Custom Fields on Incidents

Customize metadata fields for streamlined tracking and standardized information display.

The Custom Fields feature allows you to:

  • Enrich PagerDuty incidents with critical and helpful metadata throughout the incident lifecycle.
  • Flexibly define your preferred data.
  • Standardize what information your incidents display.
  • Aggregate data from several existing systems and populate that information during incident response.

📘

Availability

This feature is available with the Business, Enterprise for Incident Management, and Digital Operations (Legacy) pricing plans. Contact Sales to upgrade to a plan with this feature.

An infographic displaying various objects related to incident response: Major Incident, Root Cause, Customers Impacted

Configure Custom Fields

Create a Custom Field

After creating an Incident Type, you can add custom fields to that type.

Note: Because Incident Types use inheritance, custom fields become available to that specific incident type and to its children.

📘

Custom Fields Availability

On the Base Incident Type, you can add:

  • 15 fields for accounts on the Business plan
  • 30 fields for accounts on the Enterprise plan for Incident Management

For all other Incident Types, you can add an additional 15 custom fields. For example, your base incident could have 30 fields, and you could add an additional 15 to your major incident. Disabled custom fields do count towards this limit.

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Required User Permissions

Admins and the Account Owner can create, edit and delete fields.

To create a custom field:

  1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types.

  2. Select an Incident Type, or create a new Incident Type.

  3. With the Fields tab selected, click New Field.

  4. Enter the following information:

    FieldInstructions
    Display NameEnter a logical name for the field that will display on incidents.
    Field NameEnter a name for use when referencing this field in the API. It can only contain lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores.
    Note: You cannot change this value after initial creation.
    DescriptionWrite a description to help responders understand what this field is or how they should use it.
    Field TypeSelect a data type (e.g., Text, Single Select, Multi Select).
    Note: You cannot change this value after initial creation.
    Set a Default Value
    (Optional)
    Pre-populate the field for new incidents to show a default value.
    Note: This value will not apply to past incidents.
    Enable FieldSelect Enable or Disable.
  5. Click Create Field. Repeat these steps for as many fields as needed.

Edit a Custom Field

  1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types.
  2. Select the Incident Type for which you want to edit the custom field.
  3. To the right of your desired custom field, click Edit.
  4. Edit the details.
  5. Click Update Field.

Disable a Custom Field

When you disable a field, it is no longer editable on new or existing incidents. However, this will not erase values from existing incidents (i.e., they will still be visible on the incident details page). You should disable fields when you want to maintain existing data but no longer need them.

  1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types.
  2. Select the Incident Type for which you want to disable a field.
  3. To the right of your desired custom field, click Disable.
  4. In the confirmation modal, click Disable.

Delete a Custom Field

❗️

Deletion Warning

Deleting a field from an Incident Type permanently deletes the field for all Incident Types. It also removes the field and values from existing incidents. This action cannot be undone.

  1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types.
  2. Select an Incident Type.
  3. To the right of your desired field, select Delete.
  4. In the confirmation modal, click Delete.

Field Types

You can specify the field data type when you add a Custom Field. Data types help standardize and validate field data, preventing users from entering incorrect data types into a field. The following field types are available:

  • Text
  • Single Select
  • Multiple Select
  • Tag
  • URL
  • Checkbox
  • Datetime
  • Decimal
  • Integer

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Field Restrictions

  • String values have a maximum of 255 characters.
  • Single Select and Multiple Select field types can have a maximum of 100 options.
  • Tags
    • A tag can be up to 255 characters.
    • A custom field can have a maximum of 55 tags.
  • Each Multiple Select option has a maximum of 70 characters.
  • URL values can have a maximum of 500 characters. Only absolute URLs are allowed, and they must use one of the following schemes: http, https, tel.
  • Datetime values must conform to either full-date or date-time RFC3339, section 5.6. Examples of supported values: 2022-03-14, 2019-08-28T10:43:05Z.

View Custom Fields

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Required User Permissions

Users with permission to view and edit an incident can also view and edit that incident's Custom Fields.

There are two places to view Custom Fields on incidents:

View Custom Fields in the Web App

To view Custom Fields, navigate to an incident's details page and scroll to the Custom Fields section.

A screenshot of the PagerDuty web app showing custom fields

Custom fields in the web app

Edit Custom Field Values in the Web App

Custom Fields with default values are prefilled, but fields may also be left empty for the responder to fill in during incident response.

  1. Navigate to an incident's details page.
  2. Click Edit Fields in the Custom Fields section.
  3. In the right pane, enter your desired value(s) for each Custom Field.
  4. Click Save.

When a responder updates a Custom Field's value, the action adds a log entry to the incident's timeline.

A screenshot of the PagerDuty web app showing a custom field in the incident timeline

Custom field in the incident timeline

View Custom Fields in the Mobile App

For incidents with Custom Fields defined, you can view them in the mobile app on the incident's details screen.

  • On iOS, you can do this by selecting the Triage tab and scrolling to the Custom Fields section.
  • On Android, you can do this by selecting the Triage tab, scroll to the Incident Type (e.g., Security Incident, Major Incident) section to view the custom fields. An i icon indicates they are the custom fields.

If there are more than three Custom Fields defined, tap Show More to expand the section and view all Custom Fields.

A screenshot of the PagerDuty mobile app showing custom fields on an incident

Custom fields in the mobile app


Edit Custom Field Values in the Mobile App

  1. Navigate to an incident's details page by tapping the incident.
  2. Under Custom Fields in iOS or under the Incident Type (e.g., Security Incident, Major Incident) section in Android, tap Edit Custom Fields.
  3. Enter your desired value(s) for each Custom Field.
  4. Tap Save.
Edit Custom Field values in the mobile app

Edit Custom Field values in the mobile app

When a responder updates a Custom Field's value, the action adds a log entry to the incident's timeline.


FAQ

What happens to active incidents if I add or remove a Custom Field?

Custom Fields apply across all incidents on an account. This means that if you create a new Custom Field, it will appear on all incidents previously created in your account. Similarly, if you delete a Custom Field, it will no longer appear on incidents in your account.

When adding a new field, default values do not apply to previously created incidents — those incidents will have null values.

How many Custom Fields can I create?

Customers with a Business pricing plan can create up to 15 active Custom Fields on incidents. Customers with an Enterprise for Incident Management plan can create an additional 15 Custom Fields, for a total of 30.

Contact the Sales team to upgrade to a plan with more Custom Fields.

How can I analyze or run a report on Custom Fields data?

Custom Fields are supported in the Incident Activity report and can be added as additional columns to the report.

How can I sync PagerDuty custom fields with ServiceNow incident record fields?

Refer to the Custom Field Mappings article for more information on bi-directionally syncing PagerDuty Custom Fields with ServiceNow Incident record fields.

How can I set custom field values with Event Orchestration?

Refer to the Event Orchestration article for more information.

How can I update custom field values with Slack?

Refer to the Slack User Guide for more information.

How can I update custom field values with Microsoft Teams?

Refer to the Microsoft Teams User Guide for more information.


Learn more