An escalation policy decides who is called, in what order, and how long OnCall waits before calling the next person. Each monitor uses one policy. When the monitor goes down, step 1 is paged at once; if nobody acknowledges, the next step follows after its wait time.
Settings#
| Field | Values |
|---|---|
| Name | Up to 80 characters, for example "Website on-call" |
| Steps | 1 to 10 |
| Step: wait | Minutes to wait before this step is paged: 0 to 1,440. Steps after the first wait at least 1 minute |
| Step: contacts | One or more contacts, all paged at the same time |
| Step: channels | Call, email, or both |
| Repeat | How many times to run the whole ladder again: 0 to 10 |
When the last step has been paged and nobody has acknowledged, OnCall waits 5 minutes (or step 1's wait, if longer) and starts again from step 1, up to the repeat count.
What happens on each step#
- Every contact in the step is called and/or emailed.
- A contact whose phone isn't verified is skipped for calls (email still goes out).
- If a call fails (for example the network rejects it or the wallet is empty), OnCall emails that contact instead, if they have an email address.
- The incident timeline records each step: "Step 1: paging Asha, Ravi", then each call's result.
On the call, the contact can press 1 to acknowledge, which stops escalation for everyone, or press 2 to escalate to the next step straight away. See Acknowledge and Resolve.
Example policies#
Two-person team
| Step | Wait | Contacts | Channels |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 min | Primary | Call + email |
| 2 | 5 min | Backup | Call + email |
Repeat: 2. If both miss the calls, the ladder runs twice more.
Agency with client sites
| Step | Wait | Contacts | Channels |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 min | Developer on duty | Call |
| 2 | 10 min | Developer on duty, project lead | Call + email |
| 3 | 15 min | Agency owner | Call |
Create one policy per client or team, and pick the right policy on each monitor.
Good practice#
- Put at least two people in every policy. The second step catches a phone left on silent.
- Keep the first wait short (5 to 10 minutes). Each extra minute is downtime.
- Add email to the first step so there is a written record with an acknowledge link.
- A monitor without a policy opens incidents but pages nobody. The timeline says "Escalation policy missing or empty".
- A policy that monitors still use can't be deleted. Move the monitors to another policy first.
What policies don't do#
There are no on-call schedules or rotations: a policy doesn't change who is first by day of the week or by shift. If your team rotates, edit step 1 when the duty changes, or keep one policy per person and switch the monitors' policy.
FAQ#
Can I page two people at the same time? Yes. Add both contacts to the same step.
How long until the next person is called? The next step's wait time, at least 1 minute. Pressing 2 on the call skips the wait.
Does the ladder stop when the site comes back up? Yes. A resolved incident stops all pending calls.
Can a step send SMS or Slack messages? No. Channels are phone call and email.