Manage Stakeholder Communications

What is a CommsFlow?

CommsFlow is a Blameless feature that enables users to automate both internal and external communication. By automating stakeholder and customer updates, CommsFlow empowers incident investigation teams to focus on the triage process instead of being distracted by constant update requests. CommsFlow is highly configurable with the stages of an investigation, ensuring that the right people receive relevant information at the most opportune time.

Create an event-based flow

An event flow is simply a communication that is sent when a trigger event occurs (e.g., when an incident is created, when an incident changes in severity, when a task is assigned, and so on).

In the example below, we will create a communication that is sent to Slack members when an incident changes from an investigating state to an identified state.

1. Log in to the Blameless platform and, in the sidebar, select CommsFlow.
2. Click + ADD FLOW.
   1. In the Create a Flow dialog box, select Add CommsFlow.
3. In the Trigger Type field, select Blameless Event.
   1. Note: Select an event to create a flow based on a change in an incident or retrospective. Select a reminder to create a recurring communication flow (see Create a Reminder CommsFlow to learn more).
4. In the Event Type field, select an event type. In the example below, we used Incident Status.
   1. Note: There are numerous event types to choose from, with each one based on a conditional action. 
      1. Creation of an incident or a follow up action
      2. Change in an incident status or severity, or a change in retrospective state
      3. Assignment of a task
      4. Attachment of a runbook
5. Define the changed state that triggers the flow.
   1. In this example, since our condition is when an incident status changes from investigating to identified, drag Investigating to the From field, and then drag Identified to the To field.
6. (Filter section - Optional) Your newly-identified communication flow can be applied to specific types, severities, states, and/or tags by defining the appropriate filter.
7. Click Next (see Configure CommsFlow Recipients & Message).

To learn more about CommsFlow, please see the following topics.