Please enjoy this blog post co-authored by Henry Cossitt, Sr. Business Intelligence Developer, Goldberg Segalla LLP and Chris Stegh, CTO, eGroup Enabling Technologies, LLC.
In the ever-growing world of cloud-hosted solutions, outages have become a complex matter of “hurry up and wait.” It's important to communicate awareness of the outage to the organization, determine potential alternative routes of communication…and in many cases, wait until the service is either partially or fully recovered.
When experiencing an outage of this nature, there are a few key steps to follow.
Checking the Weather
Before an outage occurs, consider the following questions:
• Do we have multiple channels to make people aware of what is happening?
o Channels on an internal messaging app for outages
o Email distribution lists
• Has process documentation been created
o Process flow diagrams
o Playbooks for “What-If” scenarios
It’s not me, it’s you
The first step is to confirm the outage is outside of your existing technical infrastructure. External outage notifications from vendors and their support teams can often be delayed while the impact of the outage is assessed.
The first steps are often handled by the IT department:
o Actively communicate – having 20 different help desk associates troubleshooting the same email issue happens when there is a communication gap. A Help Desk, or general IT chat/channel helps ensure awareness of the outage can be raised in a timely manner.
o Review external sources – There are many sites available to help identify and determine email related issues
o Company Sites
DocuSign - https://health.docusign.com/
iManage - see customer portal
Microsoft Azure - https://azure.status.microsoft
Microsoft 365 - https://status.cloud.microsoft
NetDocuments - https://trust-us.netdocuments.com/
Proton - https://status.proton.me
Relativity - https://status.relativity.com
Westlaw - https://legal-status.thomsonreuters.com
Understand the breadth of the problem
- Is it just email, or other / related cloud services?
- If it’s an underlying SSO or authentication issue, all services may appear affected at different times.
- A flowchart may be helpful for troubleshooting incidents and dissecting the layers.
If Available, Check Health Probes
- SaaS platforms (such as Exchange Online) are constantly checking their resource health
- This limits an IT department’s ability to check past their own walls
- If still running a hybrid environment (on-prem/SaaS) ask the question “are some users still able to access while others are not?”
- Consider setting up an external probe that can test endpoints outside of your network as stronger evidence pointing to the outage being a larger vendor issue
Houston, We Have a Problem
Once it’s confirmed the issue is external, it’s important to quickly notify the rest of the organization through other available channels. Some of these include:
- Chat and instant messaging services
- Organizational chats or “channels”
- Critical event notification systems (e.g. Everbridge, AlertMedia, Hyper-Reach, etc.)
- Text messaging services
- Intranet pages/internal communication sites
- Internal ticketing systems (ServiceNow, Freshworks)
- Help Desk automated messages (hold message, initial greeting)
A quick response enables end users to find alternative methods of communication to limit disruptions and missed deadlines. It’s important to communicate with others which systems may be impacted. Clear communication will help drive which avenues end users choose to maintain continuity of their workflows.
Weathering the Storm
The most important piece throughout an email outage is communication (sensing a trend here!). There are many layers that must work both in synchronization and in succession to:
- Gather information on estimated resolution times
- Remind end users of available organizational alternatives for communication and collaboration
- Continuous follow-up on status with consideration of:
o Offices and their locations
o Organization size
o Changes in resolution timelines
o Regions affected
While an email outage can be a big pain for everyone across an organization, a well thought out troubleshooting and communication plan is the prescription that helps make the headache easier to get through.
Getting Answers about the Root Cause
If a cloud service provider is indeed at fault for the outage, they may (eventually, somewhere) publish a root cause analysis. For instance, in the 8/31/26 outage of Microsoft 365 services, Microsoft published a statement on 9/8/26.
In their statement, Microsoft attested to the fact that a certificate management issue caused authentication services to fail. On the surface, (initial) appearances were that it was an email outage, when in fact, several Office apps (like Teams) intermittently had issues. These root cause analyses aren’t always public. In this case, M365 admins may have received a notice through the Admin Portal under issue # EX1464935
For non-admins, that RCA is viewable at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/christianstegh_rootcauseanalysis-microsoft365-entraid-activity-7503217312066449409-aAQO?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAAD-QQBZT1CYit5aM5D-VkH_axprK8KN_k .
If your organization uses Microsoft Unified Support or a Cloud Solutions Provider, and you had opened a ticket, they could follow through with a summary as well.
How did the issue impact you, and how do you recommend managing expectations during such outages? Leave your comments below.
Further Resources
#EmailManagement
#Just-in-Time
#CloudCommunications
#CommunicationsTechnologies
#200Level