With All Quiet, setting up on-call schedules, escalations, and rotations is straightforward. Our user-friendly interface removes complexity, guiding you smoothly through creating a workflow that keeps your team alert and responsive while accounting for different time zones and personal overrides.

Here’s how teams on All Quiet are three use cases how our customers typically set up their on-call rotations:

Follow-the-sun rotations enable global teams, especially those distributed worldwide, to leverage time zone differences for around-the-clock coverage. This ensures on-call duties are always managed during the local daytime hours of team members, enhancing responsiveness and minimizing overnight work.

  • Setup: Depending on where your team is located, you set up two (or more) schedules for the same escalation tier within All Quiet. Team members are then assigned to these schedules, with the option to add rotations. Ideally, this setup ensures every team member only has shifts during their local daytime working hours.
  • Why: This method leverages timezone differences, minimizing response times to incidents during off-hours in any given region.
  • Benefit: Teams experience less burnout and maintain a higher level of alertness and productivity, as members respond to incidents during their daytime hours.
If you want to skip the definitions, you can check out a hands-on example at the end of this page that guides you step-by-step through the set-up.

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Accessing Escalation Policies

To access the escalation management page, simply click on the Escalations option.

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Escalation Tiers

Escalation tiers allow incidents to be escalated to the next level when they are not acknowledged by the members of the current tier or when manual escalation is triggered.

Check out our example below for a hands-on use case setting up various escalation tiers.

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Automatic escalation

To edit the automatic escalations between two tiers, navigate to the configuration section specifically pertaining to the desired tiers. Within this section, locate and click on the corresponding label.

After clicking on the label, an input box will appear, enabling you to modify the automatic escalation behavior. To disable automatic escalation, simply leave the input box empty.

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Repeat Escalations

If no one reacts to an incident, you might want to repeat the escalation tiers to re-alert the on-call members. At the bottom of the page, you will find an element that you can activate by checking the box to repeat escalations.

Checking the box opens an overlay.

  1. You can select how ofter you’d like to repeat the escalations. Of course, they are only repeated as long as no one reacts to the incident.
  2. You can select how long you want to wait after the last escalation tier before you repeat the escalations. We will use this grace period before we repeat the escalations and re-start alerting.

This is how an example how escalations could be repeated.

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Auto Fill-up From Higher Escalation Tiers

We understand that it’s critical to not have any gaps in your team’s weekly on-call shifts. Therefore, we added an auto fill-up feature that adds on-call team members from higher escalation tiers to lower escalation tiers if there is a gap in one of the lower tier’s rotations.

Here’s an example of how it works:

  1. For simplicity, we are looking at team with 2 on-call members in 2 tiers. Here, Tier 2 does not automatically come into play as there’s no automatic escalation activated.
  2. In Tier 1, David is usually on-call 24/7. However, due to a personal override, he’s not on-call for the day.
  3. Tier 2 is our “safety net”, with Sandra on-call 24/7. As there’s no auto-escalation to tier 2, she’s usually not informed about incidents automatically.
  4. This is where the auto fill-up feature comes into play. Sandra (Tier 2) fills up David’s (Tier 1) vacant spot for the time of his absence. As a temporary Tier 1 member, she is the first to be automatically informed about any incidents. As soon as David is back on-call, he’ll take her place in tier 1, again.
Note that this feature also works for escalations with more than 2 tiers. Just like in the example, we recommend creating an extra tier that is usually not escalated to in addition to your team’s on-call escalations. Make sure that there’s always someone on-call in this “safety net” tier, e.g. by adding multiple team members. This way, you can easily protect your on-call rotations against gaps created by vacations and unexpected sick days.

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Schedules

Within the management of escalations, All Quiet allows you to define schedules for each escalation tier. These schedules determine the on-call periods for team members. With schedule customization, you can specify the time of day, such as 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and designate specific weekdays, such as Monday through Friday, for the schedule to be active. This flexibility enables precise control over when team members are available and responsible for incident response within each escalation tier.

To edit the on-call periods of a schedule, simply click on the label located at the top left of the schedule. By clicking on the label, you can access the edit dialogue where you can modify the schedule’s settings. The label will display the current settings, which are set to “everyday” by default, indicating that no specific settings have been defined yet.

In the edit dialogue, you can specify the start time and end time for the schedule. Leaving the start or end fields empty will be interpreted as either “until” or “from” without a specific start or end time. Select an end time smaller than or equal to start time to create an overnight schedule that ends the next day. Additionally, you can select the respective weekdays when the members of the schedule should be on-call by checking the corresponding checkboxes. This flexibility allows you to precisely define the time periods and weekdays for the on-call schedule according to your specific requirements.

