What is Parent-Child Functionality? The simplest way to understand it is to envision that the wireless network cannot be accessed. In this example, the IT Help Center will likely receive multiple emails, phone calls and/or TechWeb inquiries resulting in a slew of tickets, all with different clients, who will need to be kept up to date in a regular, coordinated fashion. These tickets will likely have the same categorization and communication needs, so the ServiceNow team has built functionality to enable the process of handling scenarios like this one. Typically, these situations will result in a P1 or P2 Incident – but that is not mandatory in order to utilize the functionality.

Setting a Parent Incident
When you realize you may be dealing with a large-scale incident, your first step will be to set a parent record.

To set a parent record:

  1. Locate the incident that will be utilized as your Parent incident.
  2. Navigate to the Manage Ticket tab and Click the checkbox for Is Parent
  3. A new field Children will become visible.
  4. Click save.

Setting a Child Incident
When you are ready to associate Child incidents to the Parent incident, you may do so from either the Child or the Parent Incident.

To set a child record from the Parent:
Note: It will be helpful to have the incident number of the Child handy.

  1. Navigate to the Manage Ticket Tab (ensure the Is Parent field is checked)
  2. Click on the lock next to the Children field.
  3. You may either type the child incident number into the field, or use the look up function
  4. Select the appropriate child incident and it will be shown in the top half of the multi-select field.
  5. Continue selecting children incidents as necessary.
  6. Click Save.

To set a child record from the Child:
Note: It will be helpful to have the incident number of the Parent handy.

  1. Open an incident you want to set as a Child ticket
  2. Navigate to the Manage Ticket Tab
  3. Click on the checkbox next to the IS Child field.
  4. The Parent field will become visible.
  5. You may either type the parent incident number into the field, or use the look up function
  6. Select the appropriate parent incident.
  7. Click Save.

Once the connection has been made between the Parent and Child incidents, the following will occur:

  • All Client Communication made on the Parent will flow down to all related child records, which will trigger an Updated notification to be sent to the client and anyone assigned to the ticket or listed on a watch list.
  • This communication will be passed down during all active statuses (New, Unassigned, Assigned, On Hold, Resolved)

When the Parent Ticket is resolved:

  • All children will be resolved.

The following fields will be passed down to the child record:

  • Client Service
  • Service Component
  • Configuration
  • Resolution
  • Resolution Code
  • Client Communication

Please Note the following business rules:

  • On any Parent Incident, there will be a Child Incidents related which will show all child incidents
  • Parent Incidents cannot be merged
  • The Parent field will only show open Parent tickets
  • Children may be added to the Parent incident after the Parent has been resolved
  • If a Parent incident becomes unresolved; the children will remain resolved. Children may be unresolved manually.