How alerts work with CIs in maintenance

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of How alerts work with CIs in maintenance

    This documentation explains how ServiceNow Event Management handles alerts for Configuration Items (CIs) that are in maintenance. Maintenance status affects how alerts are displayed, impact calculations, and visibility within the impact tree, service map, and Alerts tab, helping you correctly prioritize and manage alerts during planned changes or maintenance windows.

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    When a CI is Considered In Maintenance

    • A change request is scheduled for the CI and is actively in progress.
    • The Install Status field on the CI record is set to In Maintenance.

    This status influences alert handling until the maintenance or change request is completed.

    Alert Handling and Impact Calculation for CIs in Maintenance

    • All alerts on CIs with an active change request or marked as In Maintenance are excluded from impact calculation.
    • The Alerts tab hides these alerts temporarily to reduce noise during maintenance.
    • The impact tree and service map show these CIs in green with the note (In Maintenance), indicating they are temporarily excluded from impact severity analysis.
    • For services, all alerts on CIs in maintenance are hidden, and the entire service is shown in green.
    • For hosts with active change requests, the host and all child applications are treated as a single unit until the change request is completed.

    Active vs. Inactive Change Requests

    • Active Change Request: State is Scheduled or Implement, and current time falls within the planned or actual start/end dates.
    • Inactive Change Request: States such as New, Assess, Authorize, Review, Close, or outside the planned/actual date range.

    Alerts for CIs with inactive change requests or no maintenance status are included in impact calculations and shown normally. You can address these alerts as usual.

    Monitoring and Next Steps

    • Monitor change request progress and wait for the state to move to Review or Closed before addressing alerts suppressed during maintenance.
    • Use the impact tree, service map, and Alerts tab to view calculated impact severity once maintenance is complete.

    Customization

    To tailor how alerts behave during CI maintenance, you can create and configure maintenance rules.

    When a CI is in maintenance, the impact tree, the service map, and Alerts tab are updated based on various factors.

    Watch this brief video to learn about how alerts work with CIs.

    A CI is in maintenance when:
    • A change request is scheduled for the CI.
    • The Install Status field on the CI record is set to In Maintenance.
    Note:
    To customize how alerts work with CIs in maintenance, see Create maintenance rules.
    How CIs in Maintenance appear in Event Management Description and the optimal time to resolve the alert
    Figure 1. CI with an active change request
    Event Management impact

    If an active change request is scheduled for the CI or if the Install Status of the CI is In Maintenance, all alerts on the affected CI are excluded from impact calculation. The Alerts tab also temporarily hides all corresponding alerts. The impact tree shows the CI in green with a note of (In Maintenance). The impact tree and the service map temporarily show CIs in green.

    For a service, all alerts on CIs in the service are also hidden from the Alerts tab. The entire service is shown in green on the impact tree. For a host with an active change request, the host applications are considered as one unit. All child applications are treated in the same manner as the host until the change request is no longer active.

    		An active change request has the following values:
    • The State is Scheduled or Implement.
    • The current time is between the Planned start date and Planned end date on the change request.

      OR

    • The current time is between the Actual start date and Actual end date on the change request.
    You can monitor the progress of the change request. Wait until the change request moves to the Review or Closed state. Then you can address all alerts for the affected CI and any alerts that generated between start and end dates. Use the impact tree, topology, and Alerts tab to show the calculated impact severity.
    Note:

    The Maintenance check box for an alert is selected when the Install Status field on the CI record is In Maintenance. This Maintenance check box indicates that the alert must be hidden from the Alerts tab. When the maintenance job updates this field, the Updated field (sys_updated_on) changes for open alerts, but not for closed alerts.
    Figure 2. CI with no active change request and not in maintenance
    Event Management map

    When there is no active change request for a CI and when the CI is not in maintenance, impact calculation resumes. The impact tree, the service map, and Alerts tab show the calculated impact severity for alerts.

    		 An inactive change request has the following values:
    • The State is New, Assess, Authorize, Review, Close, or has no changes at all.
    • The State is Scheduled or Implement. However, the current time is before or after the planned or actual date ranges on the change request.

    You can monitor the progress of the change request. When a CI has an inactive change request, you can address the corresponding alerts as appropriate.
    Figure 3. CI with no active change request and in maintenance
    Event Management impact

    If no active change request is scheduled for the CI and if the Install Status of the CI is In Maintenance, all alerts on this CI are excluded from impact calculation. The impact tree shows the CI in green with a note of (In Maintenance). The impact tree and the service map temporarily show CIs in green.

    		 All alerts on a CI with an inactive change request and In Maintenance has no impact calculation.