> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.clearfeed.ai/clearfeed-help-center/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.clearfeed.ai/clearfeed-help-center/advanced-recipes/providing-timely-updates-during-incidents.md).

# Providing Timely Updates During Incidents

When a critical incident lands, two things happen at once: the on-call team dives into fixing it, and stakeholders — other teams, leadership, and the customer — start expecting regular updates. The firefighting gets all the attention, updates get forgotten, and customers perceive silence reads as "nothing is happening."

This guide shows how to keep updates flowing by posting a **periodic reminder as a private comment on the ticket/request** whenever a critical incident goes quiet. It uses **Recurring Automations** and **Reset Delay**, so the reminder repeats on a cadence, leaves the team alone while they're actively working, and stops on its own when the incident is resolved.

{% hint style="info" %}
**Related:** If you want to *page* on-call engineers when an incident starts, see [Paging Critical Incidents to PagerDuty](/clearfeed-help-center/advanced-recipes/paging-critical-incidents-to-pagerduty-using-clearfeed-automations.md). This guide picks up once the incident is live — keeping the team honest about updates until it's resolved.
{% endhint %}

## How it works

Every couple of hours while a critical ticket is open, the automation posts a private comment reminding the assignee to share an update — but **only if the ticket has gone quiet**. If responders are actively posting (investigating, sharing progress), the timer resets and the reminder holds off.

Create a new automation under **More → Automate → Create Automation**:

<table><thead><tr><th width="200">Component</th><th>Setting</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>When (Trigger)</strong></td><td>Ticket Updated</td></tr><tr><td><strong>If (Condition)</strong></td><td>Priority is one of <code>[Critical, Urgent]</code> <strong>and</strong> Status is <code>Open</code></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Delay</strong></td><td><ul><li><strong>Wait for:</strong> 2 hours</li><li><strong>Reset delay on:</strong> Message from a responder</li><li><strong>Cancel on:</strong> Priority &#x26; Status field changes</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Then (Action)</strong></td><td>Send Message → private comment</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Re-enqueue on completion</strong></td><td>✅ Enabled</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Step-by-step setup

**1. Trigger.** Set the trigger to **Ticket Updated**. This captures the moment an incident gets escalated to a critical priority.

**2. Condition.** Add a condition so the reminder only applies to live incidents: **Priority is one of `[Critical, Urgent]`** and **Status is `Open`**. Use whatever values match your configuration — the important part is that the condition becomes *false once the incident is resolved*, which is how the loop ends.

**3. Delay.** Set the delay to your update cadence (e.g., **2 hours**). This is how long the ticket can stay quiet before a reminder fires.

**4. Reset delay.** In the delay step, enable **reset on new activity** and choose **Message from a responder**. Now every time someone on your team posts, the 2-hour timer restarts. The reminder only fires when responders have gone silent for the full period — so you never interrupt active work. Learn more about [Reset Delay on New Activity](/clearfeed-help-center/clearfeed-helpdesk/automations/automation-configuration.md#reset-delay-on-new-activity).

**5. Cancel on Status/Priority change.** In the delay step, enable **Cancel on Priority & Status field changes**. If the ticket priority is reduced, or its solved - the automation is automatically cancelled (and stops nagging!). If the ticket priority is raised again - a new automation will be created.

{% hint style="warning" %}
**Overlap protection:** You can only use message-based reset events when your trigger is **not** "Message Added." Because we used "Ticket Updated," message resets are allowed. If you switch the trigger to "Ticket Message Added," ClearFeed will reject message-based resets to avoid infinite loops. See [Reset Delay on New Activity](/clearfeed-help-center/clearfeed-helpdesk/automations/automation-configuration.md#reset-delay-on-new-activity).
{% endhint %}

**6. Action — Send Message as a private comment.** Add a **Send Message** action and configure it to post a **private comment** on the ticket (an internal note visible to your team, not the customer):

```
🔴 Critical incident with no update in 2 hours. Please share a status update.
{{request.web_url}}
```

The reminder stays internal. The assignee then writes the actual update.

**7. Make it recurring.** Enable **Re-enqueue automation on completion**. After each reminder, the automation re-checks the condition and waits another cycle. As long as the incident stays critical and open, the reminder repeats on cadence. Learn more about [Recurring Automations](/clearfeed-help-center/clearfeed-helpdesk/automations/automation-configuration.md#recurring-automations).

**8. Additional Automation.** You may need to add an identical automation on **Ticket Creation** as well if your incidents arrive critical from the first message.

## When the loop stops

The recurring cycle ends automatically when:

* **Priority is lowered** or **Status leaves `Open`** (the condition no longer matches) — the normal, happy-path ending.
* The ticket is **disabled or deleted**.
* An [Invariant field](/clearfeed-help-center/clearfeed-helpdesk/automations/automation-configuration.md#invariance-settings) change cancels it.

No manual cleanup needed — resolve the incident and the reminders stop.

## Best practices

* **Tune the cadence to severity.** 1–2 hours for critical, longer for lower severities. Match the delay to your stakeholders' tolerance for silence.
* **Reset on responder activity if the goal is "the team should speak up."** Reset on non-responder (customer) messages only if you want any chatter to pause the reminder. You can enable both so *any* activity delays it.
* **Narrow the condition if you see redundant reminders.** "Ticket Updated" can fire several times as an incident evolves; pinning the condition to a specific Status or a Custom Field (purpose built for tracking incidents) keeps the behavior focused where it matters.
* **Test on a non-critical channel first** before enabling on production incident channels.
* **Pair with SLAs.** Set a [First Response target](/clearfeed-help-center/clearfeed-helpdesk/sla-management.md) so both the first reply *and* ongoing updates are covered.


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