---
title: "Running an incident from the dashboard"
description: "Declare an incident, change its status, severity and roles, and resolve it, without switching to Slack."
canonical: https://firefight.app/docs/incidents/running-from-the-dashboard
---

# Running an incident from the dashboard

The dashboard is not a read-only view of what happened in Slack. You can declare an incident from the incidents list, and run it from its own page, using the same dialogs Firefight asks for in Slack. Which surface you use is a matter of where you already are.

On an incident's page the controls sit in two places. Things that are a property of the incident are edited where they are shown, so you click the thing you want to change. Things that move the incident from one state to another live in the **⋮** menu at the top right, next to the channel link.

## Declaring an incident

**Declare incident** at the top of the incidents list opens your workspace's Declare form, the same one `/ff new` opens in Slack, so it asks for the same fields including any custom ones.

Firefight creates the incident channel straight after, which takes a moment. Until it exists, the channel button on the incident's page is greyed out and shows the name the channel is about to get. If it stays greyed out, creating the channel failed.

## Change severity or status

Click the severity or the status badge at the top of the page. Both open the **Post an update** dialog with the incident's current values filled in.

They open the whole dialog rather than a short list because that is what your workspace configured. If the Update form asks for a written message, or for a custom field, it asks for it here too. That is the same dialog `/ff update`, `/ff status` and `/ff severity` open in Slack, so an update posted from the dashboard reads the same in the channel and records the same timeline entry.

## Assign the lead and the other roles

Click the person under **Lead**, or the person next to any role in the Roles panel. Both are dropdowns of everyone in the workspace.

Every configured role is listed whether or not anyone holds it, so a role nobody has taken yet can be filled here. Picking **Unassigned** clears a role. The incident lead is the one exception and cannot be cleared, only handed to someone else, so the incident always has someone accountable. Each change announces itself in the incident channel exactly as `/ff lead` and `/ff roles` do.

## Resolve, cancel and reopen

Open the **⋮** menu.

| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| **Post an update** | The Update dialog, the same as clicking a badge. |
| **Resolve incident** | The Resolve dialog. Closes the incident, which is what makes a postmortem available. |
| **Cancel incident** | The Cancel dialog. The incident stays with its channel and timeline, but never counts as resolved. |
| **Reopen incident** | Only on an incident that is already over. Puts it back on your default live status. |

Resolve and Cancel ask what your workspace's Resolve and Cancel forms ask, which may include custom fields. If you have more than one status in the Closed or Canceled stage, they ask which one applies. If you have only one, they do not, because there is nothing to choose. See [Statuses, severities & types](https://firefight.app/docs/incidents/concepts.md).

An incident that is over stops offering the badges and the role pickers, because every one of those changes announces itself in a channel that may already be archived. Reopen it first. It also stops taking new actions, and its runbook steps can no longer be claimed, because both are work during the incident. Follow-ups can still be added, since they are the work that comes after.

## Work the action items

Every action and follow-up in the sidebar has a menu on hover.

- **Pick up** takes an unclaimed item and marks it in progress. It appears only while nobody holds it.
- **Mark done** completes it.
- **Assign to** hands it to anyone in the workspace.

Taking an item yourself and handing it to someone else are different things. Taking your own work is silent, because you already know. A handover posts in the incident channel, so the person finds out.

## Claim a runbook step

Expand a runbook in the Runbooks panel to see its steps, who is on each one, and which are done. **Claim** on a step takes it, which creates the action item behind that step and puts it in the sidebar alongside everything else.

Claiming a step somebody else already holds hands it over rather than creating a second copy.

## Link incidents together

The **⋮** menu also carries the two relationships.

**Link to an incident** records that two incidents are related. Both name the other on their timelines and neither changes status.

**Mark as duplicate** is for when this incident turns out to be the same event as another. This one is cancelled and points at the one you pick, which stays open as the real incident.

Both match `/ff link` and `/ff duplicate` in Slack.

## Bring people in

The **⋮** menu carries three ways to involve other people, all of which post in the incident channel.

**Ask someone to pick this up** names one person and says why you need them. They get a message of their own with an acknowledge button, the ask goes in the incident channel, and Firefight reminds them if they do not answer. Reach for this when you need a particular person to respond, not just to watch.

**Bring people in** adds responders to the incident channel so they can follow along and join in. It asks nobody for anything, which is the difference from the one above.

**Give a shoutout** thanks someone for their work, posted in the incident channel where everyone working the incident sees it.

All three match `/ff escalate`, `/ff invite` and `/ff shoutout` in Slack. Each offers the people already in your workspace. To pull in somebody Firefight has not seen yet, invite them from Slack.

An incident that has been resolved or cancelled shows these greyed out with the reason, as does one whose channel Firefight is still creating, because all three need a channel to post in.

## Follow an incident without joining it

Not everyone who cares about an incident belongs in its channel. A manager, someone in support, the on-call for a neighbouring service. The **Subscribers** card on the incident page lists who is following it, and **Subscribe** adds you. From then on, every update Firefight posts about the incident reaches you as a direct message from Firefight, the same message it posts in the announcement thread in your incidents channel. That covers status, severity and lead changes, written updates, escalations, and the incident being resolved or reopened. Actions, follow-ups and channel conversation are not included, since those belong to the people working the incident.

Each message names the incident at the top and ends with **Open channel**, **Incident homepage** and **Unsubscribe**, so a message about one of several incidents you follow is never in doubt.

**Unsubscribe** on the card stops the messages, and so does the button at the foot of any message. The **Subscribe** button on the announcement in your incidents channel subscribes you from Slack. Firefight confirms with a note only you can see, which carries **Unsubscribe** in case you clicked by mistake.

## Open the channel

The channel name at the top right opens the incident's channel in your Slack app.

## What still lives in Slack

`/ff catchup` posts a written catch-up into the channel, and has no dashboard equivalent.

See the [Slack command reference](https://firefight.app/docs/incidents/slack-commands.md) for everything available there.