> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.ilert.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.ilert.com/~/changes/vPSzQFfkdJCVWGT5AL1m/incident-comms-and-status-pages/getting-started.md).

# Getting started

ilert's incident comms product is a suite of capabilities to effectively communicate incidents to stakeholders and external users.

## What is incident communication?

Incident communication is the process of informing users that a service is experiencing issues in a way that will likely impact the user experience.

## Why use ilert's incident comms features?

* Spend less time on manual incident communication and focus on resolving incidents.
* Build trust with your customers by keeping your users in the loop during an incident
* Reduce incoming support requests during incidents

## The basics

* [**Incidents**](/~/changes/vPSzQFfkdJCVWGT5AL1m/incident-comms-and-status-pages/incidents.md) are the main way to communicate with your users when you are experiencing user impacting issues with the services you provide to them.
* [**Services**](/~/changes/vPSzQFfkdJCVWGT5AL1m/incident-comms-and-status-pages/services.md) model business capabilities to which subscribers can subscribe to receive updates about incidents. Any user in ilert can subscribe to incidents, services and status pages.
* [**Status pages**](/~/changes/vPSzQFfkdJCVWGT5AL1m/incident-comms-and-status-pages/status-pages.md) are one way to help you inform users about outages and maintenances of one or more service.
* [**Metrics**](/~/changes/vPSzQFfkdJCVWGT5AL1m/incident-comms-and-status-pages/metrics.md): Use metrics in status pages to showcase how well your services are performing. You can submit your own metrics data or import metrics from your existing tools (e.g. Datadog).


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