After clicking Save Schedule in the edit dialogue, the schedule’s settings will be saved, and you will immediately see the current schedule’s settings displayed in natural language format at the top left corner. This provides a clear and easily understandable representation of the saved schedule settings, ensuring visibility and quick reference to the configured on-call periods and weekdays.

Check out our example below for a hands-on use case setting up two schedules within an escalation tier.

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Rotations

Within All Quiet, managing rotations is accomplished through the use of rotation groups within each schedule. Rotation groups ensure fair distribution of on-call responsibilities among team members. For instance, you can create a schedule specifically for weekends, active only on Saturdays and Sundays, and set up four rotation groups based on this weekend schedule. Each rotation group would consist of team members who are on-call together. By adjusting the rotation settings to “weekly,” each group would take turns being on-call for a weekend every four weeks. This approach effectively balances on-call duties and protects team members’ weekends, allowing for equitable rotation scheduling within All Quiet.

To modify the rotation settings of a schedule, simply click on the right label associated with the schedule. By default, this label will display “no rotation.” Clicking on it will open the rotation settings dialogue, allowing you to configure and customize the rotation settings according to your requirements.

To edit the rotation settings, you have the flexibility to choose the rotation period, such as “daily,” “weekly,” “biweekly,”, “monthly” or “custom”. Additionally, you can specify the handoff point of the rotations. For monthly rotations, you can select the exact date and time, such as the 1st of a month at 00:00. In the case of other rotation options, you can choose the specific weekday instead of the date. For example, if you select “weekly” and “Wednesday, 00:00” each rotation will span one week from Wednesday until Tuesday midnight. Moreover, you may add an optional “Effective from” date that specifies from which date onwards this rotation should be used. If you want to start the rotation right away, you don’t need to use that field. Be careful when adding this option whilst adjusting an existing rotation. Depending on the type of rotation period you selected, this date needs to be in the past. Otherwise, you might deactivate the rotation until (or even past) the selected “Effective From” date. That’s why we recommend checking your team’s calendar after adjusting an existing rotation’s “Effective from” date to see if your settings match your expecatations.

Once you click Save Rotation, the rotation settings will be saved and displayed in the upper right label. It’s important to note that if you specify rotation settings other than the default (no rotation), it is necessary to have more than one rotation configured. Otherwise, the specified settings will not have any effect.

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Team Calendar

To view the calendar of a team and gain an overview of team members’ on-call and off-call periods within each escalation tier, follow this step:

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Access Team Calendar Page

Access the team calendar page: Navigate to the team management section or select the specific team from the menu. Look for the option labeled “Team Calendar”.

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View Team’s Calendar and Schedules

The All Quiet calendar provides a visual representation of the on-call schedules for your teams, ensuring that everyone knows their responsibilities at a glance. Below is a breakdown of the key elements of the calendar interface:

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Monthly Calendar

  1. On-Call Now Indicators: These indicators provide a quick view of which team members are currently on-call. The indicators are color-coded and numbered to correspond with the tier of on-call duty.
  2. Tiers Filter: Use the ‘Tiers’ dropdown to filter the calendar view by on-call tiers. This allows you to focus on specific response levels within your team’s on-call schedule.
  3. Individual Schedule Entries: These entries display the scheduled on-call shifts for each team member. The entries show the name of the on-call individual and the corresponding time period of their shift.
  4. Tier Labeling: Each schedule entry is labeled with a ‘T’ followed by a number to indicate the on-call tier. ‘T1’ corresponds to Tier 1, and ‘T2’ to Tier 2, providing a clear distinction of responsibility levels.
  5. Time Navigation: This section allows you to navigate through different time frames within the calendar—‘Week’ and ‘Month’ views are available. Use the arrows to move backward or forward through the calendar, or click ‘Today’ to return to the current date.

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Weekly Calendar

The weekly view in the All Quiet calendar provides a detailed look at the team’s on-call schedule, with each day of the week displayed as a separate column. This view contrasts with the monthly perspective by offering a granular, day-by-day breakdown of on-call shifts.

  • Daily Details: Unlike the monthly view which summarizes the shifts, the weekly view displays individual shifts for each day, showing precise start and end times.
  • Current Day Highlight: The current day is accentuated with a distinct color, making it stand out for easy identification.
  • Hourly Breakdown: Each column represents a single day broken down by hour, which is more detailed than the monthly calendar.

