On-Call Schedules
Set up team rotations so the right person is always available to respond to incidents.
On-Call Schedules
On-call schedules require a Pro plan or above.
On-call schedules ensure that there is always a designated person ready to respond when an incident occurs. Instead of alerting everyone on the team, Seenty determines who is currently on-call and directs notifications to that person through their personal notification rules.
Creating a schedule
Name and configure basics
Navigate to Operations > On-Call and click New Schedule. Provide:
- Name -- A descriptive name like "Engineering Primary" or "Database Team Rotation"
- Timezone -- The timezone used for all handoff times and calendar display (e.g., America/Sao_Paulo, America/New_York, Europe/Paris)
Choose rotation type
Select how the on-call responsibility rotates between participants:
| Type | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Daily | The on-call person changes every day at the handoff time |
| Weekly | The on-call person changes every week at the handoff time |
| Custom | Define a custom rotation interval in days |
Daily rotations work well for small teams where everyone shares the load equally. Weekly rotations are better for larger teams where you want to minimize context switching.
Add participants
Add team members to the rotation in the order they should be on-call. Seenty cycles through the list sequentially:
- Alice (Week 1 or Day 1)
- Bob (Week 2 or Day 2)
- Carol (Week 3 or Day 3)
- Back to Alice
You can reorder participants by dragging them in the list. Only organization members can be added as participants.
Set handoff time
The handoff time is when the on-call responsibility passes from one person to the next. For example:
- Daily rotation, handoff at 9:00 AM -- Each person is on-call from 9:00 AM to 9:00 AM the next day
- Weekly rotation, handoff at Monday 9:00 AM -- Each person is on-call from Monday 9 AM to the following Monday 9 AM
Choose a handoff time that makes sense for your team. Many teams hand off at the start of the business day so the outgoing person can brief the incoming person.
Save the schedule
Click Create Schedule. The rotation begins immediately, starting with the first participant in the list.
Visual calendar
The schedule detail page shows a visual calendar with each day color-coded by who is on-call. This makes it easy to:
- See who is on-call today, this week, or any future date
- Identify gaps or conflicts
- Plan overrides around vacations or planned absences
Temporary overrides
Sometimes the scheduled on-call person is unavailable -- they are on vacation, in a meeting, or simply need a break. Overrides let you temporarily assign on-call to someone else without changing the underlying rotation.
To create an override:
- Open the schedule and click New Override
- Select the replacement person -- the team member who will take over
- Set the start and end time for the override
- Optionally add a reason (e.g., "Alice on vacation" or "Bob covering for training")
- Save the override
During the override period, the replacement person is treated as the on-call person. When the override ends, the rotation resumes normally.
Override priority: Overrides always take precedence over the regular rotation. If an override is active, Seenty notifies the override person regardless of what the rotation says.
Linking to escalation policies
On-call schedules are linked to escalation steps. When an escalation step references an on-call schedule, Seenty determines who is currently on-call at the moment the step fires and notifies that person.
For example:
- Step 0 of your escalation policy references the "Engineering Primary" on-call schedule
- When an incident is created, Seenty checks who is currently on-call in that schedule
- That person receives notifications through their personal notification rules
You can reference different schedules in different escalation steps. For example, Step 0 might use the primary engineering schedule, while Step 2 uses the engineering management schedule.
How on-call resolution works
When Seenty needs to determine who is on-call, it follows this order:
- Check for active overrides -- If an override covers the current time, the override person is on-call
- Check the rotation -- If no override is active, the scheduled rotation determines who is on-call
This logic runs at the moment the escalation step fires, not when the incident is created. So if the on-call person changes between Step 0 and Step 1 (because of a handoff or a new override), each step notifies the person who is on-call at that moment.
Schedule limits
| Plan | On-call schedules |
|---|---|
| Pro | Up to 3 |
| Ultra | Up to 10 |
| Enterprise | Unlimited |