Fin + Statuspage: answer outage questions with current incidents

When a customer says login is broken, support first needs to distinguish a known outage from an individual problem. With Fin in Intercom and Statuspage, the AI reply can use recorded incidents rather than a troubleshooting template that tells the customer to clear their browser.

On September 11, Intercom announced general availability of its data connector template catalog. The Statuspage connection already existed; the catalog lets you install your own copy of a template and review future template updates before applying them. Here we use Unresolved incidents for one job: answering outage questions with current incident information.

Source: Intercom: Connect Fin to your tools without building a connector from scratch.

Connect Fin to the right Statuspage

A data connector lets Fin retrieve information from another system during a conversation. The Unresolved incidents template fetches active incidents, their status, and the latest update from Statuspage, the service where you publish operational updates.

This suits a support team that already uses Fin and maintains its Statuspage. Name the person responsible for incident updates. Fin cannot give a current answer if nobody has recorded the disruption.

Human steps in Intercom:

1. Check that your workspace has access to Fin and data connectors. Anyone creating, editing, or activating a connector needs the Can access developer hub permission.
2. Install the Statuspage app from the Intercom App Store and enter your Statuspage ID. You need a Statuspage account. Adding the app to the Messenger home screen is optional for Fin use.
3. Open Settings > Integrations > Data connectors, select New > Start from a template, and choose the Statuspage Unresolved incidents template.
4. Check which page the connector reads and the conditions under which Fin can use it. Adapt the response behavior to the checklist below before expanding its audience.

Sources: Intercom: Statuspage app.

Intercom: Use Data connector templates.

Intercom: How to set up Data connectors.

Checklist: four replies support should be able to approve

Use this as your acceptance criteria for replies, not as a claim about the template's default behavior. Try the questions in Swedish if that is your customers' language.

• A relevant incident exists. The customer describes a problem that matches the incident. The reply should state what is affected, the current status, and the latest published update. Ask for a link to the public status page. Fin must not add a recovery time that the source does not provide.
• An incident exists but concerns something else. The customer cannot log in, while the recorded incident affects invoice exports. The reply should not automatically blame that incident for the login problem. It needs to follow your normal troubleshooting process or hand over to support.
• No active incidents are found. The reply should say that no active incident was found on the status page, not that the service is proven to be working. The customer's problem still needs attention.
• The connector cannot retrieve information. The reply should explain that it could not check service status and offer your normal support route. A failed lookup must not become an invented report of normal operation.

Save the question, reply, and incident update used for comparison. The same checklist can then be reused when you change the instructions or install an updated template.

Check real lookups before expanding the audience

The template preview uses example data. A convincing reply there does not prove that Fin reads your own status page correctly.

Intercom recommends the connector's built-in test tool, followed by a conversation test with audience rules restricting the connector to your own email address. Check that the reply matches the actual incident information before more customers use the workflow. Try the other cases in a separate test environment or review them as test scenarios; do not publish fake outages on your customer status page. Mark cases you have not run as untested.

Sources: Intercom: How to set up Data connectors.

Intercom: Data connectors quick start guide.

Have the support lead approve the replies and decide when to expand the audience. The next time the same outage question arrives, the team should be able to check which incident update supports the reply without someone finding and pasting it manually.