Viewing incident record information using the Contextual side panel
Summarize
Summary of Viewing incident record information using the Contextual side panel
ServiceNow’s Contextual side panel in the Yokohama release enables agents to efficiently view detailed incident record information, including caller details, assets, active calls, SLAs, origin records, and assignment status, directly within the Service Operations Workspace. This feature helps agents manage incidents with better context and faster access to relevant data.
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Key Features
- Record Information Side Panel: Accessed via the Record information icon, it aggregates key incident-related details to streamline incident handling.
- Active Calls: Displays up to five ongoing conference calls for major incidents when the Major Incident Management plugin is active. Agents can join calls directly from this card or use the Collaborate tab for more call details. Note that Twilio calls show plain text links and require using the Collaborate tab to join.
- SLAs and Timings: Shows major incident duration, response SLA countdown, resolution SLA countdown, and all SLAs associated with the incident, helping agents prioritize tasks effectively.
- Caller Information: Provides quick access to caller name, local time, department, location, and VIP status. Agents can preview the caller record, open it on a new tab, or view detailed contact information. Related caller assets, recent interactions (up to 10 in last 7 days), and recent incidents (up to 10 in last 7 days) are also accessible.
- Origin Record Details: Displays origin information such as state, number, creator, type, and short description of the originating record (e.g., change request, interaction, or problem). For interaction-originated incidents, agents can view chat transcripts and work notes. Automated interaction record closure is supported through configuration settings.
- Assignment Status: Shows current assignment and allows agents to self-assign incidents. It also lists collaborators drawn from historical assignees, commenters, and active collaboration channels, with up to five collaborators shown per page.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Improved incident resolution speed by providing immediate access to all relevant record details without navigating away from the workspace.
- Better collaboration through active call and collaborator visibility, enhancing communication during major incidents.
- Enhanced SLA awareness to avoid breaches by monitoring response and resolution countdowns directly in the side panel.
- Streamlined incident origin tracking and interaction management, including automatic status updates for related interaction records.
- Facilitated assignment management, enabling agents to quickly take ownership or view all collaborators involved in the incident.
View the incident record information, such as caller details and assets, from the Contextual side panel. Use this information to help manage an incident more efficiently.
Select the Record information (
) icon on the Contextual side panel to view the incident information. The record information side panel includes this following information.
Active calls
The Active calls card displays active conference calls that are currently in progress for major incidents. This card is displayed only for major incident records and if the Major Incident Management for Service Operations Workspace (sn_sow_mim) plugin is installed and active. For more information, see Setting up Major Incident Management in Service Operations Workspace.
A maximum of five collaboration records are displayed on this card. You can select the call record links displayed on this card to join the calls. You can use the Collaborate side panel tab to view and manage additional call record information.
For Twilio calls, plain text is displayed instead of a link. In such case, you can join the call using the Collaborate side panel tab.
The collaboration information is retrieved from the Collaboration services integration with Service Operations Workspace.
SLAs and timings
- Major incident duration – Time duration since the incident has been promoted, created, or accepted as a major incident. This field is visible only if Major Incident Management for Service Operations Workspace is installed and active.
- Response SLA – The Task service level agreement (SLA) stage according to the configured Incident Response SLA timer configuration. Displays the time left to respond to an incident before the task SLA is breached.
- Resolution SLA – The Task SLA stage according to the configured Incident Resolution SLA timer configuration. Displays the time left to resolve an incident before the task SLA is breached.
- View all SLAs – All SLAs associated with the incident record.Note:This option is visible only if there is at least one SLA associated with the current incident task.
Caller
The Caller card displays quick information about the caller, such as name, local time, department, and location. You can also select the Preview caller (
) icon to preview the caller record. Select Open record to open the caller record on a separate tab. You can also select Contact to view all details about the caller.
You can view the VIP field decorator if the caller is a VIP user. The VIP field decorator also appears for the Caller field in the Details tab.
- Caller assets – List of the caller's assets (CIs).
- Recent interaction – List of recent interactions with the caller that have been created in the last seven days. You can view up to ten interaction records on the card. Select View all to view the list
of all interactions on a separate tab.Note:For interaction records, the Assigned to user is considered as the caller.
- Recent incidents - List of recent incidents associated with the caller that have been created in the last seven days. You can view up to ten incident records on the card. Select View all to view the list of all incidents on a separate tab.
Origin
The origin card displays the information related to the origin record. An origin record is the record from which the incident record is created such as change request, interaction or problem.
- State - State of the origin record.
- Number - Number of the origin record.
- Opened by - User who created or opened the origin record
- Type - Channel type of origin record. For example, if the origin is an interaction record, the type can be Chat
- Short description - Short description of the origin record.
- The following options are available if the incident is created from an interaction record:
- View chat transcript - Select View chat transcript to view the chat history with the caller of the interaction record. You can perform additional activities such as maximize or minimize the chat window. This option is available only if the interaction record is of Chat type and in Closed complete or Closed Abandoned state.
- View work notes - Select View work notes to view the work notes activity history of the interaction record.
- When an incident record created from an interaction record is resolved, the interaction record is automatically set to Wrap up or Closed complete state. An admin role user must set
the Auto close the origin interaction (sn_sow_inc.autoclose_origin.interaction) system property to true to enable this feature. The Close interaction
from incident business rule checks the following conditions and updates the interaction record to Wrap up or Closed complete state:
- When the Auto close the origin interaction (sn_sow_inc.autoclose_origin.interaction) system property is set to true and the Fallback Timeout for interactions in Wrap Up scheduled script is active, the interaction record is moved to Wrap up state.
- When the Auto close the origin interaction (sn_sow_inc.autoclose_origin.interaction) system property is set to true and the Fallback Timeout for interactions in Wrap Up scheduled script is inactive, interaction record is moved to Closed complete state.
- You can add multiple related interaction records to an incident using the Add option on the Interaction related list in the Related records tab of an Incident record page.
Assigned to
- Historical Assigned to users for the incident or incident tasks except the current Assigned to user.
- Users who have added comments and work notes to the major incident record. This data source is applicable only for major incidents.
- Collaborators from the collaboration channels that are initiated from the Collaborate side panel. This information is retrieved using the collaboration APIs.