On-Call Setup

Overview

On-call schedules ensure there is always someone responsible for responding to alerts. Signalog supports multiple rotation modes, escalation policies with auto-unacknowledge, shift swaps and override requests, voice/SMS paging, and on-call performance metrics so you can verify the rotation actually works.

Creating a schedule

1. Navigate to On-Call > Schedules and click New Schedule.
2. Enter a name (e.g., “Primary On-Call” or “Weekend Coverage”).
3. Set the timezone: all rotation times are displayed in this timezone.
4. Choose a rotation mode:

Rotation modes

• Manual: you manually assign who is on-call for each period. Best for small teams or irregular schedules.
• Auto-rotate: team members rotate automatically on a fixed cadence (daily, weekly, or custom number of days). Signalog cycles through the roster in order.
• Pool: alerts are sent to all members in the pool simultaneously. The first person to acknowledge takes ownership. Useful when you want fastest response time rather than strict rotation.

Layered schedules

You can stack schedules. Primary on-call rolls up to secondary if no one acks. Configure layering through escalation policies (see below) rather than the schedule itself.

Adding team members

1. In the schedule view, click Add Member.
2. Select a team member from the dropdown. They must already be part of your team.
3. Drag to reorder the rotation sequence (for auto-rotate mode).
4. Optionally exclude specific dates per user. Useful for vacations and travel.

Each member needs at least one notification channel configured in their profile. Email, Slack, or phone number for SMS/voice.

Escalation policies with auto-unack

Escalation policies define what happens when an alert goes unacknowledged. See the Escalation Chains concept guide for the underlying model.

To create a policy:

1. Go to On-Call > Escalation Policies and click Create policy.
2. Add escalation steps. Each step has a delay (in minutes) and a target: either a specific user or the current on-call person from a schedule.
3. Auto-unacknowledge after: set a timeout (5m, 15m, 30m, 1h, 4h, or never). If an ack hasn’t been confirmed by another action (incident progress, etc.) within this window, the ack expires and escalation continues.
4. Assign the policy to monitors or alert channels in their settings.

Example policy with auto-unack:

The auto-unack timer is critical for catching “silenced” pages. If someone acks but then gets pulled into another fire and forgets, the timer re-engages escalation rather than letting the incident sit.

Shift swaps

For one-off date swaps with a specific person, use a swap:

1. The member requesting a swap opens On-Call → My Schedule and clicks Request Swap on the shift they want to give up.
2. They select who should take over.
3. The other member receives a notification and can accept or decline.
4. Once accepted, the schedule updates automatically.

Admins can also override shifts directly from the schedule view.

For broadcasting a coverage request to anyone in the pool (not a specific person), see Override requests. You submit one request, eligible teammates get email/SMS with one-click accept/decline links.

Voice + SMS paging

Page on-call by phone call or SMS for high-severity incidents that need immediate attention. SMS is available on Pro+; voice (real phone call with TwiML IVR) is Business-only. See Voice & SMS paging for the full setup, including Twilio configuration and per-user opt-in.

A typical channel-ramp policy uses Slack first, SMS at step 2, voice at step 3:

On-call performance metrics

Once your rotation is running, the On-Call → Performance tab shows whether it’s actually working:

• Time-to-acknowledge p50, p90, p95 across the team
• Unacknowledged rate. % of pages that auto-unacked or escalated
• Per-user ack leaderboard: who picked up the most pages last month
• Severity breakdown: fast acks on P1s vs slow acks on P3s
• Weekly trend: getting faster or slower over time

If your p95 is climbing or your unacked rate is creeping up, that’s a leading indicator that your rotation is too thin or your alerts are too noisy.

The metrics endpoint accepts a period parameter: 7d (last week), 30d (last month), 90d (last quarter).

iCal export

Each team member can export their on-call schedule to Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar:

1. Go to On-Call > My Schedule.
2. Click Export iCal to copy the iCal feed URL.
3. Add it as a subscription calendar in your calendar app.

The feed updates automatically when shifts change, so your calendar always reflects the current schedule. Per-team and per-schedule iCal feeds are also available.

Plan availability

Next steps

• Escalation chains in depth
• Override requests workflow. Cover-me-Friday
• Voice & SMS paging. Loud paging for emergencies
• Configure alert channels for each notification type