Within an organization there are often many different types of incidents that demand a unique response process. For example, a major incident typically follows a different process than a security incident or compliance incident. The Incident Types feature allows organizations to create custom types, which determine the set of Custom Fields that are available on an incident, tailored to their diverse response processes. By categorizing incidents, teams can reduce confusion and ensure that the right processes and responders are engaged for each type of incident, leading to quicker resolution and minimizing business impact.

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Release Status and Availability

This feature is in Early Access with features and documentation subject to change. Complete our Early Access form if you're interested in trying new features before they are fully available.

Customers with the Business pricing plan can create up to three custom Incident Types. That does not include the Base Incident or Major Incident types. Customers on the Enterprise plan for Incident Management can create up to 100 Incident Types, and with up to 3 levels of nesting.

Please contact our Sales Team to upgrade to a plan with Incident Types.

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Required User Permissions

• All users, except for Limited Stakeholders, can view Incident Types.
• Any user with permission to create an incident can select an Incident Type at incident creation.
  • Users with Responder permissions on an incident can update its type.
• Admins and Account Owners can create and edit Incident Types.

Configure Incident Types

Create an Incident Type

To create an Incident Type, in the PagerDuty web app:

1. Navigate go to Incidents Incident Types.
2. In the left pane, click New Incident Type.
3. Enter the following information:

4. Click Create.

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Inheritance

Incident Types use an inheritance model. When you add a new custom field to a type, that field will also be added to all of the type's children. This model provides the flexibility to add custom fields to all incidents in an account, or to concentrate them to a specific incident type.

While creating a new incident type, you will specify a Parent Type, which defines where in the hierarchy the new type will live. You can have at most three levels of inheritance on your account.

The Base Incident is always at the top of the hierarchy. You can use the Base Incident to add fields that should be applied to all incidents within PagerDuty.

Click the checkbox Display Inherited Fields while configuring an Incident Type to view which fields are inherited:

Add Custom Fields

After creating an Incident Type, you can add custom fields to the type. Since Incident Types use inheritance, any custom fields you add will be available on the specific type, as well as any children of the type.

1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types and select an Incident Type, or create a new Incident Type.
2. With the Fields tab selected, click New Field.
3. Enter the following information:

4. Click Create Field.

Disable Custom Fields

Disabling a custom field will make the field no longer available on newly created incidents, but it will continue to appear on existing incidents. This provides a way to update your process without altering or deleting existing data.

To disable a field:

1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types and select your preferred Incident Type.
2. To the right of your desired field, select Disable.
3. In the confirmation modal, click Disable.

Delete Custom Fields

Deleting a field on an Incident Type will permanently delete the field for all Incident Types. This action cannot be undone.

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

Edit Incident Types

1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types and select your preferred Incident Type.
2. Make your desired changes (e.g., Add Fields or adjust Settings) and click Save.

Disable Incident Types

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Delete Incident Types

Deleting Incident Types is not supported. You can disable an Incident Type, which will make it unavailable to responders when selecting a type on an incident, by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to Incidents Incident Types and select any child of the Base Incident type.
2. Click the Settings tab and select Disable in the dropdown Enable Incident Type.
3. Click Save.

Note: In order to disable an Incident Type, any child types must also be disabled.

Set Incident Types on Incidents

Set an Incident Type on a New Incident

Slack

After configuring the Slack | PagerDuty Integration, enter the command /pd trigger and make a selection from the Incident Type dropdown. Please read Available Slash Commands for more information.

Microsoft Teams

After configuring the Microsoft Teams | PagerDuty Integration, enter the command @PagerDuty trigger and make a selection from the Incident Type dropdown. Please read App Commands for more information.

Web App

Follow the instructions to Trigger an Incident via Web App. While entering the incident's details, make a selection from the Incident Type dropdown.

Mobile

Follow the instructions to Trigger an Incident via Mobile App. While entering the incident's details, tap Incident Type and make a selection.

Change an Existing Incident's Type

Web App

1. In the PagerDuty web app, navigate to Incidents and select your preferred incident.
2. Above the incident title, select an Incident Type from the dropdown.

3. A confirmation modal will display which fields will be added or removed from the incident. Click Change Incident Type to confirm.

Microsoft Teams

1. In Microsoft Team, on a PagerDuty incident's card click and select Change Type.
2. Make a selection from the Incident Type dropdown.
3. Click Save.

View Incident Types on Incidents

Slack

In Slack, you can see the Incident Type assigned to an incident under the Type heading.

Microsoft Teams

In Microsoft Teams, you can see the Incident Type assigned to an incident under the Type heading.

Web App

In the PagerDuty web app, you can see the Incident Type assigned to an incident on its details page above the incident title.

Mobile App

In the PagerDuty mobile, the Incident Type is displayed above an incident's status and title.

FAQ

When is a good time to use Incident Types?

A good time to use Incident Types is whenever there is a unique incident process to follow. Your organization's process for major incidents, including required metadata to capture and remediation steps, is likely very different than the one for lower severity incidents. Incident Types are ideal for guiding responders through these differences and capturing variations in response processes.

There are two main categories for when different processes (i.e., Incident Types) are relevant:

• Organizational structure: Within scaled companies, organizational structure frequently defines where one process stops and another one starts. Within these businesses, one part of the organization may look to follow a different process than other areas of the company. In these scenarios, it often makes sense to define an Incident Type that aligns with each business unit's processes.
• Business impact: Another common use case for an Incident Type is a security incident. Unlike in the organizational structure example above, security incidents may follow a consistent process across all parts of the organization. However, their process may vary from other incidents, such as a major incident.