Free tool

Incident status message generator

Mid-incident is the worst time to write prose. Fill in what you know and get a calm, honest status page update you can post as is.

Incident stage
You know something is wrong and are looking into it.
Status page update
Investigating elevated error rates and slow responses

We are investigating elevated error rates and slow responses. This affects customers in the EU region. Our team is actively working to identify the cause. We will post another update within 30 minutes or sooner if anything changes.

Say what you know, promise when you will say more

The two things customers want from an incident update are honesty about impact and a time for the next update. Avoid blaming vendors, never say “a small number of users” unless you have the number, and post the update even when nothing has changed.

The four stages and what each one owes the reader

  • InvestigatingAcknowledge the problem fast, even before you understand it. Name the symptom users see and promise a time for the next update.
  • IdentifiedSay what is wrong in plain words and that a fix is under way. A plainly stated cause builds more trust than silence.
  • MonitoringThe fix is in; you are watching. Tell people they should see normal service and that you will confirm before closing.
  • ResolvedConfirm recovery, state the cause, apologise once, and commit to a post-incident review.

Rules that keep updates honest

Describe impact from the customer's side, not the architecture's: “logins are failing” beats “the auth service is degraded”. Avoid “a small number of users” unless you have the number. Do not blame a vendor by name while the incident is open. And post the next update when you said you would, even if the only news is that there is no news.

Keep the update and the fix separate

The person writing status updates should not be the person debugging. Assign a communications lead the moment an incident opens, and let them use this generator while the responders work. Our incident response guide covers the roles and the timeline.

Where the message goes

A public status page is the place customers look first, and it stops the support queue filling with the same question. SutramX status pages let you post these updates in one click, notify subscribers by email, Slack and webhook, and keep the history for the post-incident review.

Post it to a status page your customers can subscribe to

Public and private status pages with incident updates, subscriber notifications and a custom domain, on every paid plan.

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