Incident page
The Incident page is setup to provide you with the capabilities to manage all aspects of your incident:
- The top section provides an overview of the incident metadata
- The side panel focuses on incident information such as title, description, type, timings, tags, and team for quicker access and readability
- The main panel focuses on core incident usability around events, tasks, follow-up actions and communications
Note: When on the Incident Details page, clicking on an Incident link will direct to the record on the same tab.
To open the Incident in a new tab, depending on your operating system, do the following:
MacOS
Hover over the desired link. SelectCMD + Click
sequence. A new tab opens.
Windows
Hover over the desired link. Right-click your right mouse button. A drop down list appears. Select the first action "Open link in new tab". A new tab opens.
Incident header
Within the incident header you can view and adjust crucial incident properties and metadata. The incident header shows the following incident metadata and properties:
- Incident severity
- Incident status
- Tasks (pending and completed)
- Follow-up actions (pending and completed)
- Incident commander
- Incident war room and video bridge
- Top level JIRA ticket for the incident (if you have JIRA integration enabled)
- A link to the incident retrospective
- An actions menu in the top right for additional actions regarding the incident itself. For example, see deleting an incident
Incident sidebar
Within the incident sidebar, you can view incident information such as summary, type, timings, tags, and team info, along with other incident related timestamps in the web UI:
- Created Timestamp
- Updated Timestamp
- Detection Timestamp
- Customer Impact (start, end and duration)
- Incident Impact (start, end and duration)
- Resolution Time (start, last and duration)
If this duration does not reflect the actual time to resolution period for this incident, you can manually change the last resolution date/time to the appropriate date and time, as long as it is higher than the first time the incident was resolved. However the last resolution time automatically resets each time users change the incident status back to the resolved state.
Editing the title and description
As noted above, items within the Incident Summary with pencil Icons can be edited. This includes the Title and Description that were initially combined as the "Executive Summary" field.
- Click on the pencil. The text field opens.
- Enter any changes.
- Click on the "Save" button or "Cancel" button as desired.
Changing incident type
Blameless allows the user to change the Incident type at any time.
Changing the incident type during an incident
If you change incident type during an incident the following will occur:
- You will receive a warning window confirming you wish to make the change.
- There will be an update to the time-list to indicate when a type transition occurs.
- The Incident remains in the same state as when it is changed.
- All completed tasks until that point are still complete, then the new tasks are presented.
- The Timeline is preserved.
- The Retrospective custom questions, tags, and Analysis section are overwritten.
You can also change the type at any time using the Blameless Bot commands. Changing the incident type will also create a new event in the incident timeline to capture the time of type change.
Note: Changing the type of an incident will not cause it to inherit the settings of that new type ans severity. The settings for an incident are determined by the type and type when the incident is created.
Impacted services
If the user has PagerDuty Integration enabled, they can see the list of the impacted services. Each service from this list links to the service details in your PagerDuty account.
The list of impacted services may contain PagerDuty services added manually at the creation of the incident, in addition to PagerDuty services automatically added to the incident if predefined in the corresponding incident type.
Working with tags
Tags provide a powerful mechanism for you to capture and label metadata for an incident which can later be viewed in Reliability Insights reports and queries.
Tag Management is now available under "Settings" + "Tag Management". Refer to the Tag Management settings section for detailed information and configuration.
Tags support an optional list of predefined tag values. This allows you to lock down a list of tag options to a predefined list in order to improve data curation, consistency, and reporting.
Adding a tag value to a category's list of predefined tags restricts selectable options for this category. If a category has no predefined values, the input values will remain freeform.
For tag categories which contain predefined values, their tag input will now be a multi-select dropdown. For tag categories which aren't locked down to predefined values, their input remains as freeform input.
You can also change tags at any time using the Blameless Bot commands and Microsoft Teams.
Team
Members of the incident team are shown in the team section. Members that have been assigned to roles will be pinned at the top of the list, followed by the remaining participant members.
Clicking on the edit icon allows you to reassign roles, and remove team members.
You can also assign roles at any time using the UI as well as the Blameless bot in Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Event timeline
Note: When viewing the timeline from Slack, only the following events will be displayed:
- INCIDENT_CREATED
- STATUS_FIELD_CHANGED
- CHAT_HIGHLIGHT
Manually Capturing Events
Events may also be manually captured by highlighting important messages in the war room chat.
Adding custom events
Custom events may be added by clicking on theAdd Event
button in the top right of the Events tab.
From here, users can input an event payload in text form, or as a file, and specify the time of the event.
Editing, copying, and deleting events
Certain events in the timeline can be edited, copied or deleted. Hover over these events in the incident timeline, and a menu with more actions will appear where you can perform additional actions.
