Create an on-call group with a schedule

This example demonstrates how to create a group to represent an IT department that is responsible for maintaining a corporate network. This group works during regular office hours but must also be on call to deal with service disruptions during evenings, weekends, and holidays.

When an alert occurs, xMatters notifies group members until somebody accepts responsibility and then stops notifying other members. This limits unnecessary notifications about alerts that have already been assigned.

On evenings, weekends, and holidays, group members take turns being the primary on-call responder. This distributes the responsibility of responding to notifications more evenly among members. In this simple example we'll schedule all members to be on call for all shifts. In real-world situations you might want to create alternating on-call shifts and divide the members among them. This would enable some members to be on call while others are completely off duty.  For more information about creating advanced shift schedules, see Schedule shifts.

This on-call group will be configured so it can be modified by several managers and can be viewed and notified by any xMatters user that has permission to send messages.

First let's create a new on-call group, configure basic settings, and add members to it.

  1. Click the Groups tab, and then click Add Group.
  2. Type the name of the group in the Name field. In this example, type "Network Operations Center".
  3. Click + Add Description and type a description of the group. In this example, type "Maintains the corporate network".
  4. Select On-Call Group as the Group Type.
  5. On the Members tab, type a name to search for users to add to this group. When the user name is displayed, click it to add it to the list. In this example, begin typing "Mary M" and select Mary McBride.
  6. Repeat the above step to add more users to the group. In this example, add Yu Tang, Vivan Chowhurdy, and Alexi Filipov, and Diego Franco to the group.
  7. Click Add Group. The group's Overview tab is displayed.
  8. Deselect the Active check box to make this group inaccessible while you are creating it.
  9. To enable other users to modify this group, click Edit next to Supervisors, and select the names of users who will have permission to modify the group. In this example, set Vivan Chowhurdy to be a group supervisor.
  10. If you want to restrict the users that can view and notify this group, click Edit next to Observers and select the roles that will have permission to do so. For this example, leave the default setting, Observed by All.
  11. Select Use Failsafe Devices. This enables group members' failsafe devices to be contacted if a notification is sent at a time when none of their devices have an active time frame.
  12. Leave the Allow Duplicates flag checked. This enables group member to be added to the escalation timeline more than once. In this example we are not using duplicate members.

The members of this shift work Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM, but they are also on call on weekends, evenings, and holidays. We'll create a simple shift schedule that periodically rotates the primary on-call responder during these times.

Create the Weekdays shift

Convert the default shift so that is active during working hours, Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM.

  1. Click the Calendar tab and then click the Week view.
  2. Locate an instance of the default shift and click it to view the shift editor.
  3. Click the in the title area and rename the shift to Weekdays.
  4. Click Edit Occurrence to display the Shift Details screen. Set the shift to begin at 09:00 today and to end at 17:00 today. (By default, the end date is set to tomorrow, so ensure you adjust this date).
  5. Click Save. When prompted, select to apply changes to Entire Series. The shift is now active every day from 9 AM to 5 PM.
  6. To limit this shift to weekdays only, click an instance of the shift to view the shift editor, and then click Edit Series.  Set Frequency to Every Weekday.
  7. Click Save.
  8. To ensure that members of this shift aren't notified on holidays, click an instance of the shift to view the shift editor, and then click Edit next to On call on holidays from 12:00 AM to 12:00 AM. The holiday options are not displayed if your on-call group is not configured to use site holidays or if the site does not have holidays configured.
  9. Deselect On Call On Holidays and click Save.

The default shift has been renamed and is now active from 9 AM to 5 PM on weekdays.

Create the Evenings shift

Create a shift to cover weekday evenings.

  • Draw a shift on the calendar that begins on a weeknight at 5 PM and ends the next morning at 9 AM. When prompted, name this shift Evenings.
  • In the shift editor, click Edit Series.
  • In the Edit Series dialog, set Frequency to Weekly, and then deselect Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
  • Click Save.  

The Evening shift is active on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights from 5 PM until 9 AM the following morning.

Create the Weekend shift

Next, we'll create a single shift that spans the entire weekend from Friday nights at 5 PM to Monday mornings at 9 AM.

  • Click Add Shift.
  • Name the new shift Weekends, and click Add Shift.
  • Configure this shift so that it starts at 17:00 on this Friday and ends at 09:00 the following Monday, and click Save. 
  • Set the Frequency to Weekly and then set On These Days to only include Friday.
  • Click Save.

The Weekend shift now starts every Friday night at 5 PM and ends the following Monday morning at 9 AM.

Create holiday shifts

If your on-call group is configured to use site holidays, you can create separate holiday shifts to provide coverage on holiday days. The holiday options are not displayed if your group is not configured to use site holidays or if the site does not have holidays configured.

