket conversations
- Workflow incident creation — Workflows can create incident tickets when automations detect issues
- Incident filtering — Filter your ticket list by incident type to focus active incident work
- External sync — Incident records and updates can sync with connected systems like ServiceNow and Freshservice
How Ticket Types Affect Handling
| Aspect | Request | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Fulfill the ask | Restore normal operation |
| Urgency | Based on business need | Based on impact and scope |
| Approval | Often required | Rarely required |
| SLA | Fulfillment time | Resolution time |
| Metrics | Time to fulfill | Time to resolve, MTTR |
AI Classification
Serval’s AI automatically classifies incoming tickets as requests or incidents based on the message content: The AI looks for signals like:- Request signals - “I need”, “Can I get”, “Please set up”, “Requesting”
- Incident signals - “Not working”, “Error”, “Broken”, “Can’t access”, “Issue with”
Configuring Ticket Types
Enable/Disable Types
In team settings, you can configure which ticket types are available:- Go to Team Settings → Ticket Types
- Toggle types on or off based on your team’s needs
- Some teams may only handle requests (e.g., HR) while others handle both
Type-Specific Settings
Configure different behaviors for each ticket type:Different statuses
Different statuses
Create type-specific statuses:
- Requests: “Pending Approval”, “Provisioning”, “Fulfilled”
- Incidents: “Investigating”, “Identified”, “Monitoring”, “Resolved”
Different SLAs
Different SLAs
Set different response and resolution times:
- High-priority incidents may have 1-hour SLA
- High-priority requests may have 24-hour SLA
Different routing
Different routing
Route types to different assignees:
- Requests → General IT team
- Incidents → Senior IT operations team
Changing Ticket Type
To change a ticket’s type:- Open the ticket
- Click the Type field in the right panel
- Select the correct type
- Type-specific fields will update accordingly
Changing ticket type may affect which statuses and SLAs are available. Review these after changing the type.
Best Practices
Keep it simple
For most teams, just Request and Incident are sufficient. Add more types only if you have distinct handling needs.
Match your ITSM
If you sync with an external system, align your ticket types with their categories.