Synchronizing parent and child incidents

concept australia Updated Sep 10, 2026 1 min read parent-child-state-sync.md

The state of a child incident follows the state of its parent incident for most incident states, which keeps related incidents aligned without manual updates.

Parent state	On hold reason (parent)	Child state	On hold reason (child)
In Progress	N/A	In Progress	N/A
On Hold	Awaiting Change, Awaiting Problem, or Awaiting Vendor	Same as parent	Same as parent
On Hold	Awaiting Caller	Not updated	Not updated
Resolved	N/A	Resolved.The Activity log in the child incident form is updated with the resolution notes copied from the parent incident.	N/A
Closed	N/A	Not closed.Child incidents must be closed by the caller or by the system based on the auto-closure property.	N/A
Canceled	N/A	N/A	N/A

**Note:**

This table applies only to standard incident life cycle states. When a parent incident is proposed or accepted as a major incident, the states of any associated child incidents do not change automatically. For more information, see Managing major incidents.

When an incident has a child incident, the following actions take place:

If an ITIL user reopens the parent incident, both the parent and child incidents reopen. Both the parent and the child incident state is set to In Progress.
If an employee self-service (ESS) user reopens the parent incident, the parent incident state is set to In Progress but the child incident is not reopened.

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---
title: Synchronizing parent and child incidents
description: The state of a child incident follows the state of its parent incident for most incident states, which keeps related incidents aligned without manual updates.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/parent-child-state-sync.html
release: australia
product: Incident Management
classification: incident-management
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-09-10"
reading_time_minutes: 1
breadcrumb: [Managing incidents, Incident Management, IT Service Management]
---

# Synchronizing parent and child incidents

The state of a child incident follows the state of its parent incident for most incident states, which keeps related incidents aligned without manual updates.

<table id="table_iqz_kmm_qbb"><thead><tr><th>

Parent state

</th><th>

On hold reason \(parent\)

</th><th>

Child state

</th><th>

On hold reason \(child\)

</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>

In Progress

</td><td>

N/A

</td><td>

In Progress

</td><td>

N/A

</td></tr><tr><td>

On Hold

</td><td>

Awaiting Change, Awaiting Problem, or Awaiting Vendor

</td><td>

Same as parent

</td><td>

Same as parent

</td></tr><tr><td>

On Hold

</td><td>

Awaiting Caller

</td><td>

Not updated

</td><td>

Not updated

</td></tr><tr><td>

Resolved

</td><td>

N/A

</td><td>

Resolved.The Activity log in the child incident form is updated with the resolution notes copied from the parent incident.

</td><td>

N/A

</td></tr><tr><td>

Closed

</td><td>

N/A

</td><td>

Not closed.Child incidents must be closed by the caller or by the system based on the auto-closure property.

</td><td>

N/A

</td></tr><tr><td>

Canceled

</td><td>

N/A

</td><td>

N/A

</td><td>

N/A

</td></tr></tbody>
</table>**Note:**

This table applies only to standard incident life cycle states. When a parent incident is proposed or accepted as a major incident, the states of any associated child incidents do not change automatically. For more information, see [Managing major incidents](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/major-incident-management.md).

When an incident has a child incident, the following actions take place:

-   If an ITIL user reopens the parent incident, both the parent and child incidents reopen. Both the parent and the child incident state is set to **In Progress**.
-   If an employee self-service \(ESS\) user reopens the parent incident, the parent incident state is set to **In Progress** but the child incident is not reopened.