In this example, we'll create a shift that is active all day on holiday days.

  1. Click the Overview tab.
  2. In the Advanced Settings area, select a site to use for holidays. In this example we use Los Angeles.
  3. Set the Weekdays shift to not be active on holidays. (This shift was converted from the default shift so it may default to being on call on holidays.)
    1. Click an instance of the Weekday shift to view the shift editor.
    2. Click the Edit button next to On call on holidays from 12:00 AM to 12:00 AM.
    3. Deselect the On Call On Holidays check box and click Save.
  4. Verify that each of the remaining shifts are configured to not be active on holidays.

  1. Click Add Shift to add a new shift.
  2. In the Shift Type area, select Holiday Shift. (If you cannot see the Holiday shift option it is because your on-call group is not configured to use site holidays or the site has no holidays defined.)
  3. In the Name area, type Holidays.
  4. Set the Start time to 00:00, and set the duration to 24:00. Set the Start Time to 12:00 AM and the End Time to 12:00 PM.
  5. Click Add Shift. Click Save.
  6. Navigate in the calendar view to a day that is a site holiday and verify that the holiday shift has been created. In this example we see that July 1st (Canada Day) is a holiday.

Now that the shift schedule has been created, we'll assign group members to each shift. For this example we'll add all group members to all shifts. However, in real-world situations you may want to create multiple on-call shifts and assign different members to each one.

If your on-call group contains multiple shifts and a large number of members you may find it easier to create a new shift by copying an existing shift and adjusting its time frame. This enables you to quickly create multiple shifts with the same members.

To add members to shifts
  1. Click the Roster tab. You can see that team members have already been added to the Weekdays shift.
  2. Click the + button next to the Alexi Filipov and select the Evenings shift to assign him to the Evenings shift.
  3. Add Alexi Filipov to the remaining shifts (Evenings, Weekends, and Holidays).
  4. Add Diego Franco, Mary McBride, and Yu Tang to each shift.
  5. Add Vivan Chowhurdy (the group manager) to the Evenings, Holidays, and Weekends shift.

Next we will configure shifts so that xMatters notifies one group member at a time and gives a member some time to handle the notification before the next group member is notified. We'll periodically rotate the order that xMatters contacts group members so that the job of being the primary responder is distributed evenly among group members.

Configure rotations for the Weekdays shift

On weekdays, the on-call group receives many incoming notifications. Group members have five minutes to respond to a notification before it escalates to the next team member. xMatters rotates the primary responder after every notification to help ensure that the team can handle clusters of notifications without unnecessary delays.

  1. Click the Shifts tab, and then select the Weekdays shift.
  2. To add a delay of five minutes between the first group member and the next group member, move the pointer over the timeline and click the clock icon when it appears. Set the wait time to 5 minutes and set the reporting category to Peer.
  3. Add a five-minute wait between each remaining team member.
  4. Click No rotation to configure rotations. The Rotations dialog appears.
  5. To rotate group members after every notification, select Alert Based, select Second to First, and then click Save Changes.

Configure rotations for on-call shifts

On evenings, weekends, and holidays, the on-call group only receives the occasional notification. For these shifts we'll give the primary responder 30 minutes to respond to a notification before it escalates, and will rotate the primary on-call responder every week. This enables group members to set their expectations about how likely it is they will have to respond to a notification when they are on call.

The group manager, Vivan Chowhurdy, does not usually handle notifications. However, he wants to be notified if all other group members fail to respond to the notification.

  1. Click the Shifts tab and select the Evenings shift.
  2. Drag the group supervisor, Vivan Chowhurdy to the end of the escalation order.
  3. After the first team member, add a wait time of 30 minutes and set the reporting category to Peer.
  4. Add a wait between the second-to-last group member and the manager, Vivan Chowhurdy. Set the wait time to 15 minutes and set the reporting category to Management.
  5. To define the rotation order, click No Rotation.
  6. In the Rotation dialog, click Schedule-based, set the rotation interval to 2 weeks, and then click Save Changes.
  7. Verify that Vivan Chowurdy is at the end of the escalation timeline, and then deselect the In Rotation check box next to his name.
  8. Repeat these steps for the Weekends and Holidays shifts.

Now that the on-call group has been configured, you can make it active. This enables users who have been assigned one of the Group Observer roles to view this group and send notifications to it.

  1. Click the Overview tab.
  2. In the Advanced Options area, select Active.

Over time, individual team members may not be able to complete their regularly-scheduled shift because they are sick, go on vacation, or are otherwise temporarily unavailable.

When this situation occurs, use temporary replacements to assign another user to cover their shift. For more information about using temporary replacements, see Set a temporary replacement.