CIS-ITSM · domain
Incident Management
This domain covers ServiceNow Incident Management: the incident lifecycle, state transitions, incident tasks, caller communication, and resolution. Questions test configuration knowledge and practical understanding of how records move from New through Resolved and Closed, how child tasks support parent incidents, and which fields control resolution behavior and visibility.
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Start 20-question practice test →What this domain covers
What to know about Incident Management
Know the Incident state model and how records transition from New to Resolved and Closed. Be able to explain Incident Tasks as child work records and identify how callers check status. The key detail is that the Resolution tab requires the incident to be in the appropriate state with Resolution information populated.
Incident State field values and their role in driving lifecycle and reporting
Incident Tasks as child records used to break down and assign work
Ways callers check incident status, such as the Service Portal or notifications
The Resolution field and Resolution tab visibility tied to state and required fields
Watch out for
Common Incident Management exam traps
- ▸Assuming the Resolution tab is always visible; it depends on state and required field population.
- ▸Confusing Incident Tasks with separate incidents rather than child records linked to a parent.
- ▸Believing callers can only check status by calling the service desk, ignoring portal and notification options.
Question index
All Incident Management questions (84)
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An administrator is configuring SLA Definitions for Incident Management. They need the SLA timer to pause whenever an incident is placed in the 'Awaiting Vendor' state. How should this be configured?
Hard2When using 'Incident Communication Plans', what happens when a major incident is updated?
Medium3Which THREE fields are auto-populated when an incident is created via email?
Medium4An ITIL user complains they cannot see the 'Major Incident' tab on an incident record. What is the most likely cause?
Easy5A support agent needs to create a Problem record directly from an existing Incident while preserving the correlation between the two. Which related link or UI action should the agent use on the Incident form?
Medium6An incident is currently in the 'Resolved' state. A user calls the service desk to report that the issue is still occurring. The agent needs to reopen the incident. Which action should the agent take?
Medium7A company requires that when an incident is assigned to a specific group, the 'Assigned to' field must be mandatory. Which configuration change accomplishes this using the most efficient ServiceNow best practice?
Medium8Which TWO fields are commonly used to categorize an incident?
Medium9What happens when an incident 'Priority' is changed from 3 to 1?
Medium10Which feature allows an agent to create a knowledge article directly from an Incident?
Medium11When viewing an Incident record, where can an agent see a chronological audit trail of all field updates, comments, and work notes added by users and system processes?
Easy12Which field on the Incident form is calculated automatically based on the 'Impact' and 'Urgency' fields using the Priority Lookup Rules?
Medium13When configuring Assignment Rules for incidents, what occurs if multiple assignment rules match the criteria of an incoming or updated incident record?
Hard14What is the purpose of the 'Incident Task' table?
Medium15An organization requires that when an Incident priority is set to '1 - Critical', a 'Major Incident' candidate record is created. What is the best practice approach?
Medium16What is the primary function of the 'Knowledge' icon on an incident form?
Easy17A user reports that they cannot see the 'Create Problem' UI Action on the Incident form. What is the most likely cause?
Medium18An organization wants to capture 'Resolution Code' values that are specific to the 'Network' category. How is this achieved?
Hard19Which THREE items are included in the Major Incident Workbench?
Hard20What is the purpose of the 'Parent Incident' field?
Medium21Which THREE settings can be modified in an SLA Definition to control the SLA timer?
Hard22When migrating incidents from a legacy system, you need to ensure that the SLA duration is calculated based on the Business Calendar. Where is this configured?
Easy23What is the purpose of the 'Configuration Item' (CI) field on the Incident form?
Medium24What is the 'Service Desk' group's primary role in Incident Management?
Medium25Which THREE aspects must be considered when creating an SLA Definition for Incidents?
Hard26While working on a high-priority incident, an agent navigates away from the incident record without saving. The agent had changed the State to 'In Progress' and entered work notes. What happens to those unsaved changes?
Medium27Which role is specifically required to create or modify 'SLA Definitions'?
Easy28When a Major Incident is created, a 'Major Incident Workbench' is available. What is its primary function?
Medium29Which THREE types of metrics can be tracked using the baseline Incident Management SLA and Metric definitions? (Choose three.)
Hard30If an organization wants to prevent an Incident from being closed unless certain fields are populated, which feature should be used?
Hard31When creating an Incident from a Service Portal, which component defines the fields displayed to the user?
Medium32Which THREE actions can be performed when utilizing the incident-to-problem workflow in ITSM? (Choose three.)
Hard33Which THREE components are configured when setting up a Service Level Agreement (SLA) Definition for Incident Management? (Choose three.)
Hard34A service desk manager needs to ensure that Incidents assigned to the 'Hardware' group are automatically routed to a specific sub-group based on the 'Category' field. Which configuration should be used?
Medium35You are troubleshooting a scenario where an Incident SLA is not attaching to a ticket. What is the first place you should investigate?
Hard36A customer wants to make the 'Short Description' field mandatory only when the Incident state changes to 'Resolved'. Which approach is best?
Medium37A service desk manager reports that priority is not updating automatically when Impact and Urgency are changed on an incident form. Where is the mapping between Impact, Urgency, and Priority configured?
Medium38Which TWO of the following are valid ways to escalate an incident?
Medium39Which TWO considerations are important when designing Assignment Rules for Incident Management? (Choose two.)
Medium40Which TWO states are typically included in the baseline Incident lifecycle state model? (Choose two.)
Medium41When an incident is moved to 'Resolved', what happens to the SLA timer?
