Notifications
Control whether subscribers are notified when an event changes.
Each event has a Notifications toggle that controls whether matching subscribers receive email, SMS, and other channels when the event changes. Delivery runs only while the event is published; draft work in the admin console never notifies anyone.
What triggers a notification
Each event has a Notifications toggle on the Notifications tab. It controls whether subscribers are notified when the event changes while the event is published.
The toggle defaults to on when you create a new event. Publish defaults to off. Draft (unpublished) events never send notifications, even when Notifications is on. Turn Publish on when you are ready for the event to appear on status dashboards and for outbound delivery to run.
You can turn Notifications off per event at any time — for example, for a published maintenance window where you prefer subscribers only see updates on the status dashboard.
When Notifications is on and the event is published, matching subscribers are notified after these actions:
| Action | When a notification is sent |
|---|---|
| Create event | You save a new event with Notifications on and Publish on. |
| Update event | You save qualifying changes to an existing published event — see Update event below. |
| Timeline update | You post a new timeline entry on a published event (incidents and maintenance only). |
| Reopen incident | You reopen a resolved published incident (includes the reopen timeline entry). |
| Post-mortem | You publish a post-mortem, or save changes while it is published, on a published event (incidents and maintenance only). Unpublishing or private draft saves do not notify. |
| Maintenance automation | An advance reminder, automatic start, or automatic stop posts a timeline update — only when both Publish and Notifications are on. See Workflows — Automatic start and stop. |
Update event
Saving an existing event notifies matching subscribers when Notifications is on, the event is published, and you change any of the following:
| Field or change | When a notification is sent |
|---|---|
| Title | You change the event title. |
| Description | You change the event description. |
| Impact Analysis | You set, change, or clear impact analysis (incidents and maintenance only). |
| Affected components | You add, remove, or reorder affected components. |
| Severity | You change the severity (incidents only). |
| Coordinator | You set, change, or clear the coordinator. |
| Start time | You change the expected or actual start time. |
| End time | You change the expected or actual end time. |
| Public attributes | You add, edit, remove, or change visibility of a public attribute. Private-only changes do not notify — see Attributes. |
| Segment targeting | You enable, disable, or change segment include/exclude rules on the Segments tab. |
| Publish turned on | You turn Publish on for an event that was unpublished (with Notifications still on). |
| Publish turned off | Does not notify — the event is removed from status dashboards and future fan-out stops without outbound delivery. |
| Notifications toggle alone | Does not notify — only changes future eligibility. |
Delivery is asynchronous. Saving the event succeeds even if delivery is temporarily delayed; failures are retried in the background.
For who receives notifications, dashboard visibility, and channel-specific formatting, see Notifications overview.
What does not trigger a notification
These changes do not notify subscribers, even when Notifications is enabled:
- Any save while the event is unpublished (draft), including create, edits, and timeline updates
- Adding or editing internal notes
- Editing or deleting an existing timeline entry (only new entries trigger a notification)
- Saving a post-mortem while it remains unpublished, or unpublishing a published post-mortem
Notifications vs. publish
Publish controls status dashboard visibility and whether outbound notifications may run. Notifications controls whether fan-out is allowed once the event is published. Both must be on for subscribers to be notified:
| Notifications | Publish | Status dashboard | Subscriber notifications |
|---|---|---|---|
| On | On | Event is visible | Matching subscribers are notified on qualifying changes |
| On | Off | Event is hidden | No outbound notifications — draft authoring only |
| Off | On | Event is visible | No outbound notifications — visitors see the event only if they visit the dashboard |
| Off | Off | Event is hidden | No outbound notifications |
Turning Publish on (while notifications are on) is itself a qualifying change and can notify subscribers. Turning Publish off removes the event from status dashboards immediately and does not send a notification; further edits also do not notify until you publish again.
Maintenance automatic start and stop only send notifications when both publish and notifications are on. See Workflows — Automatic start and stop.
See Publish for visibility details.
Managing the toggle
On create
Notifications defaults to enabled; Publish defaults to off. Saving a draft does not notify anyone. Turn Publish on when you are ready for public visibility and outbound delivery (with notifications still on).
On edit
The toggle reflects the value stored on the event. Changing it and saving updates future behavior only — it does not retroactively send or unsend past notifications, and toggling notifications on or off by itself does not trigger a new delivery.
When both Notifications and Publish are on, qualifying event changes notify matching subscribers. When either is off, future qualifying changes are suppressed. Toggling either control by itself does not trigger a new delivery (except turning Publish on while notifications are already on).