ServiceNow: Incident Parent -Child Relationships

Parent-Child functionality in ServiceNow replaces what was known as the "Merge" feature in ServiceDesk.

For example, if the Support Center receives multiple emails and phone calls regarding an outage, it will likely result in many incidents with the same categorization and communication needs. The parent-child functionality will help with the process of handling these related incidents.

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

• Emails and Comments sent from the Parent will flow down to all related child records, which will trigger a notification to the client and anyone assigned to the ticket or on the watch list.
• This communication will be passed down during all active states (New, Active, On Hold, Resolved, etc.)

When the Parent Ticket is resolved:

• All children will be resolved.

Associating a Child Incident to a Parent

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. Scroll down to the Related Records Tab
3. You may either type the parent incident number into the field, or click the magnifying glass icon to search for the incident.
4. Select the appropriate parent incident.
5. Click Save at the top of the Incident form.
   
   

From the Parent Incident, you can view its children by scrolling to the bottom of the incident form and selecting the "Child Incidents" tab. You can also see the number of Child Incidents on the Related Records" tab.

Please Note:

• Parent Incidents cannot be merged.
• Parents can be added to Children even after the Parent has been resolved.
• If a Parent incident becomes unresolved; the children will remain resolved. Children may be unresolved manually.