Manually create an incident

Incidents can be created manually (by user action via Opsgenie Web App) or automatically (through the application of definitions and conditions to monitored Alerts).

Opsgenie encourages the use of Incident Rules to automate Incident creation. We recognize, however, that there are times when organizations may prefer to create incidents manually. Because of this, our Incident Response platform allows organizations to create Incidents manually (as a result of direct user design) or automatically (as a result of the operation of Incident Rules).

There are a variety of reasons to design Incidents manually.

For example:

• An Incident Commander may recognize that an alert storm involves related Alerts; they can manually design Incidents that aggregate all the related Alerts.

• A particular type of Incident may have characteristics that reduce the likelihood that it is exactly identified by Incident Rules; manually creating a custom Incident allows for high specificity.

• An organization may have a workflow that suits its current needs; because it is not yet comfortable with the idea of automating Incident creation, it can manually create Incidents by using templates, by combining Alerts, by associating Alerts with existing Incidents, or by entering information to create custom Incidents on an ad hoc basis.

Creating custom incidents

To create a custom Incident manually, follow the directions below. This creates an Incident with no associated Alerts.

To manually create an incident

1. On the Incident Dashboard, click Create.

2. On the Create Incident page, fill in the fields about the Incident itself.
   Incident Message is the mandatory field.
   You can also select a template to fill the fields.

3. Select a Conference Bridge to use for the Incident (optional).

4. Select the Notify stakeholders when incident is created checkbox if you want to send stakeholder notifications when the incident is created. If you disable this option, then stakeholders will not receive notifications.
   You can also specify the email notification template for stakeholders.

5. If "I'll use a custom entry title and entry description while informing the stakeholder" option is disabled, then the incident message will be used as the stakeholder entry title automatically. By enabling this option, you can specify the entry title and entry summary separately.

6. Click Next to select additional Teams and individuals who need to be actively involved in resolving the Incident. The Incident notifies Owner Team, who are the only ones who can acknowledge the Incident. Added Responder Teams and Added Responder Users are notified by separate Alerts. The Incident Notifications flow for both Incidents and Alerts is based on the Opsgenie Incident Notification Flow.

7. Click Next to select Stakeholders. Add Stakeholders from across the organization in order to notify them about an Incident (through a variety of communication channels). Add them individually or configure Rules to select Stakeholders from user information that matches specific conditions.

8. Start typing OpsGenie user names to add individual Stakeholders.

9. Click + Add new type to begin entering Conditions for Rules.

10. Click Create.

Learn other ways to create an incident;

• Automate Incident Creation (Incident Rules)

• Incident Template Creation

• Correlate Alerts with Incident