Starting a new incident

There are several methods for declaring incidents in FireHydrant:

1. Manually, via the web UI or using our Slack bot
2. Programmatically using the API
3. Using Alert Routing

This article covers method #1.

Declaring an incident in the FireHydrant UI

To open a new incident from the FireHydrant the UI:

1. From anywhere within the app, you should see the Declare Incident button on the top right. Click on it.
2. You'll be presented with the declaration form. From here, you can either choose a pre-defined Incident Type or you can pick and choose fields to fill ad-hoc.
3. Provide the Incident Name to declare an incident. A name for the incident is required. All of the additional details on this page are optional. a. Short descriptions for each of these fields appear on the UI; read these descriptions, or click the ? icon for details on what information to provide in each field.

After you fill out the fields and click Declare incident, this will create the incident. New incidents default to an UNSET Severity unless you specified the Severity while declaring, or if you've configured the Severity Matrix to automatically assign a Severity.

Declaring an incident through Slack

A user must have a FireHydrant account to open an incident through the UI. But if your organization has the Slack integration installed, anyone can kick off an incident through Slack by typing /firehydrant new.

FireHydrant offers ability to customize this form in Slack, allowing you to pick and choose which fields you want your responders to be able to see.

Next Steps

Now that you've seen how easy it is to declare incidents, see the following additional resources:

• Read about the Command Center and the various parts of an incident.
• Learn more about declaring incidents via Alert Routing.