Anatomy of a schedule
Rotation types
- 24x7
- Weekly
One person covers the whole time — day, night and weekend — until the next handoff.It is the simplest format and the best starting point. It is also the only way to guarantee there is always someone on call, with no uncovered windows.
Create a schedule
1
Pick the team
Owners and admins create schedules under Schedules.
2
Set the time zone
Use the time zone where the team actually lives. That keeps handoffs consistent, including across daylight saving changes.
3
Choose the rotation and the handoff
For weekly, set the weekday and time of the handoff. Pick a time when the team is awake — a handoff while everyone is asleep is the classic cause of uncovered on-call.
4
Add participants in order
The order defines both the rotation sequence and the escalation order.
5
Set the rotation start
The point from which the schedule takes effect.
6
Activate the schedule
Only active schedules resolve an on-call user.
Good practices
One active schedule per team
One active schedule per team
Keep the model simple: one team, one active schedule. It makes it obvious who responds and easier to audit why someone was paged.
Never leave a schedule with a single participant
Never leave a schedule with a single participant
With a single participant there is nobody to escalate to when that person does not respond — escalation runs out at the first step and the warning goes to the organization owners.
Match the handoff time to the team's rhythm
Match the handoff time to the team's rhythm
Early morning usually works better than midnight: whoever takes over starts the shift awake and with context on what was left pending.