Operations 8 min read

Online Incident Severity Level Definition Rules

This document defines the online incident severity grading system, outlining fault categories, influencing factors such as business metrics, capital loss, user impact, and public opinion, and presents detailed P0‑P3 grading rules with tables for capital‑based, C‑end, and B‑end user classifications.

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Online Incident Severity Level Definition Rules

Fault Classification : Faults are divided into user error, environment issues, operational configuration errors, and system faults (the focus of this grading). System faults include business faults and security faults, each using separate grading rules. When multiple dimensions match, the highest level applies. Levels are P0, P1, P2, and P3.

Business System Fault Grading Factors : Various factors affect fault grading, including:

Business factors – access volume/success rate, transaction volume/success rate, order volume/success rate, call volume/success rate, timeout volume/rate, latency volume/rate, crash volume/rate, data error volume/rate, etc.

Capital factors – monetary loss (e.g., loss ≥ 100 k, 50 k‑100 k, 10 k‑50 k, < 10 k).

Customer factors – ordinary, VIP, large customers.

Time factors – duration in days/hours/minutes.

Complaint factors – number of complaints, feedback.

Public opinion factors – number of shares, hot‑search ranking, media mentions.

Fault Grading Content : The final fault level is determined by the importance of the business module (capital loss), the size of the impact scope (number of affected users), and the resolution time. Capital‑loss grading may be adjusted according to recovery cost and time.

Capital‑Dimension Grading Table :

Capital Loss Amount

Fault Level

Downgrade Note

Loss ≥ 100,000

P0

Based on recovery cost and time can be downgraded, generally one level, minimum to P4

50,000 ≤ Loss < 100,000

P1

10,000 ≤ Loss < 50,000

P2

Loss < 10,000

P3

User‑Dimension Grading : Impact user proportion is calculated as the number of affected users divided by the total active users during the period.

C‑End User Grading Standards (function level, impact degree, fault level with time thresholds):

Function Level

Impact Degree

P0

P1

P2

P3

Level 1 Core

User proportion ≥ 6%

P0

4% ≤ User proportion < 6%

P1 (10 min)

2% ≤ User proportion < 4%

P2 (10 h)

P3 (10 min)

User proportion < 2%

P3

Level 2 Core

User proportion ≥ 10%

P1 (5 h)

P2 (10 min)

5% ≤ User proportion < 10%

P2 (10 h)

P3 (10 min)

User proportion < 5%

P3

Other

User proportion ≥ 50%

P2 (10 h)

P3 (10 min)

User proportion < 50%

P3

Grading Explanation : First grade based on function level and impact scope, then adjust up or down according to resolution time (min = minutes, h = hours). Function level definitions:

Level 1 Core – directly affects order‑related functions (login, product details, order placement, payment, reservation, fulfillment, etc.).

Level 2 Core – indirectly affects order‑related functions (address modification, personal health‑check info changes, etc.).

Other – UI/UX related functions (link navigation, style, auxiliary features, etc.).

B‑End User Grading Standards (similar structure to C‑end, with different user proportion thresholds):

Function Level

Impact Degree

P0

P1

P2

P3

Level 1 Core

User proportion ≥ 20%

P0

10% ≤ User proportion < 20%

P1 (5 h)

5% ≤ User proportion < 10%

P2 (10 h)

P3 (10 min)

User proportion < 5%

P3

Level 2 Core

User proportion ≥ 30%

P1 (5 h)

20% ≤ User proportion < 30%

P2 (10 h)

P3 (10 min)

User proportion < 20%

P3

Other

User proportion ≥ 50%

P2 (10 h)

P3 (10 min)

User proportion < 50%

P3

All capital losses must be fully recovered.

OperationsIncident Managementservice reliabilityfault classificationseverity grading
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