Managing Incident Tasks

FireHydrant comes with incident task management so responders can track what they need to do during an incident.

Tasks are intended to be mid-incident action items while Follow-Ups are items uncovered during the incident to be prioritized later.

In addition to creating and managing tasks, you can define Task Lists with preset tasks to help ensure consistency in your incident response and reduce cognitive load.

Create and Manage Tasks

Tasks can be created and assigned ad-hoc both via an incident's Command Center as well as in the incident's Slack channel.

Via the Command Center Tasks tab
Via the Command Center Tasks tab
Via Slack command `/fh add task`
Via Slack command `/fh add task`

To view and manage outstanding Tasks, the same tab in the Command Center can be used, and in Slack, the command /fh tasks [@user | all] can be used.

Viewing all tasks in Slack with `/fh tasks all`
Viewing all tasks in Slack with `/fh tasks all`

Using Emojis from Slack

Creating a task from a Slack message with an emoji
Creating a task from a Slack message with an emoji

From within the incident channel in Slack, you are able to react to specific messages with emojis to automatically create Tasks or Follow-Ups.

The default configured emoji is :ballot_box_with_check: but this can be modified in your Settings > Integrations list > Slack settings.

Note: You must be in an incident channel to use this feature.

Task Lists

Task lists are predefined lists of multiple tasks that you can asign all at once in incidents.

Like with normal tasks, you can assign a Task List ad-hoc during an incident, but there's an additional capability to automate assignment via Runbooks.

Creating a Task List

  1. Navigate to Settings > Incidents > Task Lists in the Web UI.
Manage task lists
Manage task lists
  1. Click β€œ+ Add task list.”

  2. On this screen, provide a Name and Description for the Task List.

    • Each Task list requires a unique name. Adding a description will also help provide context for the purpose of this task list.Β 
  3. To add a task to your list, click β€œ+ Add a task”.

    • Enter the task summary and description. Select Save task to add this task to the list. A task list must have at least one task before it can be saved.
  4. When you are done, you can save the task list to view all the tasks.

Example task list
Example task list

Assigning a Task List

Like with individual Tasks, you can add a Task List both via the incident Command Center as well as in Slack.

Adding a Task List during an incident via Command Center
Adding a Task List during an incident via Command Center

In Slack, the command changes to /fh add task-list.

Assigning a Task List to an incident
Assigning a Task List to an incident

Automating via Runbooks

The added capability for Task Lists is that you can automatically assign them based on various conditions in a Runbook.

This allows you to flexibly and powerfully assign certain tasks based on various situations. For example, "Assign Security Response Tasks if the Severity is SEC0", or "Always assign Commander Tasks to the Incident Commander", etc.

  1. Go into a Runbook and click on '+ Add step'.
  2. Search for "task list" and click Add Task List. Then select the Task List you'd like added to the incident.
Runbook step to assign a task list
Runbook step to assign a task list
  1. (Optional) If you want to assign the Task List to a specific role, you can select that in the next dropdown.

Note: If assigning to a role, make sure to add a conditional execution rule that ensures the assigned role exists. See image below.

In addition, if you want to have the timeline message about assigning a task list post in the incident channel, you should also add an additional condition, "if Incident Slack Channel exists".

Task list runbook step conditions
Task list runbook step conditions

Next Steps

Last updated on 9/15/2023