Planned maintenance by SMS: warning customers before downtime and when service is back

The short answer: warn people the day before and an hour before planned downtime, with the day, the start and end times, and what will be unavailable. When service is back, one last SMS closes the matter. The advance notices can all be scheduled in one go, on the SMS page in My MozOut or through the API.

What to say at each stage

When	The SMS
The day before	Planned maintenance on [DATE], from [TIME] to [TIME]. The service may be unavailable.
One hour before	Maintenance tonight from 11pm to 1am. The service may be unavailable.
When it is back	Maintenance is over and the service is running again. Thank you for your patience.
If the time changes	The maintenance on [DATE] has moved to [NEW DATE], from [TIME] to [TIME].

Scheduling, and unscheduling if needed

1	Put the affected customers in a group. If the downtime only touches some of them (one area, one service), the group is just those.

2	Schedule the two advance notices for that group, each with its own date and time.

3	Keep the "back to normal" notice for the end, sent by hand once you have checked everything works. Do not schedule it: maintenance can overrun.

4	If the maintenance moves, cancel the notices that have not gone out and schedule new ones. Through the API, that is cancelling a scheduled SMS.

Mind the time of the "back" notice. If the downtime ends in the small hours, an SMS at that moment wakes the customer up. Send it in the morning, or only to the people who were waiting for news.

Unplanned outages

When something breaks, tell people as soon as you know what is going on, in one honest sentence, without promising a time you do not know: We have had a fault in the service since [TIME]. We are working on it and will update you. The second SMS goes out when service is restored.

Customers cannot reply to the SMS. If you want them to tell you the problem persists, put a phone number or your status page address in the notice.

Want nobody caught off guard by downtime? See the SMS prices and prepare your notices.

See SMS prices

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