Status Pages Perspectives

Choose how your status page presents information with two distinct perspective options that determine the scope and focus of your service health communication.

Understanding Perspectives

When creating a status page, one of your most important decisions is selecting the perspective—how information will be organized and presented to visitors. This choice fundamentally shapes what your status page communicates and how stakeholders interact with it.

Perspectives determine:

The scope of entities displayed
How information is organized
The level of detail provided
The intended audience and use case

Traditional Perspective

The Traditional perspective creates a comprehensive dashboard view of multiple services and systems on a single status page.

What It Shows

Description: “Display multiple services and systems on a single status page. Choose which entities to include and organize them in sections.”

This perspective presents:

An overall system status indicator (“All Systems Operational” or current status)
Multiple entities organized in logical sections
Each entity showing its type and operational status
A unified view of your entire platform or service ecosystem

How It Displays

In a Traditional perspective status page:

A main status indicator summarizes the overall health
Entities are grouped into sections (like “Services”)
Each entity displays its name, type, and current status
All selected entities appear on the same page

For example, your status page might show:

API Gateway - Service - Operational
Payment Processing - Service - Operational
Database Cluster - Infrastructure - Operational

When to Use Traditional

Choose the Traditional perspective for:

Company-Wide Status Pages
When you need to communicate the health of your entire platform to customers who rely on multiple services.

Multi-Service Dashboards
Perfect for showing the status of related services that work together to deliver your product experience.

Infrastructure Overviews
Ideal for technical stakeholders who need visibility into various infrastructure components and their current states.

Public Status Communication
When external users need a quick way to check if your services are operational without diving into specific details.

Entity Based Perspective

The Entity Based perspective creates a focused view dedicated to one specific entity from your catalog.

What It Shows

Description: “Create a dedicated status page that represents one specific entity from your catalog, showing all its relationships, dependencies, and operational context.”

This perspective presents:

Deep focus on a single entity
All relationships and dependencies
Comprehensive operational context
Detailed status information specific to that entity

How It Displays

In an Entity Based perspective:

The page centers around one primary entity
Related entities and dependencies are shown in context
More detailed operational information is available
The focus remains on understanding one service deeply

When to Use Entity Based

Choose the Entity Based perspective for:

Customer-Specific Communication
When you need to provide tailored status information for specific customers or targeted audiences who care about particular services.

Product-Specific Pages
When different products have distinct user bases who only care about their specific service.

Service Deep-Dives
For complex services where understanding dependencies and relationships is critical for stakeholders.

Detailed Operational Views
When technical teams need comprehensive visibility into a specific system’s health and all its connections.

Focused Communication
When you want to avoid overwhelming visitors with irrelevant information about unrelated services.

Choosing Your Perspective

Consider Your Audience

Traditional works best when your audience:

Uses multiple services from your platform
Needs a quick overall health check
Wants to see everything at a glance
Prefers breadth over depth

Entity Based works best when your audience:

Focuses on one specific service
Needs detailed dependency information
Wants comprehensive operational context
Prefers depth over breadth

Consider Your Architecture

Traditional suits:

Platforms with many independent services
Systems where overall health matters most
Architectures with clear service boundaries
Organizations with centralized operations

Entity Based suits:

Complex microservice architectures
Systems with intricate dependencies
Services requiring detailed monitoring
Organizations with distributed ownership

Implementation Differences

Entity Selection

Traditional Perspective:

Select multiple entities from your catalog
Organize them into logical sections
Choose which entity types to display
Control the grouping and presentation

Entity Based Perspective:

Select one primary entity as the focus
Automatically includes related entities
Dependencies are discovered from your catalog
Relationships determine the organization

Status Calculation

Traditional Perspective:

Overall status reflects the worst state among all entities
Each entity contributes equally to the summary
Simple aggregation of individual states

Entity Based Perspective:

Status reflects the primary entity’s health
Dependencies influence the overall assessment
More nuanced status calculation based on relationships

Real-World Examples

Traditional Perspective Use Cases

E-Commerce Platform
Show the status of checkout, inventory, payment processing, and shipping services all on one page so customers can quickly understand if they can complete purchases.

Developer API Platform
Display authentication, core API, webhooks, and documentation services together, giving developers a complete view of platform availability.

Corporate IT Services
Present email, calendar, file storage, and collaboration tools on a unified dashboard for employees to check before reporting issues.

Entity Based Use Cases

Payment Processing Service
Focus exclusively on payment capabilities, showing the payment gateway, fraud detection, currency conversion, and settlement dependencies.

Data Pipeline
Center on a specific data pipeline, displaying all upstream data sources, transformation steps, and downstream consumers.

Mobile Application Backend
Dedicate the page to your mobile app’s API, showing authentication services, data synchronization, push notifications, and feature flags.

Migration Between Perspectives

You can change your status page’s perspective after creation, though this requires reconfiguring entity selection:

From Traditional to Entity Based - Select which single entity becomes the focus
From Entity Based to Traditional - Choose multiple entities to include

The live preview helps you understand how the perspective change affects your page’s presentation before saving.

Best Practices

For Traditional Perspectives

Logical Grouping - Organize entities into sections that make sense to visitors
Avoid Overload - Include only entities that matter to your audience
Clear Naming - Use descriptive names that non-technical users understand
Status Priority - Place most critical services prominently

For Entity Based Perspectives

Complete Context - Ensure all relevant dependencies are visible
Relationship Clarity - Make connections between entities obvious
Depth of Information - Provide sufficient detail for technical audiences
Update Propagation - Show how dependency issues affect the primary entity

Learn more