Subscribers
Subscribers get an email when you publish an incident or schedule maintenance on a status page. Visitors subscribe on the public page and confirm their address with a link (double opt-in). Only confirmed subscribers get emails.
How visitors subscribe
- The visitor selects Subscribe in the header of the status page.
- The visitor types an email address and selects Subscribe.
- Spectate sends an email with the subject "Confirm your subscription to
<page>status updates". - The visitor selects Confirm subscription in the email. The link works for 7 days.
After step 4, the subscription is confirmed. Until then, it is pending and gets no updates. If the link expired, the visitor can subscribe again to get a new link.
The public page never shows if an address is already subscribed. To prevent abuse, Spectate accepts 10 subscribe requests per IP address per minute. It sends at most 3 confirmation emails per address per hour.
The Subscribe dialog also has an RSS / Atom tab with the feed URLs of the page.
Turn subscriptions on or off
Subscriptions are on by default. To turn them off, go to Settings → Display and clear Subscriptions. The Subscribe button then disappears, and Spectate accepts no new subscribers. Existing subscribers continue to get emails.
What subscribers get
Spectate sends one email per event to each confirmed subscriber.
| Event | When | Subject starts with |
|---|---|---|
incident_created | You publish an incident. | New incident |
incident_updated | You post an update. | Incident update |
incident_resolved | You resolve an incident. | Resolved |
incident_writeup_published | You first publish a write-up and select Email subscribers the write-up. | Write-up |
maintenance_scheduled | You schedule maintenance. | Scheduled maintenance |
maintenance_started | A maintenance starts. | Maintenance in progress |
maintenance_completed | A maintenance completes. | Maintenance completed |
The subject has the form [<page>] <event>: <title>. The email shows the status, the impact, the affected components and the update text. A button opens the incident or maintenance on the status page. The sender name is the name of the status page.
The email uses the logo, name and brand colour of the page. Email clients do not show SVG images, so an email from a page with an SVG logo shows the page name instead.
When you publish, Notify subscribers by email is selected. Clear it to change the page without an email. Edits, deletes and changes to the impact timeline never send an email.
Subscribers of private pages also get emails. To subscribe to a private page, the visitor must first open the page.
Email languages
Spectate sends emails in the language that the visitor saw when they subscribed. A confirmed subscription keeps its language. If Spectate does not know the language, it uses the page language. Supported languages are English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Italian. See languages.
Spectate translates its own text: the subject, labels, dates, buttons and footer. Your incident titles, updates and component names stay as you wrote them. Dates show in UTC.
Unsubscribe
Every email has an Unsubscribe link. The link opens a page on the status page domain with an Unsubscribe button. Email clients that support one-click unsubscribe (the List-Unsubscribe header) can also remove the subscription without the page. Unsubscribing deletes the subscription.
Manage subscribers
The Subscribers tab of the status page lists all subscribers.
- The top of the tab shows the number of Confirmed and Pending subscribers, and New in the last 30 days.
- Filter by address, or by state: All, Confirmed or Pending.
- The table shows each Subscriber, its Channel, Language, State and when it Subscribed.
- Select Remove to delete a subscriber. Spectate does not email the subscriber.
Owners, managers and admins can remove subscribers. Members can see the list. You cannot add subscribers by hand: each person subscribes and confirms on the public page.
Plan limits
The limit is the number of confirmed subscribers of all status pages of the team together. Pending subscriptions do not count.
| Plan | Confirmed subscribers |
|---|---|
| Starter | 250 |
| Team | 2,500 |
| Business | 25,000 |
During the 14-day trial, the Team limit applies. When the team reaches its limit, the Subscribe button disappears and pending subscribers cannot confirm. Existing subscribers continue to get emails. See the pricing page.