Define priority lookup rules

---
title: Define priority lookup rules
description: Define impact and urgency combinations that determine incident priority and the SLA for each priority for an organization. Only administrators and data lookup administrators can configure these rules.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/def-prio-lookup-rules.html
release: australia
product: Incident Management
classification: incident-management
topic_type: task
last_updated: "2026-09-10"
reading_time_minutes: 2
breadcrumb: [Configuring Incident Management, Incident Management, IT Service Management]
---

# Define priority lookup rules

Define impact and urgency combinations that determine incident priority and the SLA for each priority for an organization. Only administrators and data lookup administrators can configure these rules.

## Before you begin

Role required: data\_lookup\_admin or admin

## About this task

Priority lookup rules are organizational configurations set by administrators. These rules define how impact and urgency values combine to determine the priority of each incident. Individual incident responders cannot change the priority lookup rules. If the calculated priority seems incorrect for your organization, contact your administrator to review the configured rules.

## Procedure

1.  Navigate to **All** > **System Policy** > **Rules** > **Priority Lookup Rules**.

2.  Select **New**.

3.  On the form, fill in the fields.

    |Field|Description|
    |-----|-----------|
    |Impact|Measure of the effect of an incident, problem, or change on business processes.|
    |Urgency|Measure of how long the resolution can be delayed until an incident, problem, or change has a significant business impact.|
    |Priority|Value based on impact and urgency that identifies how quickly the service desk should address the task.|
    |Application|Application scope of the rules. The scope defines whether the rules are available for all applications or for scoped applications.|
    |Active|Option to define whether the rule is active or not.|
    |Order|Sequence in which the rules appear in the priority lookup list. This field indicates the sequence of the rule that is executed first.|

    **Note:**

    Priority is calculated according to the following sample data lookup rules:

    |Impact|Urgency|Priority|
    |------|-------|--------|
    |1 - High|1 - High|1 - Critical|
    |1 - High|2 - Medium|2 - High|
    |1 - High|3 - Low|3 - Moderate|
    |2 - Medium|1 - High|2 - High|
    |2 - Medium|2 - Medium|3 - Moderate|
    |2 - Medium|3 - Low|4 - Low|
    |3 - Low|1 - High|3 - Moderate|
    |3 - Low|2 - Medium|4 - Low|
    |3 - Low|3 - Low|4 - Low|

    By default, the **Priority** field is read-only and must be set by selecting the **Impact** and **Urgency** values. To change how the priority is calculated, you can either alter the priority lookup rules or disable the **Priority is managed by Data Lookup - set as read-only** UI policy and create their own business logic.

4.  Select **Submit**.

    **Note:**

    When you initially create and save an incident, the **Work notes** field isn't required. If you change the priority of the incident by selecting different **Impact** or **Urgency** values on an incident form that was saved, the **Work notes** field becomes required.


**Parent Topic:**[Configuring Incident Management](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/incident-configuration.md)