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Escalations and Schedules

On-call Schedules and Rotations

Configuring an efficient schedule consists of 3 key parts:

  1. Assigning participants for the schedule
  2. Ascertaining the rotation period for shifts(Layers)
  3. Afixing starting and ending date and time for the layer, or creating a never-ending schedule.

View all Schedules of a team

To view Schedules of a team, click on the relevant team and then navigate to the Schedules tab.

Creating a new Schedule for a Team

To create a new schedule, simply click the Create Schedule button.

Give it a name and brief summary, and select the time zone in which your schedule applies.

Create a schedule

When creating a schedule, you can choose to "move start time during Daylight Saving transitions" by ticking the corresponding checkbox. If enabled, the rotational layer start time will automatically adjust according to the local Daylight Saving Time (DST) offset, typically by 1 hour.

For example, if this setting is on and your shift starts at 9:00 AM during the Standard Time (non-DST) period, it will shift to 10:00 AM when DST begins. When DST ends, the start time will revert back accordingly. Conversely, if the rotational layer start time is set to 9:00 AM during DST, it will shift to 8:00 AM when DST ends.

If this setting is disabled, the shift start time will remain consistent at 9:00 AM, regardless of DST changes. We recommend keeping this setting OFF to maintain a consistent schedule.

Defining Layers

Layers are used to define and customize rotations. Rotations can be daily, weekly or customly set. Daily rotation means participants will rotate every 24 hours from specified starting date and time.
Rotations can be restricted to certain days and times of the week. Limiting the time frame of the rotations allows defining different on-call rotations at different time periods, such as working hours, off hours, and weekends. Rotations are cumulative. If the time frames for rotations overlap, all the rotations apply, hence there may be multiple participants assigned to be on-call at the same time.

To define a rotation layer, click on the Add Layer button. The fields in the subsequent form are explained here:

  • Name: Gives the layer a name
  • Shift Length: How long will each shift in the layer last - you can pick from hours, days or weeks
  • Start Time: Date and Time from which this layer will be in effect
  • No End Date: Checking this box would make the schedule never-ending
  • End Time: Date and Time at which this layer will stop being in effect
  • Users in order: Pick the users that will rotate in the team. The order of the shifts will be the order in which you pick the users
  • Restrict this layer to specific times: If you want the rotation to only be applied for specific times of the day or the week. You can add multiple restrictions to one layer

Schedule Overview

The Layers you define will be depicted visually in the Schedule Overview section. You can view the schedules by day, week or month, and adjust which period you want to view it for.

Schedule override

For times when the on-call user is unavailable for their on-call duties for a specified duration of time, you can 'override' the schedule and add a user that is available to fill in for the user that's away.

Nobody is On-Call

  • It is possible to have a schedule with gaps where no one is on-call during certain times. If no one is on-call at a certain escalation level, the incident will immediately escalate to the next level of the escalation policy. If no one is on-call for the entire escalation policy, an incident will not be assigned.

  • If you try to create a new incident in the Web-UI on a service where no one is on-call, you will need to specify who it should be assigned to.

  • When services automatically try to create incidents, they will be created, but remain unassigned.