---
updatedAt: 2026-03-19T13:04:38.000Z
agentTools:
  siteIndex: https://support.pagerduty.com/llms.txt
  projectIndex: https://support.pagerduty.com/actions/llms.txt
---

# Update Incident Priority

> 📘 Availability
>
> This workflow action is available on Business and Enterprise for Incident Management pricing plans. Contact the [Sales Team](https://www.pagerduty.com/contact-us/#contact-sales) to upgrade to an account with this action.

# Description

Programmatically updates incident priority levels within PagerDuty workflows, enabling automated priority adjustments based on incident conditions, service context, or time-based triggers. This action allows teams to dynamically escalate stale incidents, trigger other workflows based on priority condition, and/or auto-assign priorities to new incidents based on configurable business rules.

1. If you have not done so, follow the instructions to [Create an Incident Workflow](/main/docs/incident-workflows#create-an-incident-workflow).
2. When the instructions prompt you to [add actions](/main/docs/incident-workflows#add-actions), select **this action**.
3. Enter the following **Inputs** and click **Save**.
4. Continue following instructions to **Publish** the Workflow.
5. When the action runs, you will see the **Outputs** listed below.

> 📘 Priority Levels
>
> These are typically referred to as P1 through P5 , or SEV-1 through SEV-5. Ensure the priority level you specify matches your account's priority configuration.

# Inputs

> 📘 Field References
>
> Fields with the **{+}** icon accept [Field References](https://support.pagerduty.com/main/docs/incident-workflows#field-references), which can be useful for referencing incident data or outputs created in prior workflow steps. To add Field References, click **{+}**, or enter `{{`, and select relevant fields. Refer to the [Field References](https://support.pagerduty.com/main/docs/incident-workflows#field-references) article for more information.

| Name        | Description                       |
| :---------- | :-------------------------------- |
| Incident ID | The ID of the incident to update. |
| Priority    | The new priority level to assign. |

# Outputs

| Name              | Description                                                                         |
| :---------------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Updated Priority  | The new priority level that was successfully applied to the incident.               |
| Previous Priority | The incident's priority level before the update.                                    |
| Incident ID       | The ID of the updated incident.                                                     |
| Result            | Value that shows if the action was successful or not. Either "Success" or "Failed." |
| Result Summary    | Brief description of what the action did or if it failed.                           |
| Error             | Brief description that populates if the action failed.                              |

# Examples

With this workflow you can automatically:

* Escalate unacknowledged incidents to a specified priority after a given amount of time (e.g. An incident escalates to a P1 after 30 minutes if unacknowledged).
* Assign a specified priority to business critical services and use the output to reflect on status pages or trigger additional notifications (e.g. An incident is assigned a P1 priority if it matches a critical service. The output updates on external facing status pages).