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Incidents & alerts
Publishing public updates
Keep your customers in the loop without leaving the incident.
Plan availability
Status pages is available on Pro and Business. See the plan comparison.
Overview
During an incident, you'll often want to tell your customers what's going on in calm, plain language, without the technical detail your team needs. You write a public update from inside the incident, tie it to a friendly status, and it appears on your status page for anyone with the link to read.
Public updates sit alongside your internal notes on the same timeline, so you keep the full picture in one place while choosing what your customers see. For the team-only side, see Incident updates and timeline.
What you need
Publishing a public update requires both:
- The Incidents feature, so you have the incident timeline to publish from, and
- A status page for the update to appear on.
In practice that means a Pro or Business plan, or the trial. You also need to be an owner or admin, the same permission that lets you create and manage status pages. Members can read the incident and post internal notes, but they won't see the publish option.
If you've got the Incidents feature but no status page yet, the composer still works for internal notes, and it'll point you towards comparing plans so you can add a status page.
How to publish an update
You publish from the incident detail page, using the same Post an update box you'd use for an internal note:
- Open the incident.
- In the update box, switch the audience from Team only to Public.
- Pick the status that best describes where things stand (see below).
- Write your message in plain language. There's a live preview showing how it'll read on your status page.
- Click Publish update.
DomainDash confirms with "Published to your status page.", and the update appears on the public page straight away.
Publishing an update doesn't email anyone. Visitors who subscribed on your status page get one email, when the incident is resolved.
There's a starter sentence for each status
When you choose a status, DomainDash offers a friendly opening line in its own tone, for example, "We're looking into a problem affecting this service and will share an update shortly." Edit it to fit before you publish. DomainDash keeps public updates short so the status page is quick to read.
The status levels
Every public update is tied to one of four status levels. The labels are friendly and non-technical:
| Status | What it tells customers |
|---|---|
| Looking into it | You're aware of a problem and investigating |
| Found the issue | You know what's causing it and you're working on a fix |
| Almost fixed | A fix is in place and you're keeping a close eye on it |
| Fixed | Everything's back to normal |
DomainDash suggests a default that follows the incident's live state ("Looking into it" while it's ongoing, "Fixed" once it has resolved), and you can choose a different one.
Publishing after an incident resolves
You can still publish a "Fixed" update after an incident has resolved. Like internal notes added after resolution, it's recorded as part of the incident's lasting write-up and still appears on your status page. One update gives your customers the all-clear and your team the post-mortem.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a public update and an internal note?
An internal note is team-only and stays on the incident timeline. A public update is published to your status page, where anyone with the link can read it, and it's tied to a friendly status level so visitors know roughly where things stand. You choose which one you're writing before you post it.
What status levels can I choose?
Four, in order: Looking into it, Found the issue, Almost fixed, and Fixed. Each one comes with a suggested opening sentence you can edit before publishing.
Why can't I publish a public update?
Publishing needs two things: the Incidents feature and a status page, which together mean a Pro or Business plan (or the trial), plus the owner or admin role. If you have Incidents but no status page, you'll still see the incident timeline and can post internal notes. You just won't see the publish option until you have a status page.
Related
- Incident updates and timeline for internal, team-only notes
- What visitors see for how public updates appear on your status page
- Creating a status page to set up the status page these updates publish to
- How incidents work for the incident lifecycle behind the updates
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Last updated: 13 October 2026