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Major Incident Communication Guidelines

Communicating During a Major Incident

During any Major Incident it is vital the community is kept informed of the current state of the application, or service, and the estimated time to restore it to the expected behavior.  The Application/Service Owner of the impacted service is accountable for all communication to the community during the lifecycle of a Major Incident.  Depending on the Notification Type assigned, there are varying degrees of what is communicated, to whom, and how often.  This section will explain the communication guidelines associated with each Notification Type.

SIA - Service Impact Advisory

This type of Notification is used to communicate an unplanned P2, P3, or P4 service interruption that results in a service not performing as designed.  Such issues could be a service degradation, feature outage or system hiccup.

Role Responsible for Communication

Application/Service Owner or designated representative

What to Communicate

  • Short Description, in customer facing/user-friendly language, of the issue occurring
    • If needed, technical details can be shared immediately following the user-friendly information
  • Who is impacted (i.e. Emory University, Emory Healthcare or Both)
  • Service Impact  (i.e. Unavailable service feature, degradation, slowness, etc.)
  • Locations affected
  • Work around, if available
  • Estimated time for service restoration

Who to Communicate to

  • University Service Desk (404.727.7777)
  • Users and key stakeholders
  • Targeted distribution lists for the Application or Service
  • IT System Status Page (help.emory.edu*)
  • An automated email will be generated from the Incident record and sent to all users subscribed to receive major incident notifications (KB02946).

How Often to Communicate

Every 2 hours during the lifecycle of the Incident, or as communicated

Once the Resolution is implemented and Service has been restored, resolve the Incident record and inform the Service Desk.

* login required

MIN - Major Incident Notification

 This type of Notification is used to communicate a Critical, P1, service interruption that results in a service not being available for users as expected.  Such as a total service outage or campus wide impact. 

Role Responsible for Communication

Application/Service Owner or designated representative

What to Communicate

  • Short Description, in customer facing/user-friendly language, of the issue occurring
    • If needed, technical details can be shared immediately following the user-friendly information
  • Who is impacted  (i.e. Emory University, Emory Healthcare or Both)
  • Service Impact  (i.e. Unavailable service feature, degradation, slowness, etc.)
  • Locations affected
  • Work around, if available
  • Estimated time for service restoration

Who to Communicate to

  • University Service Desk (404.727.7777)
  • Users and key stakeholders
  • Targeted distribution lists for the Application or Service
  • IT System Status Page (help.emory.edu*)
  • An automated email will be generated from the Incident record and sent to all users subscribed to receive major incident notifications (KB02946).

How Often to Communicate

:  Every 2 hours during the lifecycle of the Incident, or as communicated

Once the Resolution is implemented and Service has been restored, resolve the Incident record and inform the Service Desk.

* login required 

Critical MIN - Critical Major Incident Notification (Crisis)

This type of Notification is used to communicate a Critical, P1, service interruption impacting a Critical Business Application or Core Infrastructure Service

(KB04806*), that results in a service not being available for users as expected. Such as a total service outage or campus wide impact.

This type of Notification follows the Crisis Management Protocol

Role Responsible for Communication

Crisis Manager

What to Communicate

  • Short Description, in customer facing/user-friendly language, of the issue occurring
    • If needed, technical details can be shared immediately following the user-friendly information
  • Who is impacted (i.e. Emory University, Emory Healthcare or Both)
  • Service Impact  (i.e. Unavailable service feature, degradation, slowness, etc.)
  • Locations affected
  • Work around, if available
  • Estimated time for service restoration

Who to Communicate to

  • University Service Desk (404.727.7777)
    • Service Desk provides a courtesy call to the 8-HELP Service Desk to inform them the University has issued a Major Incident, and validate if Healthcare is impacted.
  • An automated email will be generated from the Incident record and sent to all users subscribed to receive major incident notifications (KB02946).
  • IT System Status Page (help.emory.edu*)
  • Group lists with pre-defined members:
    • LITS: Executives
    • LITS: Directors
    • LITS: Managers
    • LITS: Various Non-LITS IT Contacts  (determined by ITPC)

NOTE: RAVE* is the tool used to send SMS text messages to the above group lists. 

How Often to Communicate

  • An Initial Alert is to be sent immediately after the Major Incident is issued
  • Updates are to be sent at the top and bottom of each hour, or as communicated, until a Resolution is implemented and Service has been restored

Once the Resolution is implemented and Service has been restored, resolve the Incident record and inform the Service Desk.

* login required

Incident Management
Major Incident