On-Call Schedules

A schedule answers one question: right now, who should we call?

Plan availability: On-call scheduling is available on every plan. Free covers one schedule; every paid plan is unlimited. See Plans & Billing.

With a schedule, a flow notifies whoever is on call at that moment — and if they don't answer, it moves on to the next person.

Which do you need?

If you want…	Use	Where
The same order every time	Priority on each person	Who Gets Called First
People to take turns (weekly, daily…)	An On-Call Schedule	This page 👇
Different people at different hours	An On-Call Schedule	This page 👇

Schedules need the Professional plan. If you just want a fixed order, you don't need one — set each person's Priority instead, which works on every plan.

The two words to learn

This is the only thing you need to understand up front, and everything else follows from it.

Word	What it is
Schedule	The thing your flows point at. One per team, usually. "Database On-Call".
Rotation	A group of people inside a schedule who take turns. "Weekdays", "Weekends".

A schedule is made of one or more rotations.

The simplest schedule has one rotation: five people, one week each, around the clock. That's it — you never have to think about rotations again.

You add a second rotation when different hours need different people. For example:

Schedule: "Database On-Call"
  ├─ Rotation "Weekdays"  → Ann, Ben, Chris   (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)
  └─ Rotation "Nights"    → Dana, Eli         (all other hours)

That's the whole model. Two levels, and the second one is optional.

Create your first schedule

Make sure the Team Group you want to use already exists and has members. A schedule draws its people from one or more groups.
Open On-Call Schedules and click New Schedule.
Fill in:
- Name — what you'll see in the flow builder. e.g. "Database On-Call".
- Team Group — which group's members are eligible.
- Timezone — the team's timezone, not yours. Handoff times are read in this zone.
- Handoff time — when one person's turn ends and the next begins. e.g. 09:00.
- Turn length — how long each person holds the pager. 1 week is typical.
- Start date — the day the cycle anchors to. A past date is fine; the maths wraps correctly.
Click Create Schedule.

You'll get a schedule with one rotation containing everyone in the group, taking turns in order. For most teams that's finished — skip to Point a flow at it below.

Point a flow at it

In the flow builder's Recipients step, the picker has three buckets. Any of them works — a schedule is just the most automatic:

Bucket	Who gets called	Needs Professional?
🗓️ On-Call Schedules	Whoever is on call at that moment	Yes
👥 Team Groups	The group's members, one at a time, by Priority	No
👤 Individual Users	The people you name, one at a time, by Priority	No

Pick your schedule from the first bucket. That's the whole wiring step.

Naming individuals directly is fine — you don't need a group at all. Add them one by one and they escalate by the same Priority value on the Users page, first to last.

One rule when mixing: a flow uses either individuals or groups/schedules — not both. If you've already added a person, the builder asks you to remove them before adding a group or schedule, and vice versa. Combining two groups, or a group and a schedule, is fine.

When an alert fires, we work out who is on call at that exact moment and call them. If they don't acknowledge, we move to the next person after the flow's escalation interval (5 minutes by default), or follow your escalation policy if you've attached one.

Reading the schedule

The schedule page gives you three views, and they all show the same thing:

On call now — the fastest answer. Who to call, and until when.
Timeline — horizontal bars, one colour per person. Best for "who's on this week?"
Calendar — a monthly grid. Best for spotting clashes with planned holidays.

Use the Next 2 / 4 / 8 / 12 weeks dropdown to look further ahead.

If you ever see a hatched amber block or "No one on call", that's a gap — a stretch of time nobody is scheduled for. See Coverage gaps.

Click Rotations on the schedule to open the editor. From there you can:

Reorder people — drag a row, or type a number into the position box. Position 1 goes first.
Add or remove people — anyone in the schedule's team group(s) is available.
Set specific hours — give a rotation its own days and times, e.g. weekends only.
Add another rotation — for when different hours need different people.

Every change shows a live Resulting schedule preview underneath before you save, so you can check it does what you meant. Nothing takes effect until you click Save rotations.

Full detail: Rotations & coverage hours.

Cover for holidays and sick days — overrides

Real life happens. An override says "for this window, this person covers instead" without touching the rotation at all.

Click Schedule Override and pick:

Who's covering — anyone in your account, not just people in the schedule's group
The from / to date and time
An optional reason, which lands in the audit log

The override wins for exactly the window you set, then the normal order resumes by itself. You don't need to undo anything. Overrides appear with a dashed outline in the timeline.

To cancel one early, find it in the Overrides list and click Remove.

Common questions

Can two people be on call at the same time? Yes. Put them in overlapping rotations and set the schedule to Everyone on call together. See Rotations & coverage hours.

Someone left the team group. What happens? They stop being eligible and drop off the schedule. If that leaves a rotation short, the schedule page shows a warning — it won't quietly shrink on you.

Do I need a schedule if I just want a fixed order every time? No. Point the flow at the Team Group and set each person's Priority — see Who Gets Called First. Schedules are for taking turns or hour-dependent cover.

Can I notify a whole team at once, everyone's phone ringing together? Not with a plain Team Group — that always works through people one at a time, whatever order numbers you set. Equal numbers change the order, not the timing. To page several people simultaneously you need either an escalation policy with more than one target on a single level, or a schedule set to Everyone on call together — both Professional and up. A Teams or Slack channel post also reaches everyone at once.

What if nobody is scheduled when an alert fires? The alert is never dropped. We call everyone eligible for that schedule instead, and mark why. See Coverage gaps.