Outage & Incident Notice Writer
Tell customers something broke, honestly, with what is known, what you are doing, and what they should do.
New to this? Read the guide.
What it produces
Real output from this tool, not a mock-up.
What went in
- What happened and the current status
- Our file upload service has been failing since about 09:15 UTC today. Uploads over 5MB time out and return an error. Smaller uploads work. We traced it to a storage provider issue and have a fix deploying now, expect it resolved within the hour. No data was lost, failed uploads simply did not save.
- Impact on customers
- Anyone trying to upload files over 5MB since 09:15. Roughly 8% of customers. Existing files are unaffected and still downloadable.
- Status
- Ongoing
What came back
Update: File Upload Issue Since about 09:15 UTC today, file uploads over 5MB have been failing with a timeout error. Uploads under 5MB are working normally. We traced this to an issue with our storage provider. A fix is deploying now, and we expect the issue resolved within the hour. No data has been lost. Failed uploads simply did not save, and any existing files you had before this started are unaffected and still downloadable. This is affecting anyone trying to upload files over 5MB since 09:15 UTC, roughly 8% of customers. If your uploads are under 5MB, you are not affected. If you need to upload a large file right now, you'll need to wait until the fix is in place. We will post another update within the hour, either confirming the fix or letting you know where things stand.
When to use it
Use this when something is broken and customers need to hear it from you rather than discover it. It states what is known, what is not, who is affected and what to do, and it separates an ongoing incident from a resolved one, because those are two different messages.