# Logging an incident

> **You need:** *Hub — incidents* to record one. Reading the incident catalogue needs only *Hub — orders and status*.

An incident records what went wrong on a specific order, so it can be explained later and counted across orders.

## The incident catalogue

Incidents are chosen from a catalogue rather than typed free-hand. The catalogue is what makes incidents countable: "how often did this happen last month" only has an answer if everyone picked the same entry for the same situation.

Alongside the catalogue entry you add a **comment**. The entry says *what kind* of problem it was; the comment says what actually happened on this order.

## Recording one

1. Open the order — see [Order details and pickup code](/books/console-yF7/page/order-details-and-pickup-code).
2. Choose the incident from the catalogue.
3. Write a comment with the specifics: what happened, what was done, who was involved.
4. Save.

## Writing a comment that's worth reading

The comment is read weeks later by someone who wasn't there. What helps:

- **Times.** "Driver arrived 19:40, order not ready until 19:55" beats "order was late".
- **Names or identifiers**, not roles. "Carrier X's courier never arrived" beats "the courier didn't show".
- **What was done about it.** Whether the customer was called, whether a refund was offered.
- **The customer outcome.** Whether they were satisfied.

What doesn't help: "late", "problem", "see phone call".

## Incidents are a record, not an action

Recording an incident does not change the order. It does not reassign, cancel, change the promised time or notify anyone automatically. If the order also needs one of those, do it separately:

| Also need to… | Page |
|---|---|
| Move it to another driver | [Assigning and unassigning a driver](/books/console-yF7/page/assigning-and-unassigning-a-driver) |
| Change what the customer was promised | [Changing the promised time](/books/console-yF7/page/changing-the-promised-time) |
| Stop it entirely | [Cancelling an order](/books/console-yF7/page/cancelling-an-order) |
| Close it as delivered | [Forcing a delivery](/books/console-yF7/page/forcing-a-delivery) |

> Record the incident **as well as** taking the action, not instead of it. An order that was force-delivered without an incident explaining why is the hardest kind to reconstruct later.

## When to record one

Whenever something happened that a person would need explained later: a late delivery, a missing or wrong item, a driver or carrier failure, a customer complaint tied to this order, or any use of cancel or force delivery.

Consistency matters more than volume. An incident type nobody records is indistinguishable from a problem that never happens.