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Serval supports different ticket types to help you categorize and handle various kinds of support needs appropriately.

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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

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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?”
Requests typically follow a fulfillment workflow: receive → approve (if needed) → provision → complete.

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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”
Incidents typically follow a resolution workflow: receive → diagnose → fix → verify → complete. Incident management features:
  • AI-powered incident linking — Serval automatically identifies related incidents and links them together, helping you detect widespread issues faster
  • Workflow incident creation — Create incidents from workflows to automatically surface and track issues detected by automations
  • Incident filtering — Filter your ticket list by the incident type to see all active incidents at a glance

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How Ticket Types Affect Handling

AspectRequestIncident
GoalFulfill the askRestore normal operation
UrgencyBased on business needBased on impact and scope
ApprovalOften requiredRarely required
SLAFulfillment timeResolution time
MetricsTime to fulfillTime to resolve, MTTR

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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”
You can always manually change the ticket type if the AI classification is incorrect.

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Configuring Ticket Types

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Enable/Disable Types

In team settings, you can configure which ticket types are available:
  1. Go to Team Settings → Ticket Types
  2. Toggle types on or off based on your team’s needs
  3. Some teams may only handle requests (e.g., HR) while others handle both

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Type-Specific Settings

Configure different behaviors for each ticket type:
Create type-specific statuses:
  • Requests: “Pending Approval”, “Provisioning”, “Fulfilled”
  • Incidents: “Investigating”, “Identified”, “Monitoring”, “Resolved”
Set different response and resolution times:
  • High-priority incidents may have 1-hour SLA
  • High-priority requests may have 24-hour SLA
Route types to different assignees:
  • Requests → General IT team
  • Incidents → Senior IT operations team

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Changing Ticket Type

To change a ticket’s type:
  1. Open the ticket
  2. Click the Type field in the right panel
  3. Select the correct type
  4. Type-specific fields will update accordingly
Changing ticket type may affect which statuses and SLAs are available. Review these after changing the type.

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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.