Workflows

Workflows define the phases incidents and maintenance events move through from creation to resolution, such as Investigating through Resolved for incidents. Customize labels, colors, and order on Workflows and Maintenance workflow; timeline entries and automation use these phases on status dashboards and in notifications.

Default phases

Workflows define the phases an event moves through from creation to resolution. StatusDashboard ships with sensible defaults for both incident and maintenance workflows, and each phase's label, description, color, icon, and order can be fully customized to match your team's process.

Workflows apply to incidents and maintenance events only. Informational events have no workflow lifecycle — they are simply published or unpublished.

There are two independent workflow types:

• Incident workflow — phases an incident goes through (e.g. Investigating → Identified → Monitoring → Resolved)
• Maintenance workflow — phases a maintenance window goes through (e.g. Scheduled → In Progress → Completed)

Incident workflow

Maintenance workflow

Managing workflows

Use the Incident and Maintenance tabs to switch between workflow types.

Adding a phase

1. Click Add Phase.
2. Fill in the Label (required, must be unique within the workflow), Description, Icon, and Color.
3. Optionally mark the phase as a Final Phase or Planned Phase (see below).
4. Click Add — the phase is saved immediately.

Editing a phase

Click the pencil icon on any row. Update the fields and click Save.

Reordering

Use the up/down arrows on the left of each row to change the execution order. Changes are saved immediately.

Deleting a phase

Click the trash icon. A confirmation dialog will appear before deletion.

Constraints:

• Minimum 2 phases for incident workflows and 3 phases for maintenance workflows — the delete button is disabled at the minimum.
• Maximum phases per workflow — the Add button is disabled once your organization's limit is reached.
• Labels must be unique within each workflow type (case-insensitive).
• Label max 50 characters; description is required, max 150 characters.
• Phase order values must be unique and contiguous from 1 through the phase count.
• Invalid marker placement or phase counts are rejected when you save — see Special phase markers below.

Special phase markers

Final phase (incident and maintenance): Exactly one phase per workflow may be marked final. It must be the last phase in execution order (highest order value).

Planned / scheduled phase (maintenance only): Exactly one phase may be marked planned/scheduled. It must be the first phase in execution order (lowest order value). A phase cannot be both final and scheduled.

Maintenance minimum: At least 3 phases. With exactly one planned and exactly one final anchored at the ends, at least one active phase always sits between them.

Final Phase

Marks the phase that represents a completed or resolved event (e.g. "Resolved" or "Completed"). Only one phase per workflow can be marked final, and it must be the last row in the workflow list (highest order). When you set a phase as final, the marker is automatically cleared from any other phase.

Final phases are used by the platform to:

• Mark an event as closed on the status dashboard.
• Set the incident's end time to the timestamp of the final timeline entry.

Planned Phase (maintenance only)

Marks the initial scheduled state of a maintenance event (e.g. "Scheduled"). Only one phase per maintenance workflow can be marked planned, and it must be the first row in the workflow list (lowest order). New maintenance events default to this phase (workflows.maintenance[0]).

Automatic start and stop

Maintenance events can start and stop themselves at the scheduled start and end times. This is configured per event on the Date & Time tab. See Maintenance events — Automatic start & stop for timing tables and notification behavior.

Every maintenance workflow supports automatic start and stop. The default workflow (Scheduled → In Progress → Completed) already satisfies the required shape.

Workflow shape is enforced when you save workflows in Settings — not again when you enable automation on an individual event.

Custom workflows with extra phases

If you add more than one active phase (for example Scheduled → Prep → In Progress → Completed), automatic start selects the first active phase after Planned by execution order — in that example, Prep, not In Progress. You can still post manual timeline updates to move through later phases.

Phase fields

Frequently asked questions

If I edit a phase's label, color, description, or icon, do existing timeline entries update?

No. Workflow phase display properties — label, color, description, and icon — are captured as a snapshot when a timeline entry is posted. Editing a phase after that point does not retroactively change how existing timeline entries appear on the status dashboard. Historical entries preserve the display values from when they were written. Only timeline entries posted after the edit will reflect the updated phase properties.

Does posting a "Resolved" timeline entry automatically close the incident?

Yes. When you post a timeline entry using a final-phase status, the incident is marked as closed on the status dashboard and its end time is set to that entry's timestamp. You do not need to take any separate action.

When I start a maintenance window and post "In Progress", does the scheduled start time change?

No. The scheduled start and end times are fixed when you create the event. Workflow transitions and timeline updates do not modify them. If the actual window shifted, edit the maintenance event's General tab to correct the times.

Can I have more than one final phase in a workflow?

No. Only one phase per workflow can be marked as final. If you mark a new phase as final, the marker is automatically cleared from the previous one.

Can a maintenance event have a Planned phase marker on more than one phase?

No. Only one maintenance phase can carry the Planned marker. It is automatically removed from the previous phase when you apply it to a new one.

Do workflow phase changes affect informational events?

No. Informational events have no workflow. They are managed purely through their publish toggle.

If I delete or rename a workflow phase, what happens to open events?

Existing events keep their current status label and timeline history. Timeline entries store a snapshot of phase display properties at post time. Deleting or renaming a phase does not rewrite open events. Maintenance automation uses the workflow configuration as it exists when each transition runs.