Closing a Major Case does three things at once: it resolves every child case that's still open, sends your resolution note to everyone affected, and starts the Reason For Outage.
You need the MSO Team or MSO Manager role, and the Structured Review must be finalised. See Complete the Structured Review for a Major Case.
Close a Major Case
On the Major Case, in the Major Incident section, click Close Major Case.
Check the summary. It says how many open child cases will be resolved, and who the Reason For Outage will go to, with its target in days.
In Close as, pick the closed status. It's applied to the Major Case and to every open child case. It starts as Fixed, if your company has that status.
Write the Resolution note to the affected customers: what the impact was, what was done, and that service is restored. It's customer-facing.
Leave Send the resolution note now ticked to post and email it. Open Who receives it to check the recipients and who's not included. These follow the same rules as a customer update, see Keep everyone updated during a Major Case.
Click Close Major Case and confirm.
You'll see, for example, Major Case [reference] closed. 6 child cases resolved. The Reason For Outage is ready to draft. The page reloads on the Reason For Outage tab.
To close without a customer message, untick Send the resolution note now.
What happens when you close
The Major Case is closed with the status you chose.
Every child case that's still open is closed with the same status. Each gets an internal note: Resolved as part of Major Case [reference] by [your name]. Structured Review v1 finalised by [name] on [date]. Your usual case-closed automations run for each one, as if it had been closed by hand.
Child cases that were already closed aren't changed.
The resolution note, if you sent it, is posted on every child case as a customer-visible note, Resolution from Major Case [reference] posted by [your name]:, and emailed once to each recipient. Customers get the subject Resolution on your case [their case reference]: [their case subject].
The Reason For Outage is started as a draft, due the number of days after closing set in your Major Incident settings (14 unless changed). A high-priority task, RFO due: Major Case [reference], is created for the Named Incident Manager, or for you if there isn't one, and they're emailed about it. See Publish a Reason For Outage (RFO) for a Major Case.
If a child case can't be closed, for example because of a rule on that case, the message says how many weren't resolved. Close those from their own cases.
If you can't close it
What you see | What to do |
[reference] cannot be closed yet. The Structured Review has to be complete and finalised first. | The dialog lists what's missing. Click Open the Structured Review, complete it and finalise it. |
This Major Case cannot be closed until its Structured Review is finalised. | Every section is complete. Go to the Structured Review tab and click Finalise review. |
Only users with the MSO Team or MSO Manager role can close a Major Case. | Ask someone with an MSO role to close it. |
Closing it another way
The same rules apply if you close a Major Case by changing its status on the case, with a bulk status update, from Associated Cases or through the API. The review must be finalised and you need an MSO role. Open child cases are still resolved and the Reason For Outage is still started.
But no resolution note is sent that way. Use Close Major Case so customers hear that service is restored. If you've already closed it another way, use Send customer update to tell them. It arrives as an update rather than a resolution.
Closing child cases yourself
While the Major Case is open, only users with an MSO role can close a child case. Anyone else sees This case is part of Major Case [reference] and is closed by the MSO team when the Major Case is resolved. Once the Major Case is closed, its child cases can be reopened and closed like any other case.
Reopening a Major Case
Change its status back to an open status. Its child cases aren't reopened, and the Reason For Outage that was started stays as it is. While the Major Case is open again you can link more cases to it. If you close it again, any child cases that are open by then are resolved.