Notify / Alert next on rotation when there are gaps in schedule

[Rosa M Fossi]

Hello Everyone,

I can't seem to quite wrap my head around how to handle alerts when there is no one on schedule....  Scenario: I've created a schedule with gaps. No coverage between 11pm and 6am.  But I would like the alerts that come in overnight to then "ring" for the next person that goes on call.  Would I be able to achieve this via an alert policy using this type of "gapped" schedule?

In reading the docs and brainstorming, it seems the only solution might be to create a 24 hour schedule instead and suppress/delay the notifications with a policy between 11pm until 5am the next morning.  Is this the right approach, or am I missing something on how alerts behave when there is no one on the sched?  

Thanks in advance for any insight :) 

[Nick H]

Hi @Rosa M Fossi ,

It seems like you'd want to configure a workflow that manages after hours alerts, and this would entail adding another rotation that also manages on-call after hours.

This might be a duplicate of the present on-call rotation with different hours / same users - but in a different order offset by one user. As well, a combination of a routing rule + escalation that manages alerts after hours and corresponds with the after hours rotation of the schedule - since they would be on-call.

You can easily duplicate a rotation like so, and rearrange the order of the participants that account for the after hours on-call or "next user" on-call in the business hours rotation:

Final schedule:

Final workflow:

You'll notice that cloned after hours rotation has the on-call user matching along with the same next on-call user of the biz hours rotation. And a routing rule / escalation to manage the after hours afters - sending alerts to the same schedule, but during those hours - a different user based on the rotation.

It's important to note that if you send an alert to an on-call schedule with no user on-call, there technically isn't a next user on-call as well. So this additional rotation would help with managing that! 

Hope that all makes sense. But of course let us know if you have any other questions.

[Rosa M Fossi]

@Nick H Thanks so much for the detailed post!  I've reviewed your steps, and I think I understand about making the additional rotation ✅... but I'm not certain we're talking about the same thing. 😓  I don't want anyone to receive a notification at 2:00am.  

Scenario: 

• Ticket comes in at 2:00am Aug 11th.
• Comm RR rules are checked, ELSE is triggered. The alert gets routed to: Community After Hours Escalation.
• That Escalation points to the On-Call Schedule: Community Schedule Example. 

So based on this scenario, using the Community Schedule Example, U2 would receive a notification at 2:00am, correct?  

If so, what I would like instead is for that 2:00am alert to message U1 when his rotation starts at 8:00am.  

[Nick H]

Hi @Rosa M Fossi ,

Thanks for clarifying. If you are subscribed to a Standard or Enterprise plan, you should be able to configure a notification policy to delay / suppress after hours alerts and notifications. Might look something like this:

If your plan does not have this functionality (Free or Essentials), then there really isn't a way to delay / suppress notifications. You'd have to route alerts to No-one during after hours, and have your team review them manually in the morning:

[Rosa M Fossi]

@Nick H  thanks once again for the detailed response!  I do believe we're on Standard and I should have access to notification policy. 🎉 

So if I understand correctly: I just need to make a notification policy that covers the Off Hours schedule "gap" with a Delay / Suppress...  So when the delay ends, the alert then "fires" and triggers the normal Schedule since at that point, there is someone On-Call.