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Handling an incident

Assess → Publish → Update → Resolve

01

Assess what customers are experiencing

Work out which service is affected and what customers are seeing before you write anything. A red monitor tells you something is wrong, not what to say.

  • Confirm scope and start time
  • Separate symptoms from suspected cause
  • Choose the services customers recognise
Dashboard walkthroughAssess what customers are experiencing
IBIncidentsMF
Signal to assess

Checkout API errors

Customer impact
Payments may fail
Started
14:02 UTC
Evidence
8.4% HTTP 5xx
MonitorDown after 2 failed checks
02

Publish the first clear message

Say what is affected, what customers may see and what your team is doing next. Publish before you know the full cause.

  • Use customer language
  • Give the next update expectation
  • Keep uncertain details out
Dashboard walkthroughPublish the first clear message
IBIncidentsMF
New incident
Checkout API
03

Update the timeline as facts change

Add a new entry rather than editing the last one, so a reader can see what changed and when.

  • Add a new timeline entry
  • Correct earlier wording explicitly
  • Notify only when the change matters
Dashboard walkthroughUpdate the timeline as facts change
IBIncidentsMF
Saved result

Checkout is degraded

  1. InvestigatingElevated errors confirmed · 14:06
  2. IdentifiedProvider configuration rollback · 14:18
Update is visible on the public timeline
04

Resolve, then prove recovery

Resolve the incident once the service has stayed up, not the moment a fix is deployed.

  • Verify the service is stable
  • Publish a concise resolution
  • Confirm subscribers have been notified
Dashboard walkthroughResolve, then prove recovery
IBIncidentsMF

Everything is working

Payment processing has recovered and remained stable.

Subscribers have been notified.
Dashboard walkthroughAssess what customers are experiencing
IBIncidentsMF
Signal to assess

Checkout API errors

Customer impact
Payments may fail
Started
14:02 UTC
Evidence
8.4% HTTP 5xx
MonitorDown after 2 failed checks

Current walkthrough step: Assess what customers are experiencing

Guides for the person running a status page from the dashboard. Each one ends with how to check it worked.

Start here

Create the page, add the first monitor and open it as a customer would.

Launch your status pageCreate the page, add a service and confirm what customers can see.

Monitor and respond

Monitors and incidents, plus the internal view and page analytics you read afterwards.

Monitor servicesConfigure website, port, DNS, ping, mail and WebSocket checks, group them, and understand when a service counts as down. Communicate incidentsPublish, update and resolve incidents, schedule maintenance and write postmortems. Read the internal viewReported traffic, failing services and endpoints that have no monitor. Database HealthPrivate database connections and application pool diagnostics. Measure your status pageSee page loads, visitor-days and subscription conversion for each public page.

Publish your page

The page's languages, look and address, what visitors see when your site is down, and embedding its status elsewhere.

Publish in more languagesChoose published languages and review the automatically prepared translations. Apply your brandSet the logo, accent, typography, theme and public history window. Connect a custom domainPoint a DNS record at InBrief and check that the certificate was issued. Configure outage continuityThe separate page visitors see when your main site cannot answer. Embed badges and widgetsPut a live status badge in your README or a status widget on your own site. Run more than one status pageCreate, switch between and delete status pages on one account.

Notify people

Email, browser push and chat channels for subscribers, and Slack or WhatsApp for your own team.

Notify subscribersEmail, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram and browser push, plus the sender and templates. Alert your team in SlackSend monitor and certificate alerts to a channel your responders watch. Post incidents in DiscordIncident and maintenance updates in a Discord channel, from a webhook you own. Post incidents in Microsoft TeamsIncident and maintenance updates through a Teams workflow, with the co-owner and channel-type gotchas. Post incidents in TelegramYour own bot posting into a chat, group or channel, confirmed with a code before anything is sent. Alert your team on WhatsAppMonitor and incident alerts on your team's handsets, sent from your own business name. Coming soon

Account and help

Team roles, the audit log, billing, and what to check when something is not working.

Sign in and shortcutsSign in with a link or a password, use the command palette and change several monitors at once. Manage team accessInvite teammates and understand owner, admin, operator and viewer permissions. Review the audit logSee who changed what on the account, filter it by status page and export it. Billing and capabilitiesWhat each capability costs, how the trial works and where to confirm active access. Troubleshoot a problemStart from the symptom and check the fix took, with what to collect before asking support.
Last reviewed October 15, 2026Was this helpful? Get help troubleshooting