As users join and leave your on-call rotations, you will need to edit your schedules so that the right people are on-call and notified at the right times.

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Note

Any changes made to a schedule (including adding and removing users) won't affect the historical record of that schedule — changes will only apply to future dates and times. When adding or removing users, make sure to check the effective date so that schedules rotate on the right date and time.

If you want to revert a schedule to a previous version, please visit this section.

If you are creating a schedule for the first time, please visit our article on Schedule Basics.

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Required User Permissions

All users, with the exception of Limited and Full Stakeholders, can be added to schedules.

Users with the following roles can edit on-call schedules:

• Users
• Admins/Global Admins
• Manager base roles and team roles.
  • Users with a Manager Team roles can only manage schedules associated with their Team.
• Account Owner

Add Users to Existing Schedules

To add additional users to an existing on-call schedule:

1. Navigate to People On-Call Schedules click to the right of your desired schedule and select Edit.
2. In the Select a User dropdown, find and select a user.

3. Repeat the previous step until your required users are represented in the rotation. Users will move through the rotation in top-to-bottom order. You can drag and drop users to adjust the rotation order.

4. Click Save Changes in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

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Inactive Users

If you see "inactive" next to a user's name on a schedule, it means that their account has been deleted. If you need to add such a user to a schedule, please create a new user account for them and then add the newly created user to the rotation.

Remove Users From Existing Schedules

To permanently remove a user from an on-call schedule:

1. Navigate to People On-Call Schedules click to the right of your desired schedule and select Edit.
2. Click next to the user's name that you want to remove.

3. Click Save Changes in the upper right hand corner.

Copy a Schedule

Copying an existing schedule to make a new one with the same users and settings is an easy way to create new schedules at scale.

1. Navigate to People On-Call Schedules click icon to the right of your desired schedule and select Copy.
   • This will create a new schedule that copies all users and settings from the previous schedule.
2. Add an On-call schedule name and make any edits necessary to the new schedule.
3. Click Create Schedule to save.

Create Overrides

Overrides are used to make manual one-time adjustments to on-call schedules. Overrides are most commonly used when a user is sick, goes on vacation, or would like to swap on-call shifts with someone else.

Scheduling an override creates an override layer on a schedule. Scheduled overrides are displayed beneath your schedule layers, as the lowest layer before the Final Schedule.

You can create overrides in the web app or using the REST API.

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Required User Permissions

All users, with the exception of Restricted Access, Observers, Limited Stakeholders and Full Stakeholders, can create Overrides.

Create Overrides in the Web App

There are two places to schedule overrides on existing schedules:

• On a specific schedule shift.
• On any span of time on a schedule.

Override a Specific Schedule Shift

Scheduling an override by selecting a specific shift pre-populates much of the relevant information.

1. Navigate to People On-Call Schedules.
2. From the On-Call Schedules page or from a schedule's edit page, click directly on the shift that you would like to override and select Schedule an Override.
   • If needed, you can tab forward by days, weeks, and months to locate the shift you would like to override.
3. In the Schedule an Override modal, confirm the override details: Who should take this shift?, Start Date, Start time, End Date, and End time.
4. Click Create Override.

Override Any Span of Time on a Schedule

1. Navigate to People On-Call Schedules click icon to the right of the desired schedule and select Schedule an override.

2. Or you can click into a schedule and select Schedule an Override on the right.

3. In the Schedule an Override modal, select values for the override: Person, Starts on and Ends on.
4. Click Create Override.

Create Overrides in My On-Call Shifts

Follow our documentation on My On-Call Shifts to create overrides from this page.

Create Overrides Using the REST API

An example Python script to schedule overrides for a user going on vacation can be found here: vacation_overrides.py.

Our developer docs provide more information on creating and deleting overrides using the REST API.

Delete an Override

You can delete an upcoming override if it is no longer needed. If an override is deleted during the middle of the scheduled shift, the regular schedule will resume as soon as the override is deleted. You cannot delete past overrides, only present or future ones.

1. Go to People On-Call Schedules and select your desired schedule or select View.
2. In the Upcoming Overrides list on the right, click .

Edit Schedule Time Zone Settings

When you create a new schedule, it will be set to the account-level time zone by default. Please follow the instructions in our section Change the Schedule-Level Time Zone if you would like your schedule to have a different time zone than the account.

Pause or Deactivate an On-Call Schedule

Sometimes you might want to stop using a schedule without deleting it.

For example:

• The schedule is a draft which you are not ready to implement. (Note, however, that you can set an effective date for future changes without deactivating your current schedule.)

• The schedule is only used for particular occasions, such as on-call shadowing.

To take an on-call schedule out of use, you will want to either remove the schedule from any escalation policies it is assigned to, or change the escalation policy your services use to another that does not include the schedule.

Option 1: Remove a Schedule from an Escalation Policy

The right sidebar will display any escalation policies where the schedule is in use.

1. Select the escalation policy you want to remove the schedule from, then click Edit Escalation Policy on the top right corner of the page.
2. Find your schedule in the Notify the following users or schedules field and to remove it from the escalation rule.

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Note

If the schedule is the only target (person or schedule) in the escalation rule, you will need to click for the entire rule, as each rule must contain at least one target.

3. Click Save at the bottom of the escalation policy.

Option 2: Change the Escalation Policy for a Service

Please visit our article on Escalation Policies and Schedules for instructions on how to change a service’s escalation policy. This will ensure that incidents triggered for the service do not alert the schedule you want to take out of use.

Restore a Schedule to a Previous Version

If you or another user alters a schedule in an undesired way, you can quickly revert a schedule back to a previously saved version. This feature also allows you to see when a change was made.

1. Click on People On-Call Schedules.
2. Select the name of the schedule that you wish to revert or click Edit.
3. On the right hand side of the page, select Revert this Schedule to view recent versions.

4. Select one of the options from the dropdown — you will be brought to the schedule’s edit page with that version of the schedule populated.
5. Confirm the schedule details, optionally make any additional changes, and click Revert Schedule in the upper right corner.

Schedules and Users on Teams Behavior

For accounts with Teams, if you assign a schedule to a Team, all users on the schedule will be added to the Team. Similarly, if a schedule is already assigned to a Team, adding users to the schedule will add them to the Team, too.

Schedule Limitations

Overrides

Only changes made to the schedule layers can be reverted. Overrides will not be affected if you revert a schedule. For more information about reviewing who made a change to a schedule, please see View Schedule Audit Trail Reporting.

Description Character Limit

Schedule descriptions are limited to 1024 characters.