Severity
Impact
Urgency
But I'm having some issues in defining the values for the Impact field. I was trying to find best practices for capturing this information, without much luck. What I came up for the values are:
Extreme
High
Moderate
Low
What does you use? Thanks!
Allen
Hi Allen,
The most common issue with values like Extreme / High / Moderate / Low is that they are subjective—what an agent considers "Moderate," an agitated customer might call "Extreme."
In ITIL and customer support operations, the gold standard is to tie Impact directly to scope and scale (who/what is affected), while leaving Urgency to handle time-sensitivity, and Severity/Priority to be the calculated outcome of both.
Recommended Best Practice Picklist Values for Impact
Instead of abstract adjectives, define Impact by the blast radius:
- Organization-Wide (or All Users): Critical infrastructure or service is down for every user; company-wide halt.
- Multiple Users / Department: A whole team, branch, or customer segment cannot perform critical work.
- Single User / Individual: Only one person is blocked, or the issue is localized to an individual machine/account.
- Minor / Informational: No operational disruption; cosmetic glitch, typo, or general inquiry.
The Standard Matrix Formula (Impact + Urgency = Priority)
When you define Impact by scope, you can automate your Case Priority (or Severity) using a formula or Flow matrix:
Impact (Scope) | Urgency (Time/Deadlines) | Calculated Priority / SeverityAll Users | High (Work stopped, deadline immediate) | P1 - Critical
Multiple Users | High | P2 - High
Multiple Users | Low (Workaround exists) | P3 - Medium
Single User | High (Executive or urgent milestone) | P2 / P3
Single User | Low | P4 - LowKey Operational Tips
- Use Field Help Text: Add clear definitions right under the field (e.g., "Select based on the number of users or business functions blocked").
- Don't let agents guess Priority: Let the agents evaluate the objective facts (Impact = How many people? Urgency = Is there a workaround / deadline?), and let the system calculate the SLA/Priority automatically. This removes emotional bias from case triage.
