Manage incident tasks

When teams are in the heat of an incident, it's crucial that everyone knows what needs to be done and who is working on what. The Tasks section of the Incident Console enables teams to run their incident response playbooks from within xMatters. From here, you can add tasks, assign them to users, set a due time and date, review the length of time remaining for each task and if any are overdue, and update each task's status.

The Tasks section is available in the Incident Console during an incident, as well as after the incident is mitigated or resolved. The title, description, assigned user, and status are clearly displayed in a list format, and can be updated at any time.

Tasks can be added from within the Incident Console at any point and include important details to help teams at every stage of the incident response process. Status, due date, and assignee information allows resolvers to keep track of what needs to be done during the incident. Including start/end times helps during the post-incident review as it allows teams to see how long certain tasks took and helps plan for future incident response processes.

To add a task to an incident:
  1. In the Tasks section of the Incident Console, click + Add Task to open the Add Task side panel.
  2. Type the task Name and an optional Description.
  3. Click the Status drop-down and select the task's current status:
    • Not Started
    • In Progress
    • Completed
    • Rejected
  4. If the status is In Progress or Completed, select a Start and/or End time for the task.
  5. For the Due Date, select None, Relative or Specific.

  6. If selecting a due date, do one of the following:
    • For Specific due dates, select the date and time the task is due.
    • For Relative due dates, specify the number of minutes the task is due after either task creation, incident initiation, or incident resolution. (For example, if a task is due 10 minutes after an incident is initiated, type '10' and then select incident initiation from the drop-down menu.)
  7. In the Assignee section, start typing the name of a user to search for and select them.
  8. To create another task immediately after you've finished adding the current task, select the Add Another Task check box.
  9. Click Add.

You can update tasks at any time during the incident response process to reflect any required changes to the task, assignee, or status.

To update a task:
  1. In the Tasks section of the Incident Console, click the name of the task you want to update.
  2. Update the name, description, start or end time, due date, assignee, or status of the task. (You can also update the status from the main Tasks list.)
  3. Click Save.
  1. In the Tasks section of the Incident Console, click the name of the task you want to delete.
  2. Click Delete.
  3. In the pop-up message, click Delete.

The available filters allow you to narrow the tasks list based on matching specific criteria. Only one filter can be applied at a time.

To filter the tasks list:
  1. In the Tasks section of the Incident Console, click the Show drop down menu. (By default, All is selected.)
  2. Select the status of the tasks you want to see (All, Active, Completed, or Rejected).