Rotations & templates
Rotations determine how on-call responsibility cycles between team members. A single schedule can have multiple rotation layers to provide primary and secondary coverage.
Creating a rotation
From a schedule detail page, click Add Rotation and configure:
- Participants -- select one or more users who will share on-call duty.
- Order -- drag to reorder participants. The first user in the list goes on call first.
- Time period -- choose the duration each participant is on call before the next person takes over.
Rotation cadence
| Cadence | Example |
|---|---|
| Daily | Each responder covers one calendar day |
| Weekly | Each responder covers Monday through Sunday |
| Custom | Define an arbitrary number of days (e.g., every 3 days) |
Custom cadences are useful for small teams where a weekly rotation would be too long for any single responder.
TIP
Use shorter rotation periods for high-alert-volume teams. Longer periods work when the on-call load is light and handoff overhead should be minimized.
Rotation templates
Templates let you save a rotation configuration and reuse it across schedules. To create a template:
- Configure a rotation on any schedule.
- Click Save as template.
- Name the template and optionally share it with other teams.
You can apply a template when creating a new rotation. Templates store the cadence, number of participants, and time period -- user assignments are selected at apply time.
INFO
Templates are scoped to your organization. Any schedule creator can use any shared template.
Handoff behavior
At the boundary between two rotation participants, the outgoing responder stops receiving new alerts. Alerts already assigned remain with the original responder unless manually reassigned.
You can configure a handoff overlap (e.g., 15 minutes) during which both the incoming and outgoing responder receive alerts. This prevents gaps when the new responder is not yet monitoring.
Multiple layers
Add multiple rotation layers to a single schedule to create a tiered on-call structure:
- Layer 1 (Primary) -- first point of contact for all alerts.
- Layer 2 (Secondary) -- receives alerts only after the primary does not acknowledge within the escalation timeout.
Each layer has its own participant list and cadence, so primary and secondary responders rotate independently.