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Team Member Overrides

Team Administrators can enter the Team > Overrides section to add overrides for all team members. In order to do so, select the team you wan to add an overrride to.

  1. Select Overrides
  2. Click Add Member Override

You can select the duration of the override, the type, the user and, optionally, the covering user. Saved overrides will be visible in your team’s calendar.

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Personal Availability

This section in All Quiet’s documentation focuses on the crucial aspect of managing personal availability, ultimately contributing to a calm and efficient working environment, ensuring smooth coordination and coverage for on-call responsibilities.

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Your Availability

Within the main menu, you will find a link titled “Your Availability” which dynamically indicates your current on-call status by displaying a blinking red or green indicator. By clicking this link, you will be directed to the “Your Availability” page, where you can conveniently view all your upcoming on-call duties across various teams.

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Personal Overrides

To create an individual override, such as a “fill-in” for a colleague on vacation or for your own vacation, you can add online or offline schedules with specified start and end dates where you can chooose who will cover your shifts during this time period. Simply click the “Add Personal Schedule” button . A calendar will appear, allowing you to select the start date and end date. This intuitive process enables you to establish personalized overrides with fixed durations, ensuring accurate representation of your availability during specific periods.

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Vacation Schedule

The screenshot demonstrates an example of an individual vacation schedule (marked as “offline”) spanning three consecutive days. However, it is worth noting that during this period, the user should have been on call, as indicated by the green schedules in the other columns. Additionally, you can observe that the online status changes to “offline” during this scheduled time off. To modify or remove an existing schedule, simply click on the respective schedule and make the necessary adjustments. This straightforward process allows for easy editing or deletion of individual schedules, ensuring accurate representation of availability within the system.

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On-Call Reminder

Stay informed with our automatic on-call reminders. By default, you’ll get an email one day prior to your shift to help you prepare. Prefer not to be reminded? No problem. Just deselect the reminder in your account settings.

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Timezones

Managing time zones in All Quiet is straightforward, ensuring your team’s schedules and rotations are always synced. Here’s how it works:

  • Time Zone Setting: The team’s default time zone is initially set to the creator’s time zone but can be easily adjusted to fit your team’s geographical distribution.
  • Unified Scheduling: Regardless of individual locations, all schedules align with the team’s chosen time zone, making coordination seamless.
  • Flexibility: Update the team’s time zone at any time to reflect changes in team composition or operational needs, keeping everyone in sync effortlessly. This setup ensures seamless team operation across locations, streamlining time zone management and collaboration.

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Example: Setting up an on-call rotation

In this setup, we aim to ensure round-the-clock incident coverage with a focused approach:

  • A team of four splits into two engineer on-call weekly (24/7) and two engineering managers on daytime shifts.
  • Engineers rotate each week for continuous Tier 1 coverage.
  • Engineering managers cover Tier 2 in two 12-hour shifts: 0-12 and 12-24.
  • If Tier 1 and 2 miss an incident, the escalation is repeated after 5 minutes
  • Auto-escalation: 10 minutes from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and 15 minutes to Tier 3.
1

Edit Members of your default rotation

Under your team, go to Escalations and click on Edit Members

2

Create a new rotation for your schedule

If you’re planning to have an on-call rotation for your first schedule click on + Add Rotation and add members to new rotation.

3

Edit Rotation

Now you’ve defined more than one rotation but no rotation settings.

  1. Click on No Rotation.
  2. Define how often the rotation should repeat and on what day the rotation should start. In this simple example, we’ll go for a weekly rotation that starts on Monday, 00:00. As we want to start the rotation right now, we don’t add an “Effective from” date.
4

Create a New Tier

You’re done with Escalation Tier 1 and can set up subsequent Escalation Tiers to ensure no incident goes unnoticed.

  1. Under the subsequent Escalation Tier, click on + Add Escalation Tier 2
  2. Choose the members that you want to add.
  3. Make sure to set up auto-esclation between tier 1 and 2. Here, we auto-escalate after 15 minutes.
5

Customize Schedules

In this escalation tier we’ll want to define two schedules since our team members are located in different time zones which we can use so that they only receive incidents during daytime (i.e. follow-the-sun-rotation).

  1. Click on everyday to edit the schedule
  2. In this example Mads takes over everyday from 0:00 to 12:00 and Nick from 12:00 to 24:00
6

Repeat escalations if no one reacts

If no one reacts, we want to repear escalation tier 1 and 2 after 5 minutes.

7

Check your Calendar

We’re done now and can check our on-call rotation directly under Calendar. Also you’ll always see who is currently on-call in your relevant tiers.

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