Medium42Which mechanism ensures that if an Incident is not updated for 24 hours, an email is sent to the manager?
Medium43What does the 'Caller' field on the Incident form reference?
Medium44Which tool is best for visualizing the relationship between an Incident and the affected Configuration Item?
Medium45You are investigating why an incident was not auto-assigned. You check the Assignment Rules but notice the 'Match Conditions' are met. What is another common reason?
Hard46When configuring Incident Management properties (Incident > Administration > Properties), which TWO behaviors can an administrator control globally? (Choose two.)
Medium47Which TWO are common 'On Hold' reasons in the standard Incident process?
Medium48You need to ensure that only members of the 'Major Incident Management' group can promote an incident to a Major Incident. How do you restrict this?
Hard49A user's incident was closed, but they respond via email. The system creates a new incident instead of reopening the old one. What setting should be checked?
Medium50An administrator needs to configure the system so that when an incident is created from an inbound email, a specific Assignment Group is automatically populated based on the email subject. Which feature should be used to achieve this?
Easy51Which table is the base table for the 'Incident' table?
Easy52An organization wants to require a 'Resolution Code' when closing an incident. What is the standard configuration?
Medium53Which TWO components can be used to notify a user about an incident update?
Medium54What is the difference between 'Work Notes' and 'Comments' in an incident?
Easy55Which TWO fields are used in the default Incident Priority calculation?
Medium56Which tab on the Incident form is typically used to track communication with the caller?
Easy57An organization wants to require 'Work Notes' whenever an incident is set to 'Pending'. How do you configure this?
Medium58An incident manager wants to ensure that when an incident is escalated to a major incident, the 'Major Incident' field is set to true and a notification is sent to the major incident management team. The escalation can happen via a UI Action or automatically via a business rule. Which configuration should be used to meet this requirement?
Hard59An analyst opens an incident and needs to populate several fields quickly with predefined standard text for a VPN connectivity issue. Which ServiceNow feature should the analyst use?
Medium60An incident record has been closed, and a user calls in reporting the exact same issue is still occurring. What is the recommended ITIL and ServiceNow best practice?
Easy61An organization wants to ensure that when an incident is resolved, the Caller receives an email notification with a survey link. Which baseline module manages the triggering of this survey?
Easy62Which TWO of the following are true about 'Incident Tasks'?
Medium63What is the primary function of the 'Incident State' field choices?
Medium64Which field on an incident is used to indicate the severity of the business impact?
Easy65A service desk analyst wants to assign an unassigned incident to themselves with a single click. Which UI Action provides this functionality out of the box?
Medium66What is the correct order of operations when an incident meets criteria for both a standard SLA and an SLA pause condition?
Hard67Which user role is required by default to create, manage, and close incident records within the standard ServiceNow IT Service Management application?
Easy68Which field must be populated to allow the 'Resolution' tab to be visible or actionable?
Medium69You are designing an integration where incidents are created via an API. How do you ensure that 'Assignment Rules' are triggered?
Hard70Where do you configure the email notification that is sent to the 'Caller' when an incident is resolved?
Easy71Which form component is used to quickly search the Knowledge Base based on incident short description?
Easy72An incident has been inactive in the 'Resolved' state for a specific number of days defined by system properties. Which out-of-the-box scheduled job automatically moves it to 'Closed'?
Easy73You want to hide the 'Impact' field from all users except those with the 'admin' role. What is the most secure way to do this?
Hard74Which field on the Incident form indicates the urgency of the issue from the user's perspective?
Easy75Which TWO options represent valid ways an end user (caller) can check the status of their submitted incident? (Choose two.)
Easy76Which role is the minimum required to read and update incident records?
Easy77When a Major Incident is created, what happens to the linked child incidents?
Hard78You want to hide the 'Impact' field for users who do not have the 'itil' role. Where is the most appropriate place to configure this?
Hard79An incident has been resolved and the caller confirms the fix. The incident is now in the 'Resolved' state. After a predefined period, the incident should automatically move to 'Closed'. Which feature controls this automatic closure?
Easy80An IT organization defines a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Incident Resolution that must pause its timer whenever an incident moves to the 'Awaiting User Info' state. Where must this pause condition be configured within the SLA definition record?
Hard81You are tasked with configuring the Incident Priority Matrix. If an Incident has an Urgency of 2 and an Impact of 2, what is the default Priority?
Medium82When using the 'On-Hold' state, which sub-field is typically used to explain why the incident is waiting?
Medium83A service desk manager wants to ensure that when an incident is reassigned to a different assignment group, the previous assignee is automatically cleared. Which feature should be configured to achieve this?
Hard84An enterprise organization requires that when a Major Incident Candidate is promoted to a Major Incident, a dedicated Major Incident workspace opens automatically, and specific child incidents are automatically associated. Which plugin must be activated to utilize the formal Major Incident Management workbench and associated workflows in ITSM?
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Frequently asked questions
- What does the Incident Management domain cover on the CIS-ITSM exam?
- Know the Incident state model and how records transition from New to Resolved and Closed. Be able to explain Incident Tasks as child work records and identify how callers check status. The key detail is that the Resolution tab requires the incident to be in the appropriate state with Resolution information populated.
- How many questions are in this domain?
- This page lists all 84 Incident Management questions in the CIS-ITSM question bank. The actual exam draws from this domain proportionally to its weighting in the official exam blueprint.
- What is the best way to practise this domain?
- Start with a short focused session (10 questions) to identify gaps, then work through explanations. Repeat with a longer session once the weak areas feel solid.
- Can I practise only Incident Management questions?
- Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length for inline explanations and scoring.