Incident State Changes and History
When several people work on the same Incident, the latest state is not enough. The team also needs to know who changed it, when it changed, and why.
Transitions and their notes create that shared record automatically.
Transition history records each state change, its timing, and the workflow path followed.
See it in practice
A manager moves an Incident from New to In progress and adds the note “Contractor contacted.” Later, another manager resolves it with the note “Window replaced and area secured.”
Anyone reviewing the Incident can understand the sequence without searching through chat messages.
Good to know: use comments for general collaboration and mentions. Use a transition note when the information explains why the workflow state changed.
Change an Incident state
Open Incidents and select the Incident.
Find Change state in the details panel or edit page.
Select one of the available target states.
Enter a note if the transition allows or requires one.
Confirm the change.
The list only includes active transitions from the current state that your role can use. You must also have access to the Incident Location and the required Incident permission.
Transition notes
Hidden: no note field is displayed.
Optional: add context when it is useful.
Required: enter a note before confirming the transition.
Use notes for decisions, handovers, rejection reasons, or resolution details. A transition note belongs to the state-change history and is separate from general Incident comments.
Review transition history
Open Transition history from the Incident details or edit page. Each record identifies the previous state, new state, user, time, and transition note when present. Load more records when the history contains additional pages.
Final states
A workflow can have several final states. Reaching a final state represents an outcome such as Resolved, Rejected, or Duplicate. The Incident remains available for review and reporting.
Archived states and transitions
Archiving a state or transition prevents it from being selected for new state changes. An Incident already in an archived non-final state remains there until an authorized user manually moves it through a valid transition to an active state.
Why an action may be unavailable
No active transition starts from the current state.
Your role is not allowed to use the transition.
You do not have access to the Incident Location.
The target state or transition has been archived.
A required transition note is empty.
Comments compared with transition history
Use Comments for ongoing collaboration and mentions. Use a transition note when the information explains a workflow decision. Both are visible from the Incident, but transition history cannot be replaced by editing a comment.
With the basics in place, your team can spend less time deciding how to record an event and more time resolving it.
Related guides
Configuring the Incident Workflow