How to prevent Opsgenie Android app from leaving DND on

[#1]

If you're using the Opsgenie app on Android you may have noticed that Opsgenie appears to turn on and leave on your DND setting, which can cause you to miss calls and text messages. This is due to a limitation in Andriod (explained at the end of the article); however, the workaround is simple.

First, it is important to know that there is a method of allowing apps to override DND that is native to Andriod, which, when utilized with Opsgenie or any other app, will not cause the issue of DND being left on.

When you initially install Opsgenie on your phone, the app will ask permission to access your DND settings. This is NOT the Android setting that allows apps to override DND; rather it is a separate Android setting that allows Opsgenie full access to control your DND - that is, it gives Opsgenie the authority to turn DND off or on. This is the feature you will want to disallow. 

This can be done by navigating to your phone's settings and finding the 'special app access' menu. There will be a submenu for 'Do Not Disturb Access' - find Opsgenie within this list and toggle off its access. If you can't find this menu, you can also uninstall the app and reinstall it again; This time when the pop-up menu asks you to allow Opsgnie to access your DND settings, don't change any settings. 

You can still let Opsgenie override DND by going to Settings >> Notifications >> Do Not Disturb >> Apps and adding Opsgenie as an allowed app to this list. This will allow Opsgenie to send notifications when the phone is in DND, but the important difference with this feature is that app will not be allowed to turn DND off or on, which is what the 'special app access' allows. 

Why this issue occurs 

This issue arises due to the fact that Android disallows apps from accessing DND schedules due to their privacy policies. This means that if you use scheduled DND for sleeping hours, the 'Flip to Shhh' feature, or any other feature that consists of a DND schedule where DND is automatically turned off at the end of a given period, Opsgenie cannot access that schedule.

With full access to your phone's DND through the 'special app access,' Opsgenie turns DND off to push its notifications through, then turns it back on; however, if it was on a schedule (such as "Flip to Shhh") before the notification came through, Opsgenie has no way to access that schedule so it simply turns DND back on without a schedule to follow, which means it stays on until you manually shut it off, which can result in missed calls, text, and notifications. 

This is why it is preferred to not allow Opsgenie access to control your DND setting, but rather to set Opsgenie as an app that can override DND in your phone's list of apps that can override DND. It will have the same exact effect, but without the issue of Opsgenie potentially leaving DND turned on. 

[Alastair Maw]

When you first of all install the app, none of this is explained. Instead it gives a prompt that positively encourages the user to click "enable", resulting in broken functionality, and cross end-users who complain that Opsgenie is putting their phone on silent, that they are missing calls from their wife, and that your product is therefore garbage.

Would it not be better to:

• Avoid language that encourages users to turn this on at first launch, explaining that it is a workaround for older Android versions only, and that you are much better off managing this using your phone's native settings

or better

• Remove it from first launch, keeping it as an option you can turn on from the settings if you need it

or better yet

• Remove the option/functionality entirely, at least on newer Android versions that have native functionality to manage all this, as it only breaks things and is unnecessary

It's clear from your forums that many people struggle with this. This is 100% Atlassian's fault due to the design and presentation of this feature, not the end-users' fault for not understanding OS limitations or how this works. Given the distribution of Android versions amongst end users, 95% of people would be better off without this feature present in the code at all.

[Jon Charter]

The problem with this workaround is that any alerts will respect your phone's sound settings. If you leave your phone on vibrate only then alerts will not make a sound.

[Christian Jensen]

It should be noted that the PagerDuty app does not have this problem. 

If this is not fixed we will likely be going back.

[Alastair Maw]

Jon Charter wrote:

The problem with this workaround is that any alerts will respect your phone's sound settings. If you leave your phone on vibrate only then alerts will not make a sound.

That's simply how DnD works on modern Android versions; the end user gets to decide how app notifications behave, which they can override per app and even per notification per app. This includes which ones can punch through the normal DnD setting. Opsgenie isn't special in this regard, and nor does it need to be.

It is unfortunate that this is somewhat complex to explain to end users - you effectively need to teach them how to use their phone's native notification functionality to the full. On my vanilla Android 14 device, this is buried quite deep:

Settings
  > Notifications
    > App Notifications
      - Switch to "Work" profile (optional - will be in normal profile for most users)
      - Switch to "All apps" if you haven't had any Opsgenie notifications recently
      > Opsgenie (click on the name, not the toggle switch)
        > org-name - New Alert
          > Immediately (click on the name, not the toggle switch)
            - Scroll to bottom of screen
            - Enable "Override Do Not Disturb"
        > org-name - Assigned Alert
          > Immediately (click on the name, not the toggle switch)
            - Scroll to bottom of screen
            - Enable "Override Do Not Disturb"
        > Default
          > Immediately (click on the name, not the toggle switch)
            - Scroll to bottom of screen
            - Enable "Override Do Not Disturb"

Note that this isn't special to Opsgenie - you can configure the same for G-Mail notifications for individual e-mail accounts in the GMail app, for example.

If you're on a customised settings app (e.g. Samsung, Xiaomi, etc. phones) then notification settings may be buried somewhere else.

I hope this is useful to you and others.