How to set up an on-call schedule

An on-call schedule decides who gets woken up. People take turns, and a push channel set to whoever is on call alerts only that person’s devices.

Create a schedule

1. Open On-call in the sidebar and choose Create a schedule (New schedule once you have one).
2. Enter a Name and add people under People, in turn with Add a person. They take turns in this order.
3. Under Shift changes, choose Every day, Every week or Every two weeks.
4. Set the First handoff date, the time under At, and the Time zone the handoff follows.
5. Choose Create schedule.

Send alerts to whoever is on call

1. Everyone in the rotation turns on push notifications on their phone under Account.
2. Open Alert channels, choose Add channel and pick Push.
3. Under Who gets them, choose Whoever is on call, pick the schedule and choose Add channel.

Cover a shift

Someone sick or on holiday? Choose Cover a shift, pick Who covers it, and set From and Until. An override can last up to 90 days, and the schedule lists it under Overrides.

Good to know

• Push channels are the ones that follow a schedule.
• Combine it with escalation: Slack right away for the team, and push to whoever is on call if nobody has acknowledged the incident after 10 minutes.

More on on-call schedules.