What are incident flags?

This article gives an overview of the flags you can set on an incident and explains how they differ.

Flags let you mark important information about an incident so your team can find it, report on it and be alerted to it. Every incident in Notify can carry three built-in flags, Priority, Lost Time and Reportable, and your organisation can also ask Notify to set up custom flags of your own.

Depending on your permissions, the Flags card may also show Confidential and Excluded. Those two work differently and are covered in their own articles.

Where do I find flags?

All flags sit in the Flags card on the incident page. Each flag can have an optional note added to it. To change a flag, click the pencil icon on its row. If there is no pencil icon, you do not have permission to change that flag (see "Why can't I change a flag?" below).

What do all flags have in common?

They can be used to filter the incident list.
They are included in CSV exports.
They can each have a note.
They only appear on the incident types they have been switched on for.
They can be applied automatically. A flag can be applied when a reporter picks a particular answer, and an automatically applied flag stays on until someone removes it.

What differs is what each flag means, who is told when it changes and who can change it.

What does each flag mean?

Priority tells your team how urgent the incident is. It is set as a level: Not Set, Low, Medium or High.
Lost Time records that someone was absent from work because of the incident. It drives your lost time injury figures.
Reportable records that the incident has been escalated to a regulator, for example RIDDOR Reportable or OSHA Recordable.
Custom flags are flags your organisation creates with its own name and description, such as “Insurance claim”, “Serious injury or fatality” or “Client informed”.

At a glance

	Priority	Lost Time	Reportable	Custom flag
Type	Level (Not Set, Low, Medium, High)	Yes/No plus absence dates	Yes/No	Set/Not Set
Meaning	How urgent the incident is	Someone was off work	Escalated to a regulator	Whatever you define
Available on	Incident types set up for it	Incident types set up for it	Incident types set up for it (usually injury and ill health)	Incident types you choose
Notifies subscribers	Yes, when set to High	Yes, when set and when updated	Yes, when set to Yes	No
Who can change it	Incident managers, unless restricted	Incident managers, unless restricted	Incident managers, unless restricted	Users given access to that flag

Who is notified when a flag changes?

Priority, Lost Time and Reportable each have a notification subscription. Users who are subscribed, and who are part of the incident's organisation structure, receive an email when the flag is set, and an SMS as well if they have opted into SMS alerts. The notification is sent the moment the flag is saved. Custom flags do not send notifications.

Why can’t I change a flag?

The flag row is there but has no pencil icon. For Priority, Lost Time and Reportable you need to be in an incident manager permission group that covers that incident, and not be in one of the restriction permission groups (Restrict Setting Incident Priority, Restrict Setting Incident as Lost Time, Restrict Setting Incident as Reportable). For a custom flag, your user profile needs Custom Flag Access to that specific flag, and you need permission to edit the incident. Ask your System Administrator to check.

I need a new custom flag.

Custom flags are set up by Notify. Contact your Customer Success team with the flag name, a short description and the incident types it should appear on.