<h2>Responsibilities for Incident Communication Plan</h2><br/><div style="overflow-x:auto"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"><head><meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><meta name="copyright" content="(C) Copyright 2025" /><meta name="DC.rights.owner" content="(C) Copyright 2025" /><meta name="generator" content="DITA-OT" /><meta name="DC.type" content="reference" /><meta name="DC.title" content="Responsibilities for Incident Communication Plan" /><meta name="abstract" content="Contact responsibilities helps you to identify contacts by their responsibilities and to understand what you can expect from the user throughout the life cycle of the communication plan." /><meta name="description" content="Contact responsibilities helps you to identify contacts by their responsibilities and to understand what you can expect from the user throughout the life cycle of the communication plan." /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-alert-management/concept/c_IncidentAlertContact.html" /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/it-service-management/reference/r_ITServiceManagement.html" /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-alert-management/concept/c_IncidentAlertManagement.html" /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-alert-management/concept/working-with-inci-comm-mgmt.html" /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_CreateAContactResponsibility.html" /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_CreateAContactDefinition.html" /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_CreateADefaultOverride.html" /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_AddAContactManually.html" /><meta name="DC.creator" content="ServiceNow" /><meta name="DC.date.created" content="2023-08-03" /><meta name="DC.date.modified" content="2024-02-01" /><meta name="DC.format" content="XHTML" /><meta name="DC.identifier" content="r_ResponsibilitiesForIncidentAlerts" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../../CSS/commonltr.css" /><title>Responsibilities for Incident Communication Plan</title></head><body id="r_ResponsibilitiesForIncidentAlerts"> <div class="breadcrumb"><a class="link" href="../../../product/it-service-management/reference/r_ITServiceManagement.html" title="The IT Service Management (ITSM) solution provides scalable workflows to manage and deliver IT services to your users all through a single cloud-based platform.">IT Service Management</a> > <a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-alert-management/concept/c_IncidentAlertManagement.html" title="The ServiceNow Incident Communications Management application enables organizations to create and manage communications related to major business issues or incidents.">Incident Communications Management</a> > <a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-alert-management/concept/working-with-inci-comm-mgmt.html" title="Incident Communications Management provides a framework for defining and managing a communication process for an incident. It helps you to streamline a communication process by creating designated incident communication plans for effective communication during an event.">Managing Incident Communications</a> > </div> <h1 class="title topictitle1" id="ariaid-title1">Responsibilities for Incident Communication Plan</h1> <div class="body refbody"><p class="shortdesc">Contact responsibilities helps you to identify contacts by their responsibilities and to understand what you can expect from the user throughout the life cycle of the communication plan.</p> <div class="section">There are two types of responsibilities available for use with incident communication plans:<ul class="ul" id="r_ResponsibilitiesForIncidentAlerts__ul_lw5_btj_sz"><li class="li">Default Responsibilities: Contacts who are notified by default.</li><li class="li">Other Responsibilities: Contacts who can be selected for notification.</li></ul> <p class="p">Use contact definitions to view and modify the rules that determine the specific users associated with contact responsibilities.</p> </div> <div class="section"><h2 class="title sectiontitle">Default Responsibilities</h2> <div class="p">By default, contacts with the following responsibilities are notified when an incident communication plan is created:<ul class="ul" id="r_ResponsibilitiesForIncidentAlerts__ul_fxv_kgl_2p"><li class="li">Duty Manager</li><li class="li">Incident Manager</li><li class="li">Duty Director</li></ul> </div> <p class="p">These roles are involved with resolving the source incident or original event that the incident communication plan relates to. They are seen as key contacts for the incident communication plan.</p> <div class="p">The following sections describe typical operational roles for these responsibilities. <div class="tablenoborder"><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" id="r_ResponsibilitiesForIncidentAlerts__table_j1d_5gl_2p" class="table" frame="border" border="1" rules="all"><caption><span class="tablecap"><span class="table--title-label">Table 1. </span>Contact Administration Default Responsibilities</span></caption><colgroup><col /><col /></colgroup><thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;"><tr class="row"><th class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d297121e90">Responsibility</th><th class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d297121e93">Description</th></tr></thead><tbody class="tbody"><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e90 ">Duty Manager</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e93 ">The senior point of presence in the monitoring environment at the time an incident occurs. The Duty Manager assesses the incident against standard operating procedures, escalation triggers, and personal knowledge and experience, to take corrective actions. To clarify the urgency and impact of an incident, the Duty Manager can contact the Incident Manager for advice.