Operation | Event types permitted | Description |
---|---|---|
Copy | Chat highlights File uploads Image uploads Link Custom events |
Copies the event as text, or asset url depending on the event type |
Delete | Chat highlights File uploads Image uploads Link Custom events |
Deletes the event from the timeline |
Edit | Custom Events | Allows the user to edit the event |
Event Type | Capture Type | Description |
---|---|---|
Start of Customer Impact | Automatic | Event marking the start of customer impact. This event is defaulted to the incident creation timestamp, however can be edited as needed. |
Incident Created | Automatic | Event marking the time of incident creation, captured automatically when you start an incident. |
Detection Time | Automatic | The Detection Time timestamp is automatically added to an incident and is initially set to the same time as the creation of the incident. It can then be manually updated and only set to a date and time earlier than the creation date and time. |
Chat Highlight | Manual | Captured when chat text is manually highlighted during an incident. |
Role Assignment | Automatic | Captured when a role is assigned. |
Retrospective State Change | Automatic | Captured automatically first when an incident is started, and upon every subsequent Retrospective state change. |
Image Highlight/Upload | Manual & Automatic | Captured when an image is manually highlighted during an incident, or automatically when an image is uploaded. |
File Upload | Automatic | Captured automatically when a file is uploaded. |
Swimlane Event | Automatic | Captured automatically when a swimlane is opened, modified, or closed. |
End of Customer Impact | Automatic | Event marking the end of customer impact. This event is defaulted to the incident resolution timestamp, however can be edited as needed. |
Status Change | Automatic | Captured automatically when incident status is changed. |
Severity Change | Automatic | Captured automatically when incident severity is changed. |
Incident Type Change | Automatic | Captured automatically when incident type is changed. |
Custom Event | Automatic capture via manually added event | Captured when a custom event is added. |
Pager Event | Automatic | Captured automatically when triggering a pager during an incident. |
Link Event | Automatic capture via manually added event | Captured when a custom event contains a link. |
Tasks
Tasks provide a mechanism by which you can ensure that certain items are completed or suggested during an incident lifecycle. These tasks can be assigned to each phase of the incident, as well as to a specific role or owner.
As the incident progresses through each subsequent phase, the tasks for that phase will become available.
Interact with a task
From the Tasks panel, users can interact with Tasks:
- Complete a task by clicking on the completion circle in the left margin
- Edit a task by hovering over a row and clicking on the edit icon
- Duplicate a task by hovering over a row and clicking on the duplicate icon
- Delete a task by hovering over a row and clicking on the delete icon
- Filter tasks using the toolbar filters
Bulk interactions are also available by clicking on the Bulk Select button in the Tasks toolbar. From this mode, you may bulk delete or bulk toggle task completions.
You can also interact with tasks at any time using the Blameless bot in Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Tasks can be configured per incident type and severity. Refer to the Checklist Tasks section for more information.
Adding a new task
From the Tasks panel, new tasks can be added during an incident by clicking the Add Task button:
Complete a task
Completing a Task is simple: Complete a task by clicking on the completion circle in the left margin.
Who can complete a Task?
The task owner is allowed by default to complete his/her tasks, as well as any user who has been assigned an incident role which has full task permissions. This task permission would be typically assigned to the incident commander and is configurable on a per incident type basis but can be reassigned.
Delete, reopen, or complete tasks in bulk
Under the Task tab within the Incident, you can conduct actions in bulk.
Click on the "Bulk Select" button. In its place, a menu action buttons appears:
- Delete
- Reopen
- Mark complete
Select the task(s) you want to adjust in bulk.
Users can require specified tasks to be completed during an incident workflow, to help ensure teams don’t overlook a specific task(s) before transitioning to another phase of the incident management process.
- From the Task settings, and for to the tasks you'd like to require, click on the asterisk to set it as required
Note: When a task is marked as required, the asterisk will be highlighted in red.
For incidents where the state is either Investigating, Identified, or Monitoring, users will be unable to transition the incident to a subsequent phase where required tasks have not yet been marked as "Complete".
For required tasks that aren't complete while an incident is in the Resolved state, users will be unable to publish the corresponding Retrospective, leaving the channel unarchived.
Follow-up actions
Follow-up actions can be added at any point during an incident. They can be added using:
- The
#todo
or/blameless followup
commands (refer to Blameless Bot commands) - On the Incident page’s “Follow-up Actions” tab by clicking the “Add Action” button
When adding a new follow up action, you will be prompted to fill out standard fields such as:
- Summary
- Assignee
- Type
- JIRA Project
- JIRA Issue Type
- Priority (of action)
Complete follow-up action fields
The follow-up action fields vary depending on whether the integration with Jira is enabled or not.
If the JIRA integration is enabled, the following fields must be provided:
- Enter the Summary describing the new action.
- Start typing the name of the Assignee. Blameless will autofill as you enter more letters.
- Select the Type. You options are:
- Mitigation
- Prevention
- Process
- (Optional) Change the default Jira Project name to a different one. Blameless will autofill as you enter more letters.
- (Optional) Change the default JIRA Issue Type from the drop down menu. Your options are:
- Task
- Sub-task
- Story
- Bug
- Epic (see below)
- User defined Custom field
- Select a Priority value.
- (Optional) Change the default value for each required Jira field.
- Click on the “Create Action” button.
- assignee
- issuetype
- priority
- project
- Summary
- Free-form text (string)
- Date/times (date picker)
- Single select option (i.e., radio button, single choice list)
Follow-up Actions with Jira Disabled
When users are creating follow up actions (FUA) from the Blameless UI and Jira is disabled, the follow up action can be assigned to a Slack user if the integration with Slack is enabled or to the Microsoft Team(s) if Microsoft Teams is enabled.
Communications
The Communications workflow allows you to easily keep peers, stakeholders and public audiences in the loop as an incident progresses. Draft, preview and approve multiple communications easily via a streamlined workflow and publish across a variety of mediums including Slack or Microsoft Teams, email, SMS, and Statuspage.
The message content can be curated as needed or crafted as a subset of the current incident data available.
Note: The user has the following options regarding the Subject line for the Internal and External communications:
- The user can customize the Subject line to clarify the message; or,
- Use the pre-populated Subject line with the default value containing the Incident reference information
(Incident <Incident ID> Update
.
Internal communications workflow
The internal communications workflow allows you to update audiences via Slack or Microsoft Teams, email, and SMS, using a standard draft and publish workflow.
- Microsoft Teams: Team
- Microsoft Teams: Channel(s)
External communications workflow
The external communications workflow allows you to update audiences via Slack or Microsoft Teams, email, SMS, and Statuspage using a draft, approval, and publish workflow.
- Microsoft Teams: Team
- Microsoft Teams: Channel(s)
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