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Publishing Updates

Manage service health communication through the operations interface with full control over what information reaches stakeholders and when.

Prerequisites

  • A configured status page
  • An incident or update to publish

1. Access the Operations Dashboard

Navigate to Status Pages and click a status page to open its operations dashboard.

The dashboard shows:

  • Overall system health indicator
  • Public vs internal item counts
  • Subscriber count
  • Linked incidents and updates

2. Publish an Update

From the operations dashboard:

  1. Click New Update or link an existing incident
  2. Enter the update Title and Message
  3. Select the Severity (Info, Investigating, Identified, Monitoring, Resolved)
  4. Choose Affected Services from your catalog entities
  5. Select visibility:
    • Internal - Team-only access
    • Public - Visible to all visitors
  6. Click Publish

3. Control Notifications

When publishing, choose how subscribers are notified:

Notify Subscribers

  • Send immediate email to all subscribers
  • Update RSS feed
  • Standard behavior for significant updates

Silent Publishing

  • Update appears on status page
  • No email sent to subscribers
  • Useful for minor updates

4. Manage Incident Visibility

Each linked incident has a visibility toggle:

  1. Find the incident in the operations dashboard
  2. Click the visibility indicator (Internal/Public)
  3. Confirm the visibility change
  4. Status page updates immediately

Result

Published updates appear on your status page and are delivered to subscribers. The incident history maintains a record of all public communications.

Subscriber Management

Email Subscriptions

Visitors subscribe on your status page:

  1. Enter email address
  2. Receive confirmation email
  3. Click confirmation link
  4. Receive notifications when you publish updates

Subscribers can unsubscribe using the link in any email.

RSS Feeds

  • RSS feed automatically available for your status page
  • Standard RSS 2.0 format
  • No subscription required—visitors add the feed URL directly
  • Updates appear when you publish them

Incident History

What Appears in History

  • Only published incidents appear in the historical record
  • Internal incidents remain private
  • All updates you published during an incident remain visible
  • Original timestamps preserved

Duration Indicators

Your status page shows how long services have been in their current state:

  • “Operational for X days” when healthy
  • “Degraded for X hours” during issues
  • “Down for X minutes” during outages

Operational States

State Indicator Use Case
Operational Green All systems functioning normally
Degraded Yellow Partial service impact
Down Red Service unavailable
Maintenance Blue Planned work in progress

Best Practices

Communication Quality

  • Use clear, non-technical language
  • Explain impact in user terms
  • Provide actionable information and workarounds
  • Update regularly during active incidents

Update Frequency

  • Major changes: immediate updates
  • Investigation progress: every 15-30 minutes
  • Avoid minute-by-minute commentary
  • Summarize when resolved

Publishing Decisions

  • Customer-impacting issues: transparent communication
  • Internal tool issues: may not need public visibility
  • Security incidents: careful, coordinated messaging