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e90 ">Incident Manager</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e93 ">A senior technician, accountable for coordinating and managing all technical resources required to resolve incidents. After being notified by the Duty Manager of a serious incident, the Incident Manager assesses the seriousness and associated business impact. Based on this assessment, the Incident Manager decides whether to escalate the incident to the Duty Director. The Incident Manager may escalate to the Duty Director to gain access to resources outside of the department, if necessary.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e90 ">Duty Director</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e93 ">The escalation point for all issues that affect critical services. The Duty Director works in partnership with the business directors in the organization to approve recovery plans developed by the Incident Manager. The Duty Director also manages the senior level communications for the source incident.</td></tr></tbody></table> </div> </div> </div> <div class="section"><h2 class="title sectiontitle">Other Responsibilities</h2> <div class="p"><span class="ph">Incident Communications Management</span> provides the following additional responsibilities that can be added to incident communication plans. You can also create contact responsibilities, as needed. The associated users receive notifications about the incident communication plan. <div class="tablenoborder"><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" id="r_ResponsibilitiesForIncidentAlerts__table_i5c_thl_2p" class="table" frame="border" border="1" rules="all"><caption><span class="tablecap"><span class="table--title-label">Table 2. </span>Contact Administration Other Responsibilities</span></caption><colgroup><col /><col /></colgroup><thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;"><tr class="row"><th class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d297121e155">Responsibility</th><th class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d297121e158">Description</th></tr></thead><tbody class="tbody"><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Business Director</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Director within the business who is identified as a potential contact when an incident communication plan occurs.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Communication Manager</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Business-facing role in the event communication is required in an incident communication plan.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Crisis Action Manager</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Overall responsibility and accountability for managing incident communication plans.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Crisis Action Team Member</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Nominated department heads who are involved when an incident communication plan occurs.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Development personnel</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Development personnel involved in the troubleshooting and resolving an incident communication plan.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Operations support personnel</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Personnel involved in the second or third level of support in troubleshooting and resolving an incident communication plan.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Service Owner</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Service owner or manager who is identified as a potential contact when an incident communication plan relates to one or more of their services.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e155 ">Technical Support</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d297121e158 ">Second or third level technical support personnel involved in troubleshooting and resolving an incident communication plan.</td></tr></tbody></table> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="related-links"> <div class="familylinks"> <div class="parentlink"><strong>Parent Topic:</strong> <a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-alert-management/concept/c_IncidentAlertContact.html" title="You can define contacts to associate users or groups to an incident communication plan. The users or groups are contacted to complete the tasks included in a communication plan.">Incident Communications Management and Contacts</a></div> </div> <div class="linklist relinfo reltasks"><strong>Related tasks</strong><br /> <ul class="linklist"><li class="linklist"><a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_CreateAContactResponsibility.html" title="Define the different contacts or target audience involved in the communication process and their responsibility to understand the expectations from those contacts throughout the process.">Define contact responsibilities</a></li><li class="linklist"><a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_CreateAContactDefinition.html" title="Define the recipients of a particular incident communication plan to determine the target audience involved in each communication task and the responsibilities the recipients are expected to handle.">Create a contact definition</a></li><li class="linklist"><a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_CreateADefaultOverride.html" title="Create a default override to specify user or group for a contact definition of an incident communication plan. It helps you to set multiple conditions based on which a user or a group is considered as a contact.">Create a default override</a></li><li class="linklist"><a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-alert-management/task/t_AddAContactManually.html" title="Add a user to a communication plan if you have not added the user earlier in the contact. You can assign a communication task to the user to resolve an issue.">Add a user as a contact</a></li></ul></div> </div></body></html></div>