Severity

An attribute in Incident Management and Problem Management that describes the degree of impact on the user when the issue occurs. Severity can also indicate the number of users affected. For example, a server crash that caused loss of data would be of critical severity.

Search for	Example	Results
A single word	`cat`	Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats".
A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase.	`"cat food"` (quotation marks)	Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase.

Search for	Operator	Example
Two or more words in the same topic	`AND` `and` `+` (plus symbol) `&` (ampersand)	`cat AND dog` `"cat food"+milk` `"cat food"&"dog food"`
Either word in a topic	`OR` `or` `\|` (pipe)	`cat OR dog` `cat \| dog`
Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase	`NOT` `not` `!` (exclamation point)	`NOT cat` `! dog`
Topics that contain one string and do not contain another	`^` (caret)	`cat ^ mouse`
A combination of search types	`( )` parentheses	`cat + (dog \| mouse)` `cat \| dog + (! mouse)`

Critical: Severe business disruption. The business unit or subunit is unable to operate, or a critical system component has failed or is severely impaired.

Major: Major business disruption. A critical user or user group is unable to operate, or the business unit is experiencing a significant reduction in system performance.

Medium: Minor business disruption. A single user is unable to operate with no available workaround.

Low: Minor disruption. A single user or user group is experiencing incidents, but a workaround is available.

Very Low: Inquiry. A single user or user group requiring assistance, but with no direct impact on business such as a request for information.

Related terms