# Overview

Source: https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/incidents/overview

> An overview of the Incidents feature for managing Participant and staff incident forms.

Astalty Premium - This feature is part of the Astalty Premium plan. See What Premium includes.

Astalty turns submissions from Participant Incident and Staff Incident forms into incident records you can assign, investigate, and resolve.

![The Participant Incidents list with Reference, Status, Severity, Category, Reportable and Notify By columns, incidents in Reported, Under Review and Resolved statuses, and a Report Incident button.](https://docs.astalty.com.au/assets/menu-view.png)

## Create an Incident Form

Start with the **Participant Incident** or **Staff Incident** template, or create a Form from scratch and choose the matching usage type. See [Creating a Form](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/forms/manage-forms/create-forms).

![The Internal Form Templates page searched for Incident, showing the Participant Incident Report Form and Staff Incident Report Form templates, each tagged Creates Incident with Preview and Create buttons.](https://docs.astalty.com.au/assets/incident-templates.png)

> **Severity of Incident options on forms you have already built**
>
> Both incident templates include a **Severity of Incident** question, and forms created from them now offer four options in severity order: **Low**, **Medium**, **High** and **Extreme**.
>
> Forms your organisation built before **Extreme** was introduced are left as they are, with their original three options. To offer **Extreme** on one of those forms, add it to the **Severity of Incident** field in the [Form Builder](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/forms/manage-forms/form-builder). This is separate from the incident's own **Severity**, which every account can already set to **Extreme** during [Incident Follow Up](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/incidents/incident-follow-up#severity).

## Report an Incident

- [Participant Incidents](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/incidents/participant-incidents) covers incidents involving a Participant.
- [Staff Incidents](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/incidents/staff-incident) covers incidents involving staff.

## Incident Collaborators

Add **Collaborators** when people other than the assignee need to view and update an incident. This works for Participant and staff incidents.

### Adding a Collaborator

1. Open the incident from the relevant Incidents register.
2. Click **Edit**.
3. Select one or more users in **Collaborators**.
4. Click **Update Incident**.

Collaborators can view and update the incident, change its status, and manage involvees. A collaborator cannot change the assignee or collaborator list unless they are also the assignee or have permission to update that incident type.

![The Update Incident drawer with the Collaborators field highlighted, showing Damian Barrows, Priya Nair and Ava Chen selected below Assigned To.](https://docs.astalty.com.au/assets/image-inc-collaborators-guide.png)

## Permissions

Anyone who can submit an incident form can report an incident. By default, Admins can view and update every incident, Managers can view and update Participant Incidents but cannot see Staff Incidents, and Team Members can only view Participant Incidents for the Participants assigned to them.

An incident's assignee can view it if they are an Admin, Manager or Team Member, the same rule a collaborator follows, on both Participant and Staff Incidents. Being listed as involved in an incident never gives someone access to it. An assignee who can see an incident can also update it.

> **Incident access doesn't depend on the form's viewer list**
>
> Who can see an incident follows the rule above, not the [Who Can View Form Submissions](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/forms/manage-forms/settings#who-can-view-form-submissions) list on the form that produced it. The two are independent: removing someone from that list doesn't take away their incident access, and adding them to it doesn't grant incident access on its own.
>
> For example, a Team Member who is a Participant's [Primary Coordinator](https://docs.astalty.com.au/guide/participants/core-concepts/primary-vs-service-coordinators) can still view that Participant's Incidents, even when they aren't named on the submitting Participant Incident form's viewer list - they just can't open that form's own submissions. Being the Primary Coordinator doesn't by itself add update access; that still needs the Team Member to be the incident's assignee or a collaborator. The same independence from the viewer list applies to Staff Incidents.