A knowledge base article about Impact, Urgency and Priority Matrix for Incident tickets provided by the UC Berkeley IT Service Hub - Knowledge Portal
Why are we making this change to Incident?
In an effort to more accurately prioritize our incident tickets, we've(*) updated the drop down fields for Impact and Urgency, within ServiceNow, to be a little more intuitive. On the evening of March 4, 2025, the Impact and Urgency values will default to "-- None --". As the incident ticket moves to the state of Assigned, the Impact and Urgency fields will become required and should be changed based on the information known at that time. Should more information be communicated through the incident ticket, it is appropriate to update the Impact and/or Urgency to re-calculate the priority for that ticket.
Impact:
We've defined Impact as, "a measure of the effect of an Incident on organizational processes. Impact measures the number of clients potentially affected by an Incident." From the drop down on the incident ticket, the options are: Campus, Multiple Departments, Department, Individual(s)
Urgency:
We've defined Urgency as, "a measure of how long it will be until an Incident has a significant Impact on the organization. For example, a high Impact Incident may have low Urgency, if the Impact will not affect the organization until the end of the financial year." Please note that there are additional details on examples of Urgency, most notably the Urgency of Critical has no workaround for the respective incident, whereas an Urgency of Low has a workaround. From the drop down on the incident ticket, the options are: Critical, Moderate, and Low
Priority Calculation:
The Priority field is a read-only field since it is automatically calculated based on the values that you select for Impact and Urgency. The table below is known as a priority matrix, and the value that you select for Impact and Urgency will display the Priority values accordingly.
| Urgency: A measure of how long it will be until an Incident has a significant Impact on the organization. For example, a high Impact Incident may have low Urgency, if the Impact will not affect the organization until the end of the financial year. |
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| Critical: Immediate and significant disruption to critical business transactions or essential teaching-related services while in use. Risk of substantial financial loss and/or reputational damage No workaround available. Examples: Wifi, Berkeley Financial System (BFS), BearBuy, CalTime, CalCentral, and CalNet. |
Moderate: Some disruption in the near term. Workaround may or may not be available. Examples: DocuSign, email delays, performance degradation, MAC users w/issues. |
Low: Minimal disruption. Workaround is typically available. Examples: Typos, non-critical data delays, non-urgent questions or How To's. |
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Impact:
A measure of the effect of an Incident on organizational processes. Impact measures the number of clients potentially affected by an Incident. |
Campus: | Priority 1 - Critical | Priority 2 - High | Priority 3 - Moderate |
| Multiple Departments: | Priority 2 - High | Priority 2 - High | Priority 3 - Moderate | |
| Department: | Priority 2 - High | Priority 3 - Moderate | Priority 4 - Low | |
| Individual(s): | Priority 3 - Moderate | Priority 4 - Low | Priority 4 - Low | |
* attending members of the Berkeley Enterprise Operations group