<h2>Life cycle of an Incident</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="concept" /><meta name="DC.title" content="Life cycle of an Incident" /><meta name="abstract" content="Incident Management is responsible for managing the life cycle of incidents, from creation to closure." /><meta name="description" content="Incident Management is responsible for managing the life cycle of incidents, from creation to closure." /><meta name="DC.relation" scheme="URI" content="../../../product/incident-management/concept/incident-management-process.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-management/concept/c_IncidentManagement.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="c_IncidentManagementStateModel" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../../CSS/commonltr.css" /><title>Life cycle of an Incident</title></head><body id="c_IncidentManagementStateModel"> <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-management/concept/c_IncidentManagement.html" title="Incident Management restores normal service operation while minimizing impact to business operations and maintaining quality.">Incident Management</a> > </div> <h1 class="title topictitle1" id="ariaid-title1">Life cycle of an Incident</h1> <div class="body conbody"><p class="shortdesc"><span class="ph">Incident Management</span> is responsible for managing the life cycle of incidents, from creation to closure.</p> <div class="p">The <span class="ph">Incident Management</span> process has many states, and each is vitally important to the success of the process and the quality of service delivered. The different states can be represented in a diagram as follows:<div class="fig fignone" id="c_IncidentManagementStateModel__fig_pbs_wsn_2gb"><span class="figcap"><span class="fig--title-label">Figure 1. </span>Incident management state model flow</span> <img class="image" id="c_IncidentManagementStateModel__image_qbs_wsn_2gb" src="../image/IM_StateModel.png" alt="Incident state flow diagram" /> </div> </div> <div class="p"> <div class="tablenoborder"><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" id="c_IncidentManagementStateModel__table_t51_21c_b5" class="table" frame="border" border="1" rules="all"><caption><span class="tablecap"><span class="table--title-label">Table 1. </span>Incident states</span></caption><colgroup><col style="width:42.91845493562232%" /><col style="width:57.08154506437768%" /></colgroup><thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;"><tr class="row"><th class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d833752e73">State</th><th class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d833752e76">Description</th></tr></thead><tbody class="tbody"><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e73 ">New</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e76 ">Incident is logged but not yet investigated.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e73 ">In Progress</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e76 ">Incident is assigned and is being investigated.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e73 ">On Hold</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e76 ">The responsibility for the incident shifts temporarily to another entity to provide further information, evidence, or a resolution. When you select the <span class="ph uicontrol">On Hold</span> option, the following <span class="ph uicontrol">On hold reason</span> list appears. <ul class="ul" id="c_IncidentManagementStateModel__ul_ixw_vbx_5zb"><li class="li">Awaiting Caller</li><li class="li">Awaiting Change</li><li class="li">Awaiting Problem</li><li class="li">Awaiting vendor</li></ul> <div class="p">If the <span class="ph uicontrol">On hold reason</span> is <span class="ph uicontrol">Awaiting Caller</span>, the <span class="ph uicontrol">Additional comments</span> becomes mandatory. <div class="note"><span class="notetitle">Note:</span> If the caller updates the incident, the <span class="ph uicontrol">On hold reason</span> field is cleared and the state of the incident is changed to <span class="ph uicontrol">In Progress</span>. An email notification is sent to the user whose name is mentioned in the <span class="ph uicontrol">Assigned to</span> field as well as to the users in the <span class="ph uicontrol">Watch list</span>. An incident can be placed in the <span class="ph uicontrol">On hold</span> state one or more times prior to being closed.</div> </div> </td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e73 ">Resolved</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e76 ">A satisfactory fix is provided for the incident to ensure that it does not occur again.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e73 ">Closed</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e76 ">Incident is marked <span class="ph uicontrol">Closed</span> after it is in the <span class="ph uicontrol">Resolved</span> state for a specific duration and it is confirmed that the incident is satisfactorily resolved.</td></tr><tr class="row"><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e73 ">Canceled</td><td class="entry cellrowborder" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d833752e76 ">Incident was triaged but found to be a duplicate incident, an unnecessary incident, or not an incident at all.</td></tr></tbody></table> </div> </div> </div> <div class="related-links"> <div class="familylinks"> <div class="parentlink"><strong>Parent Topic:</strong> <a class="link" href="../../../product/incident-management/concept/incident-management-process.html" title="ServiceNow Incident Management supports the incident management process with the ability to identify and log incidents, classify and prioritize incidents, assign incidents to appropriate users or groups, escalate, resolve, and report incidents.">Exploring Incident Management</a></div> </div> </div></body></html></div>