Status Update Templates simplify and standardize incident status communications. Free up time during incident response and keep stakeholders informed with consistent, detailed context.

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Availability

This feature is available on current Business, Enterprise for Incident Management, and Digital Operations (Legacy) plans. Contact the Sales Team if you want to upgrade to a plan that includes this feature.

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Required User Permissions

Users with the following roles can create and edit Status Update Templates:

• Manager
• Global Admin
• Account Owner

All users can use a Status Update Template during incident response.

Create a Template in the Web App

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Product Limit

You can add up to 500 templates to your account.

1. Navigate to Incidents Status Update Templates.
2. Click New Template.
3. Enter a Name and an optional Description for the template.
4. Click Create Template.
5. In the Message template section, enter your desired text in the Message field. This is the text that will appear in push, email, and SMS status update notifications.

5. In the Email template section, enter a Subject and use the rich text editor to make any customizations to the default email status update notification in the *Body.
   Refer to the Fields in Email Notifications section for more information about including dynamic content in email status update notifications.
6. Click Save.
   Before saving, you can click Preview in the top-right at any time to view how the message will appear in each notification channel.

Fields in Email Notifications

Email status update notifications can dynamically include information about the status update or incident. You can select standard fields and Custom Fields.

While editing the email status update notification's content in the rich text editor:

1. In the Fields panel on the right, click to copy the field to your clipboard.
2. Paste the field into the appropriate place in the email template.

The field appears in the email body between double curly braces, e.g., {{ status_update.message }}.

The most common fields are listed by default; however, you can also enter a term to search for a more complete list of objects and their associated attributes. Refer to the FAQ below an exhaustive list of supported fields.

Support for Liquid Templating Language

If you want to create conditional communications, Status Update Templates support the Liquid templating language across all configurable fields, including Message and email Subject and Body.

When referring to fields inside a Liquid tag, omit the double curly braces {{ ... }}. For example, the following snippet transforms the incident title to uppercase for incidents with a "P1" priority, and otherwise leaves it unchanged:

{% if incident.priority.name == "P1" %}
  {{ incident.title | upcase }}{% else %}{{ incident.title}}
{% endif %}

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Note

The following Liquid tags are not supported:

• tablerow
• liquid
• echo
• render
• include

Fields with Multiple Values

Depending on where an incident is in its lifecycle, the following fields can contain more than one value (i.e., in an array):

• Status Updates, incident.previous_status_updates
• Impacted Business Services, incident.impacted_business_services
• Impacted Technical Services, incident.impacted_services
• Acknowledgements, incident.acknowledgements
• Assignments, incident.assignments
• Teams, incident.teams

Since these items are stored in an array, you might need to provide an index to access their properties' values. For example,{{incident.previous_status_updates[0].message}} displays the first status update associated with the incident.

Alternatively, use a for loop to display all values stored in an array. The following example iterates through all status updates associated with an incident:

{% for update in incident.previous_status_updates %}
  {{update.message}}
{% endfor %}

You can also access more than one of the properties associated with the update variable. For example, you can include a status update's time with the message:

{% for update in incident.previous_status_updates %}
  {{update.created_at}} — {{update.message}}
{% endfor %}

Additionally, you can display only the most recent status update and its creation time. Status updates are sorted by date and time in descending order, so you can use Liquid's first syntax to display only the most recent update:

{% assign update = incident.previous_status_updates | first %}
{{update.created_at}} — {{update.message}}

For more information, refer to the Liquid templating language's documentation.

Edit a Template in the Web App

1. Navigate to Incidents Status Update Templates.
2. Click Edit on the right of the template you want to edit.
3. Edit the template as desired.
4. Click Save.

Duplicate a Template in the Web App

1. Navigate to Incidents Status Update Templates.
2. Click Duplicate on the right of the template you want to duplicate.
3. Enter a new name and description for the template.
4. Click Duplicate Template.

Delete a Template in the Web App

1. Navigate to Incidents Status Update Templates.
2. Click Delete on the right of the template you want to delete.
3. In the confirmation modal, click Delete. This action is irreversible and cannot be undone.

Use a Status Update Template During Incident Response

1. Navigate to an incident's detail page.
2. Select the Status Updates tab.
3. Click New Update.
4. Select a communication template from the dropdown.
5. Click Preview.
6. (Optional) If necessary, adjust the pre-populated text in the Message field.
   Note: Adjustments made in the Message field will also reflect in the email body.

5. Click Send Message to notify incident subscribers.

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Requirement

The email Subject has a maximum of 255 characters. A status update notification containing more than the maximum character length returns the following error message:

There is a problem with this template. Please report this problem to your account administrator.

If this occurs, you can click Edit Email to adjust the Subject.

FAQ

What is the full list of supported fields?