Public status page

What you will build

By the end of this tutorial you will have:

• A live public status page showing uptime for selected monitors
• A custom domain pointing to the page (Status Pro)
• Email subscriptions enabled so customers can follow incidents

Time: approximately 10 minutes
Prerequisites: at least one monitor configured and working

Step 1: Create the status page

1. In the sidebar, click Status Pages.
2. Click + New Status Page.
3. Fill in:

The default URL is generated automatically from the page name with a short unique suffix (for example /status-page/acme-cloud-status-7c0f). You do not pick the slug yourself.

4. Under Monitors, select the monitors you want to display. Start with your most customer-facing services.
5. Click Save.

Your page is now live at the default platform URL shown at the top of the status page configuration.

Step 2: Verify the page

Open the status page URL in a new browser tab (no login required). You should see:

• Your page title and the overall status banner
• Each selected monitor listed with its current status
• 90-day uptime bars per monitor
• A recent (24-hour) uptime percentage per monitor

Step 3: Add a custom domain (Status Pro)

1. In the status page settings, enter your custom domain in the Custom domain field, for example status.yourcompany.com.
2. In your DNS provider, add a CNAME record pointing your domain at ssl.howlops.com:

Type:    CNAME
Name:    status
Value:   ssl.howlops.com
TTL:     3600

3. Click Verify domain in HowlOps. DNS propagation may take a few minutes.
4. Once the CNAME resolves, HTTPS is provisioned automatically via Cloudflare for SaaS, with no manual certificate request and no waiting on support. The certificate typically issues within a few minutes.

Custom-domain SSL is provisioned for you automatically, so a custom domain works over HTTPS out of the box with nothing to configure on your side.

Step 4: Enable email subscriptions

Email subscriptions let visitors receive automatic notifications when an incident opens or resolves.

1. Open the status page configuration and find the page settings.
2. Turn on the Subscribe (email + RSS) toggle.
3. Save. A Subscribers section then lets you review confirmed and pending subscribers.

Visitors will now see a Subscribe to updates button on your status page. They enter their email, receive a double opt-in confirmation, and are subscribed.

Step 5: Communicate during an incident

When an incident is active on any of your monitored services, it appears automatically on the status page. To replace its generic label with a customer-visible message:

1. Open Status pages → Configure and scroll to the Incidents section (step 7).
2. Click Post public update on the incident, pick a phase, and write a message (e.g. "We are investigating elevated error rates in the EU West region.").
3. Submit. The update appears on the status page immediately.

Post follow-up updates as the incident progresses. Each update is timestamped and shown in chronological order.

Step 6: Customise the page (optional)

Under Status Pages → Configuration:

What's next

• Tutorials: Set up Slack alerts: get notified in Slack when incidents open
• Getting started: First status page: quick reference for status page basics
• Concepts: Incidents: understand the incident lifecycle