Major Incident workbench — the Collaborate tab

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Major Incident workbench — the Collaborate tab

    The Collaborate tab in the Major Incident workbench enables ServiceNow users to manage communication tasks that utilize conference calls as their communication channel. It provides tools to initiate, monitor, and control conference calls related to major incident communication plans, facilitating efficient collaboration during incident resolution.

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    Key Features

    • Add and Manage Communication Plans: Users can add new communication plans or create communication tasks within existing plans. They can also manage participants by adding or removing recipients after plans are saved.
    • Conference Call Controls: Users can initiate conference calls, join ongoing calls, add participants to active calls, and end calls if they are the conference leader. Active participants can be muted, unmuted, or removed by the conference leader.
    • Task Status Management: One-time communication tasks automatically change status to Complete after the call ends. Recurring tasks reset to Open and track the number of call initiations.
    • Participant Management: The interface separates active and inactive participants, providing clear visibility of call engagement.
    • Group Calls and Escalation: Adding a user group to a call follows the group's escalation hierarchy automatically when the call starts, controlled by the system property com.snc.iam.conferencecallfollowoncallescalation.
    • Work Notes & Activity Stream: Users can send connect messages at both the incident and communication plan levels and review the activity stream within the workbench.
    • Direct Call Initiation: Calls can be started directly to group members by configuring the snmajorincmgmt.notifywebrtcnumber property with a valid voice-capable notify number. The "Start a call" option is disabled for users already in an active call.
    • Mute Controls: Mute All and Unmute All options allow for bulk control of participant audio during calls.
    • Integration with Collaboration Tools: The workbench supports sending Microsoft Teams notifications and initiating Teams group chats directly from the Collaborate tab, enhancing cross-platform communication. Relevant procedures also cover Slack communication process flows.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Streamlines communication management during major incidents by consolidating conference call controls and participant management in one interface.
    • Improves incident resolution times through efficient, real-time collaboration and clear participant oversight.
    • Supports escalation workflows automatically when group calls are initiated, ensuring the right personnel are engaged.
    • Facilitates integration with popular collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack, enabling seamless communication across tools.
    • Offers detailed tracking and activity visibility to support audit trails and incident documentation.

    The Collaborate tab helps you to view and manage communication tasks that use conference as their communication channel.

    Figure 1. View of the Collaborate tab
    The Collaborate tab

    Like the Summary tab, you can add a new communication plan by clicking Add. You can create communication task for an existing plan by clicking Add Call. For more information, see Add-communication-plan-from-mim-workbench. If you want to add or remove recipients from a particular plan after the plan is saved, select Manage Participants.

    To initiate a conference call, select Initiate. If the communication task is a one-time task, then after the call is ended, the status of the task changes to Complete. If task is recurring, the status of the task changes to Open and it displays the number of times the conference call is initiated.
    Note:
    When you add a user group to the conference call, the group itself is added to the call, and the escalation hierarchy is automatically followed once you start the call. Set the com.snc.iam.conference_call_follow_on_call_escalation property to true. For more information about the property, see System properties for On-Call Scheduling.

    Under each task, the Active participant section displays the active participants and the Inactive participant section displays the inactive participants.

    If the call is in progress, the itil user, who has access to the workbench, can join the conference call by clicking Join Call. The participants can also add another user to an ongoing conference call by clicking + Participants. The conference leader can end the conference call by clicking End Call. The conference leader can mute, unmute, or kick an active participant by hovering over the active participant and clicking Mute or remove an active participant.

    Under the Work Notes & Activity section, you can send connect message at incident or incident communication plan level. You can also view the activity stream.

    To initiate a call directly to the group members, select Start a call.

    Start a call

    To start a call, populate the sn_major_inc_mgmt.notify_webrtc_number property with a valid notify number that has voice capability. For user who is already in an active conference call, Start a call is disabled. You can mute or unmute all the participants using the Mute All and Unmute All options.

    To send a Microsoft Teams notification from major incident workbench, see Send a notification from Major incident management workbench. The procedure applies to both the Collaborate and Communicate tabs. To  Initiate Microsoft Teams group chat from MIM workbench, see Initiate Microsoft Teams group chat from MIM workbench.

    For information on process flow for slack communication, see Process flow for Slack communication.

    For information on how to add a collaborative communication task, see Add a collaborative communication task.