---
title: Incident categories and subcategories
description: Categorization of incidents helps in routing to the right team and saves a lot of time in troubleshooting and bringing the service to normalcy.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/r\_CategorizingIncidents.html
release: australia
product: Incident Management
classification: incident-management
topic_type: reference
last_updated: "2026-03-12"
reading_time_minutes: 1
breadcrumb: [Configuring Incident Management, Incident Management, IT Service Management]
---

# Incident categories and subcategories

Categorization of incidents helps in routing to the right team and saves a lot of time in troubleshooting and bringing the service to normalcy.

One of the KPIs \(Key Performance Indicators\) of the Incident Management process is to identify how many times the Incident is sent to different teams. It also helps in analyzing incidents based on the classification to do proactive Problem Management which, in turn, helps to reduce Incidents. Proper incident classification is very important to identify and prioritize on which Incidents to work on first.

Using categories and subcategories also improves the clarity and granularity of report data. The following categories and associated subcategories are in the base system. An administrator can add additional categories and subcategories, and use them in assignment rules and notifications.

<table id="table_nxg_t4s_44"><thead><tr><th>

Category

</th><th>

Subcategory

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

Inquiry / Help

</td><td>

-   Antivirus
-   Email
-   Internal Application

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

Software

</td><td>

-   Email
-   Operating System

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

Hardware

</td><td>

-   CPU
-   Disk
-   Keyboard
-   Memory
-   Monitor
-   Mouse

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

Network

</td><td>

-   DHCP
-   DNS
-   IP Address
-   VPN
-   Wireless

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

Database

</td><td>

-   DB2
-   MS SQL Server
-   Oracle

</td></tr></tbody>
</table>-   **[Configure incident category or subcategory](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/t_AddRemoveIncCatSubbCat.md)**  
Configure incident category and subcategory for easy classification of incidents which helps in routing incidents to the right team. You can also generate reports based on category and subcategory of incidents.
-   **[Add a category or a subcategory](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/add-new-category.md)**  
Add category or subcategory to assign incidents to the correct team and save time in troubleshooting and bringing the service to normalcy.
-   **[Delete a category or a subcategory](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/it-service-management/incident-management/remove-category-subcategory.md)**  
Delete a category or subcategory if your organization no longer uses the category or subcategory.

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