Once a Major Case exists, link every other affected customer's case to it as a child case. From then on, the Major Case's notes, customer updates and closure reach that case too.
Linking is done in the Associated Cases section of the Case Management Screen. You need the Allow Manage Case Link role to see that section. For linking in general, see Linking Cases In The Layer.
Link a case
You can do it from either end. Both give the same result.
From the Major Case
Open the Major Case and go to Associated Cases.
Choose the relationship Parent Of.
Search for the affected customer's case. Results show the reference, subject and customer.
Click Link.
From the affected customer's case
Open the customer's case and go to Associated Cases.
Choose the relationship Child Of.
Search for the Major Case and click Link.
The Child Of and Parent Of relationships only appear when Major Cases are switched on for your company.
Linking rules
A case can belong to only one Major Case.
A Major Case can't be the child of another Major Case.
The parent must be a Major Case. If you get A case can only be made a child of a Major Case, you've probably picked the relationship the wrong way round: use Parent Of on the Major Case, or Child Of on the customer's case.
You can't link cases to a Major Case that's closed. If a customer still needs the Reason For Outage, send it to them directly.
Cases for any customer can be linked, including several cases for one customer.
A closed case can be linked, but closing the Major Case won't change it, because it's already closed. Notes and updates from the Major Case are still posted on it.
The search hides cases already linked to this case by another relationship, such as Relates To. Remove that link first, then link the case as a child.
If you link several cases at once and one is refused, linking stops at that case. The ones before it are linked. Refresh the page to see where it got to.
What linking does, and doesn't do
Linking records the link and adds a line to the history. It doesn't:
post a note on the child case or tell its customer anything
change the child case's status, owner, priority or SLA
copy the child case's assets onto the Major Case
So once you've linked the affected cases, send a customer update so everyone hears what's happening. See Keep everyone updated during a Major Case.
How linked cases look
On the Major Case, the Major Incident section lists Affected customers' cases with each case's customer and status, and how many are still open. In Associated Cases, each child is tagged Child case.
On a child case, the Major Incident section opens at the top of the side panel with a Child case label and says Part of Major Case [reference], which is still open. Updates from the Major Case appear in this case's notes, and this case is resolved when the Major Case is closed by the MSO team. The case header shows the Major Case's reference as a link.
In case lists, Major Cases and child cases both carry a Major tag. Hover over it to see which is which.
Working on a child case
A child case stays the affected customer's case. Its owner can keep working it: edit it, add notes and attach assets. Notes and updates from the Major Case appear in its notes, marked as coming from the Major Case.
While the Major Case is open, only users with the MSO Team or MSO Manager role can close a child case. When the Major Case is closed, every child that's still open is closed with it. After that, the child behaves like any other case.
Decouple a case linked by mistake
You need the MSO Manager role and the Allow Manage Case Link role, and the Major Case must still be open.
In Associated Cases, click the unlink icon on the case's row.
Read the confirmation and click OK.
The case stops receiving the Major Case's notes and updates. Any affected assets that were copied onto the Major Case from that customer are removed from it, unless another of that customer's cases is still linked. The child case's own status and notes aren't changed. The Major Case's history records who decoupled it.
You can't decouple:
the case the Major Case was promoted from. Its row shows a padlock instead of the unlink icon.
any case once the Major Case is closed. Those cases were resolved by it and receive its Reason For Outage.