Administering case and account escalation

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Administering case and account escalation

    This feature enables ServiceNow customers to manage and control the escalation process for cases and accounts through customizable escalation templates, severity definitions, and escalation SLAs. It facilitates timely and visible handling of escalations, improving response efficiency and customer satisfaction.

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    Escalation Templates

    Escalation templates define how escalation requests are processed, specifying:

    • Escalation type (case or account)
    • Whether approval is required; if yes, the approver list or workflow
    • Escalation watch list for users to receive email notifications on updates

    ServiceNow provides standard templates for case and account escalations, which system administrators can modify or create new ones as needed.

    Escalation Severity

    Severity levels categorize escalations by urgency and visually highlight escalated records in the user interface to help agents quickly identify them. There are two default severity levels:

    • High Severity: Highlighted in red
    • Medium Severity: Highlighted in orange

    Indicators and highlights appear in both the Customer Service Management (CSM) Agent Workspace and the platform interface, marking key fields (e.g., short description for cases, name for accounts) and list or form views with color-coded signals.

    Administrators can configure additional severity definitions by creating new styles with desired colors.

    Escalation SLAs

    Escalation SLAs govern the expected frequency of updates and resolution timing based on escalation type and severity. SLAs are linked to escalation severity and are automatically applied when an escalation request is created. Default SLAs include:

    • Case Escalation SLAs: Response and de-escalation within 4 or 8 hours, managed on the case record.
    • Account Escalation SLAs: Response and de-escalation within 4 or 8 hours, managed on the escalation record.

    System administrators can customize SLAs based on escalation attributes such as type, severity, and trend. SLAs are accessible on the Task SLAs related list on case or escalation forms.

    Create escalation templates and escalation severity definitions to control the escalation process for cases and accounts.

    Escalation templates

    An escalation template determines how an escalation request is processed by defining the following information:
    • The type of escalation (case or account)
    • If approval is required:
      • If no, the escalation request is automatically approved.
      • If yes, provide the approver list required by the default approval workflow or provide a different approval workflow.
    • The escalation watch list. Users added to the watch list receive email notifications when an escalation record is updated.

    The escalation feature provides two standard escalation templates, one for case escalation and one for account escalation. If needed, users with the system administrator role can modify these templates or create templates.

    Escalation severity

    An escalation severity record defines the severity level for the escalation and the color that is used to highlight the escalated case or account record in the user interface. This assigned severity enables agents to easily identify escalated cases and accounts on lists and forms. The escalation feature provides two escalation severity definitions:
    • High Severity: Escalated records are highlighted in red.
    • Medium Severity: Escalated records are highlighted in orange.
    The user interface determines which fields are highlighted for escalated cases and accounts.
    Table 1. User interface indicators to identify escalated cases and accounts
    User interface Description
    CSM Agent Workspace Field indicators and field highlights appear on the Short description field for escalated cases and on the Name field for escalated accounts.
    Note:
    You can move indicators and highlights to any field that is not a hyperlinked field.
    Platform interface Escalated case and account numbers are indicated with a colored dot on a list and a colored background on a form.
    Figure 1. CSM Agent Workspace case list with escalated cases
    List of cases with escalation details. For the text description, refer to the text that follows.
    The CSM Agent Workspace case list shows these escalation details:
    • Number: Automatically generated case number.
    • Short description: Describes the case.
    • Action status: Indicates the status of the case.
    • Contact: Shows the contact person for the case.

    In addition to defining the field indicator and field highlight of an escalated case or account, the severity can be used when configuring SLAs. To configure additional escalation severity definitions, the system administrator must configure a new style with the desired color. For more information, see Highlight list fields.

    Escalation SLAs

    Escalation SLAs are typically used to govern the frequency of updates required for different types and severities of escalations. An escalation SLA is associated with an escalation severity in the SLA definition. When a user creates an escalation request, the selection in the Escalation Severity field determines the SLA for the escalation record. The escalation feature provides the following case and account escalation SLAs. The following table provides information about the escalation SLAs and their descriptions.

    Table 2. Case and Account Escalation SLAs
    Escalation SLAs Description
    Case escalation SLAs On case escalations, because the escalation corresponds one-to-one with a case, the default SLAs are associated with the case:
    • Escalated case response - 4 hours: De-escalate the case within four hours.
    • Escalated case response - 8 hours: De-escalate the case within eight hours.

    For case escalation, update the SLA reset condition to `complete the old SLA and start a new one when the case has new comments`
    Account escalation SLAs On account escalations, because the escalation corresponds to an account which typically doesn’t support SLAs, the SLAs are associated with the escalation.
    • Escalated account response - 4 hours: De-escalate the account within four hours.
    • Escalated account response - 8 hours: De-escalate the account within eight hours.
    Users with the system administrator role can configure case and account escalation SLAs that are based on escalation attributes such as the escalation type, severity, and trend. Escalation SLAs are stored in the following locations:
    • For account records, on the Escalation form in the Task SLAs related list.
    • For case records, on the Case form in the Task SLAs related list.