On-Call Management FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about On-Call Management.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
On-Call Management Overview.
Setup
Do employees need to be enabled before they can be added to a rotation?
Yes. Each employee has an on-call duty flag that defaults to off. Until a manager enables it, the employee does not appear in the rotation builder’s staff list. Managers can enable employees directly from the rotation builder or the pool’s Manage Staff modal without leaving the page.
What role do I need to manage pools and rotations?
You need the manage on-call capability. Admins have it by default. Managers who hold the capability but are restricted to specific locations can only manage pools tied to those locations. Pools with no location (“All Locations”) are manageable by any on-call manager.
Who can activate an incident?
Activating a pool requires the activate on-call permission — typically granted to managers, admins, or monitoring systems. The activator must also have access to the pool’s location.
Permissions and access
Why can’t a manager see a specific pool?
Pools can be tied to a location. Non-admin users only see pools at locations they have view on-call access for, plus any pool set to “All Locations” (no location assigned). Ask the admin to grant the manager view access for that location.
Who can resolve an incident?
Resolving requires a separate resolve on-call capability. Acknowledging, responding, commenting, snoozing, and linking are available to anyone who was notified for the incident or who holds the manage on-call capability.
Day-to-day
How do rotations distribute shifts?
Rotations use round-robin scheduling. Each shift slot gets one primary responder (and one backup, when backups are designated), cycling through the roster in form order. The default shift duration is 24 hours. When you extend an existing rotation, the cycle continues where the original schedule left off rather than restarting at the first staff member.
What happens when someone acknowledges an incident?
The incident moves from Active to Acknowledged, and the escalation cascade stops for everyone — no further paging steps fire. The responder’s record is updated to show they have taken ownership. Only active incidents can be acknowledged; acknowledging a resolved or cancelled incident has no effect.
What does “Notify management on activation” do?
When this toggle is on for a pool, every activation sends a notification to all active owners, admins, and managers in the business. This is in addition to the paging that goes to on-call staff. The toggle defaults to on for new pools and can be overridden per pool.
Can I require resolution notes before closing an incident?
Yes. Turn on Require resolution notes in the On-Call settings (Admin > On-Call Settings or the app’s Settings tab). When enabled, the Resolve action blocks until the resolver enters notes — on both desktop and mobile.
What is a handoff note?
A handoff note is a free-text context message left on a pool by the outgoing on-call person — for example, “watch the 2 a.m. batch job.” Only one active note exists per pool at a time; posting a new one supersedes the previous one. On-call managers and anyone currently on call for that pool can post or clear a handoff note.
Escalation and paging
How does the escalation cascade work?
For High and Critical severity incidents, the primary responder is paged first. If they do not acknowledge within the configured wait time, the incident escalates step by step through additional channels — in-app, push, email, SMS, and voice. The moment anyone acknowledges, the entire cascade stops. Lower-severity incidents (Low, Medium) notify on-call staff directly without the cascade.
What happens if no one is on call when an incident fires?
The app falls back to staff from shifts that ended within the last 24 hours or start within the next 24 hours for that pool. This prevents a page from going completely silent when there is a gap between shift windows.
I turned off escalation for On-Call, but incidents still escalate — why?
The escalation configuration is layered: per-notification, then per-app, then business-wide. If you disabled escalation at the On-Call app level, the platform falls through to the business-wide default — which is enabled. To fully disable escalation for on-call incidents, ensure the business-wide escalation setting is also off, or configure the On-Call-specific policy to override it.
When something looks wrong
I’m on call but I’m not getting paged
Check three things: (1) your on-call duty flag is enabled — if it was turned off, you are removed from the eligible staff list; (2) you are assigned to a shift that covers the current time — the dashboard shows your current status and upcoming shifts; (3) your notification preferences for On-Call Alerts have SMS and push enabled, and your phone number is on file (SMS requires it). If the incident was snoozed, notifications are suppressed until the snooze expires.
My response shows as outside the SLA even though I responded quickly
Response time is measured from the moment you were notified to the moment you recorded your response. The pool must have a Response Time SLA configured (it is blank by default). If the SLA field is blank, no SLA measurement applies. If you are a manager who responded without having been paged, the clock starts from the incident’s activation time, not from the moment you opened it.
An incident disappeared from the Operations board
The Operations board shows only active pools by default. If a pool was deactivated while an incident was still open, the incident stays visible on the Incidents tab and My On-Call, but drops off the Operations board. This is by design — the Incidents tab includes incidents from all pools regardless of pool status.
Licensing and limits
Does On-Call require a licence?
Yes. On-Call Management requires a licence and is disabled by default. An administrator enables it from the Apps Marketplace. It is not turned on automatically for any tenant.
Are there limits I should know about?
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Severity levels | Low, Medium, High, Critical |
| Incident statuses | Active, Acknowledged, Resolved |
| Default shift duration | 24 hours |
| Minimum staff per pool | Defaults to 1 |
| Escalation severity gate | High and Critical (by default) |
| Fallback paging window | 24 hours before and after the current time |
| Coverage gap alert | Runs every 6 hours, looks 7 days ahead |
| Snooze default (when no duration given) | 15 minutes |
| Active incidents per page | 20 |
| Resolved incidents per page | 10 |
| Analytics window | Last 90 days |
| Incident link types | Related, Duplicate |
| Upcoming shifts on pool detail | Next 7 days |
More help
- On-Call Management Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers On-Call Management questions from these articles.